Crowd was to be pleased. Crowd was to be worshipped and feared. Ultimately, Crowd was to be made sacrifice unto.
—The Long Walk (1979)
The Long Walk was one of Stephen King's earliest novels, written eight years before his official debut, Carrie, in 1974. King initially submitted the manuscript to a Random House novel competition, but it was rejected, prompting him to store it away in a trunk. In the late 1970s, he retrieved The Long Walk from the trunk and published it under his new pseudonym, Richard Bachman. The novel was eventually included in the collection The Bachman Books, which also featured Rage (now out of print), Roadwork, and The Running Man. Some of the reasoning behind using a pen name was to avoid oversaturating the market with the King name. Additionally, it served as an experiment for the writer himself: was his success due to being in the right place at the right time, or was it a reflection of his actual talent?
One of the unifying features of King's work, when writing as Bachman, is the prevailing nihilism of the stories and the bleak outlook of the protagonist. The Long Walk novel takes place in an authoritarian version of the United States, which has gone through a "change" for the worse. Every year, a walking competition is held in which one hundred boys are selected to walk a prescribed route without stopping. They must maintain a minimum speed of 4mph, and if they fall below it, they are warned. After three warnings, they are shot and killed. The walk continues until there is only one boy left, and the prize is "whatever they want for the rest of their lives".
The novel is told from the point of view of Ray Garraty, a sixteen-year-old boy from Maine, who lacks motivation for joining the race beyond a vague sense of curiosity and ennui in his life. Like many of King's books, much of the narrative is comprised of the inner monologue of the protagonist, and it is this intimate perspective that makes much of his work difficult to adapt to other media. The Long Walk is less about the actual walk itself and more about the psychological toll it would take on a person to participate, as well as the terror inherent in a society that looks at death as entertainment.
Director Francis Lawrence (of Hunger Games fame) tackles the story in his own way, making adjustments when necessary to streamline the narrative for film and modern audiences. Instead of a hundred boys making the journey, it's only fifty this time around, which narrows the focus and makes it easier for the viewer to keep track of the characters. Garraty (Cooper Hoffman) and McVries (David Jonsson) are the heart and soul of the film, as they are in the book, and there is more emphasis on their interactions as they become friends while on the road.
Watching people walk for almost two hours might seem stale and repetitive, but Lawrence keeps the pacing lively. The snappy and expletive-filled banter between the characters feels realistic and grounded, adding a lighter tone in the first half of the film. One notable aspect that is intensified is the violence; while reading about a child being shot can be impactful, witnessing it in graphic detail on screen is entirely different. The film doesn't hold back, showing the harsh consequences of someone receiving their "ticket." While the film shies away from the televised violence subtext of the novel, in a meta way, it still tests the viewer's thirst for death, as none of these deaths are glamorous or noble. Will the audience succumb to the normalization of ultraviolence if they are exposed to it enough?
While King's original story was very likely influenced by the political upheaval of the late '60s and the aftermath of the Vietnam War, reinforced by the concept of young boys being chosen by a lottery to participate in a death march, the foundation of the narrative still rings true today as well. The Long Walk could be interpreted as a metaphor for life in general, the grim forward motion of our lives as we toil away in late-stage capitalism, working to live and living only to work. Then we die.
Garraty questions if The Long Walk is an illusion of choice, as the conditions of the United States are so bad that there is no way out of the endless suffering and poverty unless one partakes in the contest. Similar to how people will say, "Oh, you can't afford college? Why don't you join the military then?"
McVries speaks to Garraty about cherishing moments in an attempt to invigorate him to keep walking. There is no future for them; there is only the present, as they pick their feet up and put them down, over and over. The Long Walk is a collection of these moments, the small jokes the boys share, their conversations about their dreams, their collective fears, and their hope for the ability to change things for the better. Hopefully, their suffering will galvanize us to avoid the same fate, lest we be forced to embark on an endless walk as well.
--Michelle Kisner