The Long Walk by Stephen King

Posted by Ms A on July 3, 2025 in All, Holiday Reads | Leave a comment

Last month, I took a break from contemporary, literary fiction for a dose of dystopian horror in form of vintage Stephen King. Yes, this book snob read a Stephen King book…and loved every page of it.

The Long Walk was not the first of Stephen King’s novels to be published, but it was the first book he ever wrote. Penned in 1966 and then published under the pseudonym Richard Bachman in 1979, a quick google will reveal the extent of the cult following it has attracted since.  

The premise is horrifyingly simple. One hundred teenage boys walk day and night until there’s only one left. Flanked by armed vehicles, they set off in a group and any boy who falls below four miles an hour (for whatever reason, including doing a pooh) is shot and killed. The winner is granted anything he wants for the rest of his life.  

This national event takes place every year attracting cheering crowds who line the streets to see boys walking (or rather staggering) night and day over approximately 300 miles to their gruesome and humiliating deaths. I’m calling it Hike Horror.

You can’t read The Long Walk and not think about the similarities to the Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins. Both stories feature dystopian futures with governments killing off powerless teenagers for public entertainment. The main difference with The Long Walk, however, is its all-male characters and its gore.

Whereas the horror in the Hunger Games comes from the detached spectacle, the Long Walk bleeds vomit, shit, dizziness, hemorrhaging and physiological decay…all spoken in the voice of boys as young as sixteen who are in no way prepared for life, let alone death. Slow walkers aren’t just shot nicely, they are blown apart with rifles at close range, guts and all.  

The reason I stumbled on The Long Walk is because it has just been made into a film, due for release in September. And guess what? It’s being directed by Francis Lawrence who also directed most of the Hunger Games movies. 

The Long Walk is a near timeless example of what makes Stephen King a legend.  A devastatingly simple idea told so well that, despite the horror, you just can’t stop wanting to read to the end.  A great pick for readers of any age but especially boys who might need a wriggle on reading wise.

And that’s my 2 cents worth.