The Long Walk

The Long Walk is set in a dystopian present. The United States is under the control of a totalitarian government. Once a year, the country’s attention turns to ‘The Long Walk,’ a walking contest composed of one hundred teenaged boys. The competition starts in Main and continues down the eastern seaboard until a single walker remains. No stops, no breaks, and if you drop below a pace of four miles per hour for more than thirty seconds you get a warning. Three warnings and you’re shot dead.

The story is less about the walk and more about the mental state of the characters walking. With nothing to do but walk, the characters talk in long soliloquies. It’s a clear allegory to the Vietnam War, which was in full swing when the then-18-year-old King was writing the book. To that end, it’s a an effective timecapsule of a generation’s angst and cynicism. But as a novel, it’s a bit more problematic. Many of the characters bleed into one-another, speaking with the same voice, only espousing different viewpoints. It’s as if King was more concerned with what he wanted to say about the war than with the story.