True dystopian horror about teenagers by Stephen King, far removed from the YA genre
It’s strange how sanitised books for teenagers have become in recent decades. I’m not talking about ‘political correctness’ (which, Jesus, what does that phrase even mean anymore) or content warnings.
I’m talking about how many popular Young Adult books struggle to capture the sheer misery and wild emotions that encompass what it’s like to really be a teenager.
Of course, there’s always going to be a place for ‘cosy’ and ‘wholesome’ stories—and if that’s what you like then there’s nothing wrong with that—but in a world where a novel aimed at teenagers like John Green’s Looking For Alaska is getting banned for having a scene where the main character receives oral sex (it’s not even explicit), I wonder if teenagers are struggling to find novels that actually relate to them, and not some puritan, mom’s-group-approved version of themselves that doesn’t actually exist.
When I was a teenager, the big young adult phenomenon was The Hunger Games. I liked these books—they had fun, tense plots and even got a little blood-soaked at times! Relatable, though? Not so much. It wasn’t that the main character was a girl caught in a love triangle—I liked a good romantic subplot even as a teen. It wasn’t even that Katniss didn’t suffer—she went through some terrible things.
It was that very little of Katniss’ growth or mindset felt specific to teenagehood. In reality, a twelve-year-old could’ve read those books and not been put off or confused by its themes or writing.
I didn’t even know what I was missing until I read The Long Walk by Richard Bachman, a.k.a Stephen King. I had been King a fan for a few years at this point, but The Long Walk was the first book I read from him with a teenage protagonist.
Set in a dystopian, dictator-worshipping America, The Long Walk follows a group of one-hundred boys who are forced to walk along U.S. Route 1 without rest, an event that is broadcast live across the nation. Doesn’t sound too bad? Well, if a Walker ever dips below a four-mile-per-hour walking speed, he’s given a warning. Three warnings and the Walker is shot dead. The Long Walk doesn’t stop until there’s only one boy left.
If you’re instantly comparing this to The Hunger Games or Battle Royale, just know that King wrote this novel between 1966 and 1967, and was actually the first book he ever finished (but not the first one to be published).
This book is, for all intents and purposes, a ‘YA’ novel, written decades before ‘Young Adult’ became the term that it is today, and it is harrowing beyond belief. ‘Harrowing’ isn’t generally a term associated with the YA genre—indeed, you’ll only find The Long Walk in the sci-fi/fantasy/horror section of a bookshop, nestled between Lisey’s Story and Misery—which is a shame.
While this novel can certainly be enjoyed by, um, Old Adults, the fact that it solely marketed to them and not to teenagers—who’re the ones that will get the most out of this story—is a travesty.
The Long Walk’s protagonist is Walker #47, Ray, a sixteen-year-old from Maine who—get this—volunteered to be on the walk, despite being under no real pressure to do so (apart from the lure of the financial prize he would receive were he to win).
As he walks, he makes both friends and enemies with the other boys, but what starts off slow and menacing spirals into mania and heart-breaking horror as the hours and days tick by and you watch—in graphic, gory detail—as young men are driven to the brink of their physical and mental endurance for entertainment and shot dead for their troubles.
The extreme way in which Ray is forced to confront death and grapple with his own mortality—and at such a young age—is startling. Doubly so if you happen to be a boy his age whose only experience with death was the peaceful passing of beloved grandparents. The raw, manic terror of these boys is hard to read.
Ray is determined to walk until he reaches the town where his girlfriend, Jan, will be waiting to cheer him on as he passes. He accrues a warning when he reaches her, stopping for an extended session of teenage saliva-swapping and body-squeezing and continues walking despite his lingering sexual and life-affirming desires.
I understand that it can be difficult—if not downright taboo—for writers to include moments of sex or sexuality in works of fiction aimed at, or about, teenagers, but that’s pretty wild when you think about it. Aren’t teenagers literally the horniest demographic? Well, maybe they used to be. We’ve all seen the reports about Gen Z advocating for the removal of ‘unnecessary’ sex scenes from movies.
There are a million factors to point the finger at when looking for the reason behind why young people are becoming increasingly averse to depictions of sex in the media—anything from housing crises to Marvel movies, really. It’s a discussion for another time, but The Long Walk is one of the few books to ever reflect my own sexual desires as a teenager back at me.
I bring this up only to show how strongly I related with Ray. Open, honest, and non-judgemental depictions of a horny teenager’s state of mind are rare, and even though this only takes up a small fraction of the book, it attached me to a fictional character in a way that still resonates with me to this day.
And, perhaps more importantly, it grounded me firmly in the headspace of a character that would soon witness some of the most profound and distressing horrors that Stephen King has ever written about.
From blisters and pneumonia to mental breakdowns and suicide, the boys of The Long Walk are spared no trauma, and King doesn’t flinch from it. I think that’s something I’ve always liked about his writing. He’s talked about letting his characters dictate the direction of his stories once he’s gotten the ball rolling, but just because something might be distasteful to you, or the characters, or to King himself, doesn’t mean he’s going skip over the details for modesty’s sake.
The Long Walk is filled with moments like these. Some will find it to be too extreme, verging on ‘torture porn’, but what choice did he have? What choice did these boys have? Sure, King could’ve acquiesced to the pearl-clutchers and just not written the book, but he did write it, and I’m grateful that he took the writing and themes and plot to a worthwhile place.
This is not a ‘fun’ book. There are occasional moments of camaraderie and support between the boys, but for the most part, this is tough going. It’s short, though, and paced beautifully. Pick it up and see how fast you blow through it.
I’ve often opined to fellow King fans that The Long Walk is one of my favourite books of his. It’s certainly in my top five, maybe my top three, and I’ve reread it plenty of times. I can’t deny that this may be because of the outsized impact it had on me as a teenager, though. I’m still able to ride that high of reading it for the first time.
But I do think this is a special book, not only because it’s technically the first Stephen King book, or because it was the inspiration behind Battle Royale (which lead to the dystopian YA explosion of the mid-2010s). It’s special because it’s about a teenage boy; a real—as real as can be imagined—teenage boy.
His masculinity, his sexuality, his physicality, his mentality; all of it is challenged by the events of the book. I read this book at a time when I was being challenged on all those fronts, too—admittedly in very different ways.
That’s the scariest thing about a good horror story, though; sometimes you catch a glimpse of yourself in the reflection.
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