The Stand

The Stand

File:The Stand cover.jpg First edition cover
Author	Stephen King
Language	English
Genre	Horror, Science Fiction
Publisher	Doubleday
Publication date	1978 (Re-released in 1990)
Publication place	United States
Media type	Print (Hardback & Paperback)
Pages	edited:823 unedited:1168pp
ISBN	ISBN 0-385-12168-7
Preceded by	The Shining
Followed by	The Dead Zone

The Stand is a post-apocalyptic Horror/Science Fiction novel by Stephen King originally published in 1978. It re-works the scenario in King’s earlier short story, "Night Surf" (included in the short story collection Night Shift). It is widely hailed by critics and fans as one of his best novels.

The novel was re-released as The Stand: The Complete & Uncut Edition in 1990. King restored some text originally cut for brevity, added and revised sections, changed the setting of the novel from 1980 to 1990, and updated a few pop culture references accordingly. This edition featured art by Berni Wrightson.

A TV miniseries based on The Stand and scripted by King himself was released in 1994.

Inspiration and origins

In Danse Macabre King wrote about the origins of the novel at some length.

One source was Patty Hearst's case. The original idea was to create a novel about the episode because "it seemed that only a novel might really succeed in explaining all the contradictions".

The author mentioned Earth Abides of George R. Stewart as one of the main inspirations as well. Earth Abides solved his writer's block when trying to write the Patty Hearst novel by providing him with the idea behind the superflu of The Stand. In Earth Abides, humanity is destroyed by a plague and the novel is about the odyssey of one of the last survivors of the human race.

With my Patty Hearst book, I never found the right way in . . . and during that entire six-week period, something else was nagging very quietly at the back of my mind. It was a news story I had read about an accidental CBW spill in Utah. All the bad nasty bugs got out of their cannister and killed a bunch of sheep. But, the news article stated, if the wind had been blowing the other way, the good people of Salt Lake City might have gotten a very nasty surprise. This article called up memories of a novel called Earth Abides, by George R. Stewart.

In Stewart's book, a plague wipes out most of mankind, and the protagonist, who has been made immune by virtue of a well-timed snakebite, witnesses the ecological changes which the passing of man causes.

The Stand was also planned by King as a kind of Lord of the Rings in a contemporary "American setting". (see also in the "Writing" section right below.)

On his official web site Stephen King included the following statements about the subject:

For a long time — ten years, at least — I had wanted to write a fantasy epic like The Lord of the Rings, only with an American setting. I just couldn't figure out how to do it. Then . . . after my wife and kids and I moved to Boulder, Colorado, I saw a 60 Minutes segment on CBW (chemical-biological warfare). I never forgot the gruesome footage of the test mice shuddering, convulsing, and dying, all in twenty seconds or less. That got me remembering a chemical spill in Utah that killed a bunch of sheep (these were canisters on their way to some burial ground; they fell off the truck and ruptured). I remembered a news reporter saying, 'If the winds had been blowing the other way, there was Salt Lake City.' This incident later served as the basis of a movie called Rage, starring George C. Scott, but before it was released, I was deep into The Stand, finally writing my American fantasy epic, set in a plague-decimated USA. Only instead of a hobbit, my hero was a Texan named Stu Redman, and instead of a Dark Lord, my villain was a ruthless [sic] drifter and supernatural madman named Randall Flagg. The land of Mordor ('where the shadows lie,' according to Tolkien) was played by Las Vegas.

Plot summary

"Captain Trips"

The novel is divided into 3 parts, or books. The first is entitled "Captain Trips" and takes place over 19 days, with the escape and spread of a human-made biological weapon, a superflu (influenza) virus known formally as "Project Blue" and colloquially as "Captain Trips." The epidemic leads to the death of most of the human population in North America (and the world—it is hinted that General Starkey’s men released the virus in eastern Europe, China and the Soviet Union, and Peru and Senegal are mentioned in discussion of post-epidemic deaths due to natural causes). 99.4% of people are susceptible to Captain Trips, and the disease has a mortality rate of 100%. King outlines the total breakdown and destruction of society through widespread violence, the failure of martial law to contain the outbreak, and eventually the death of virtually the entire population. The human toll is also dealt with as the few survivors care for their families and friends, dealing with confusion and grief as their loved ones ultimately succumb to the flu, which has inexplicably spared them.

The expanded edition opens with a prologue entitled "The Circle Opens" that offers greater detail into the circumstances surrounding the development of the virus and the security breach that allowed its escape from the secret laboratory compound where it was created.

"On the Border"

Intertwining cross-country odysseys are undertaken by a small number of survivors, including a pregnant college student and an overweight high school outcast from Ogunquit, Maine (Frances Goldsmith and Harold Lauder, respectively); a factory worker from the fictional, tiny Arnette, Texas (Stuart Redman); a disillusioned pop musician from New York City (Larry Underwood); an insightful deaf-mute wanderer originally from Nebraska (Nick Andros); a virginal kindergarten teacher with a dark secret from New Hampshire (Nadine Cross); a savage, amnesiac, and telepathic boy (Leo "Joe" Rockway); a quick-witted, pessimistic sociology professor from New Hampshire (Glen Bateman) and his dog, an Irish Setter named Kojak—one of the very few dogs immune to the plague; a jolly, easy-going farmer from Oklahoma (Ralph Brentner); and a kind-hearted mentally retarded man from Oklahoma (Tom Cullen). They are drawn together by their shared dreams of a 108-year-old black woman from Hemingford Home, Nebraska, whom they see as a refuge and a representation of good in the struggle of good versus evil. This woman, Abagail Freemantle (known as "Mother Abagail"), becomes the spiritual leader of this group of survivors, directing them to Boulder, Colorado, referred to as "the Free Zone" (officially "The Boulder Free Zone"), where they begin to reestablish a democratic society; much of this section of the book involves the struggles to create an orderly society more or less from scratch. Boulder is found to have considerably fewer plague victims than other cities due to a mass exodus following a false rumor in the early stages of the plague that the outbreak originated in the Boulder Air Test Center. While many corpses are present there, they number far fewer than any other major city in North America.

Meanwhile, another group of survivors includes a not-too-bright common thief (Lloyd Henreid); a schizophrenic pyromaniac (Donald Merwin Elbert, known as "the Trashcan Man"); an ex-Army cook and butcher (Whitney Horgan); an unstable, oversexed teenager (Julie Lawry); a pirate-like hood ("the Rat Man"); and a former detective of the Santa Monica Police Department (Barry Dorgan) are drawn to Las Vegas, Nevada by Randall Flagg (known as "the Dark Man," "the Hardcase," and "the Walkin’ Dude"), an evil being with supernatural powers; he represents the evil, opposite side of Mother Abagail's survivors. Flagg’s rule is tyrannical and brutal, using crucifixion, torture and other torments as punishment for those who are disloyal. His group is able to quickly reorganize their society and rebuild the city.

The Free Zone's democratic society is not without its problems. Mother Abagail, feeling that she has sinned, disappears on a journey of reconciliation. Meanwhile, Harold's bitterness over his unrequited love for Fran and Nadine's secret commitment to Flagg lead the two of them to detonate a dynamite bomb at a meeting of the Free Zone committee. The explosion, which kills several people, takes place at the same time that Mother Abagail is discovered, severely weakened by her time in the wilderness.

"The Stand"

The stage is now set for the final confrontation as the two camps become aware of one another, and each recognizes the other as a threat to its survival, leading to the "stand" of good against evil. There is no pitched battle, however. Instead, at Mother Abagail’s behest, Stu, Larry, Ralph and Glen set off on foot towards Las Vegas on a scouting expedition. Stu breaks his leg en route and drops out. The rest soon encounter Flagg’s men, who take them prisoner. When Glen rejects an opportunity to be spared if he kneels and begs Flagg, he is shot on Flagg's direct order. Flagg gathers his entire collective to witness the execution of the other two, but before it can take place, Trashcan Man arrives with a nuclear warhead and a giant glowing hand—"The Hand of God"—detonates the bomb, destroying Flagg’s followers and the two remaining prisoners.

Stu, with the aid of Kojak and later Tom Cullen, survives injury, illness, and a harsh Rocky-Mountain winter. The three of them arrive back in Boulder soon after the birth of Fran’s baby. Although the baby falls ill with the superflu, he is able to fight it off. In the end, Stu and Fran decide to return to Maine, and the original edition of the novel ends with the two of them questioning whether the human race can learn from its mistakes. The answer, given in the last line, is ambiguous: "I don’t know."

The expanded edition follows this with a brief coda entitled "The Circle Closes," which leaves a darker impression and fits in with King’s ongoing "wheel of ka" theme. Randall Flag arrives on a beach and begins recruiting adherants among a preliterate, dark-skinned people. The outcome is unspecified but would leave an opening for a sequel.

Characters

Abagail Freemantle

The opposite of Randall Flagg, Mother Abagail is the personification of good. She lives in a farmhouse in Hemingford Home, Nebraska, and initially appears to some of the survivors in dreams, drawing them to her just as Flagg is drawing his followers. She receives visions from God, though when she sins in pride, she loses her foresight and goes into exile in the wilderness. She regains her ability, and returns to the Zone just in time to save most of the Free Zone Committee from Harold Lauder’s assassination attempt. On her deathbed, she shares one final vision: four men from the committee are to travel to the west to make a stand against Randall Flagg. She makes no prediction as to what will occur, only that one will fall before arriving in Las Vegas, and that the remainder will be brought before Flagg. Mother Abagail dies shortly after revealing this prophecy. In the miniseries, she is played by Ruby Dee.

Stuart Redman

A quiet man from the fictional town of Arnette, Texas, Stu was at his friend Bill Hapscomb’s gas station the night Charles Campion, the original plague carrier, crashed into the station’s pumps. Subsequently, he is also the first man discovered to be immune to the superflu. Stu and many of his neighbors are rounded up and taken to be studied to attempt to produce a cure, but the virus spreads far too fast and the end result is the almost total annihilation of the planet Earth’s population. He is nearly killed by a government agent named Elder, but due to Elder’s declining health from the disease, Stu is able to overpower him and escape from the Vermont Plague Center, where he was being detained. He wanders New England for a few days before meeting Glen Bateman, then Fran Goldsmith and Harold Lauder. The four trek out west, picking up a few survivors along the way until they reach Boulder. Stu becomes romantically involved with Fran along the way, even accepting the unborn child she carries, but creates ill will with Harold Lauder, who is in love with her. Stu rises to authority in the Free Zone, becoming the spokesperson for the Free Zone Committee and its first marshal. However, after an assassination attempt by Harold, Stu is told by Mother Abagail that he is to head out west to make a stand against Randall Flagg. Stu agrees and leads Larry, Glen, and Ralph west to Las Vegas. However, Stu breaks his leg in Utah and is forced to remain behind. He becomes ill due to exposure, but witnesses the final destruction of Las Vegas from a distance and is subsequently saved by Tom Cullen, who nurses him back to health. Stu and Tom then trek back to Boulder, where he is reunited with Frannie, who has given birth to the first known surviving child on Earth. Stu and Frannie later leave Boulder to raise their family in Maine. In the miniseries, he is played by Gary Sinise.

Fran Goldsmith

A college student at the University of New Hampshire, Fran is pregnant at the start of the book, a topic which results in a painful standoff with her mother and the destruction of her relationship with the baby’s father, Jesse Rider. The superflu decimates her community, resulting in her and Harold Lauder being the only survivors. The two join forces and make their way to the Stovington, Vermont, facility of the Centers for Disease Control in hopes of finding someone in authority, but are later told by Stuart Redman that the facility is dead. They continue on, with Stu and Glen Bateman in tow, and find the facility just as Stu reported. They then make their way west to Mother Abagail, during which Fran falls deeply in love with Stu, a fact she records in her diary. Fran serves on the original Free Zone Committee and acts as its moral compass. Upon her union with Stu, Harold becomes jealous, but later appears to let bygones be bygones. However, Fran remains suspicious of him, which later turns out to be valid when she finds his diary and plot to kill Stu. She saves the majority of the committee when she receives an intuition of doom in form of the planted bomb. She is moderately injured in the blast, but her unborn child remains safe. Fran is opposed to Stu traveling west, but comes to terms with it when she realizes it is what he has to do. Fran later moves in with Lucy Swann and delivers a baby boy. Though there is initial joy at the birth, her child falls ill with the superflu and Fran is crushed. However, she is rewarded by news of both Stu’s return to the Free Zone and her baby’s recovery. Throughout the novel, Fran becomes more and more homesick for her native Maine, and at the end of the book she, Stu, and the baby make their way back east. In the miniseries, she is played by Molly Ringwald.

Peter Goldsmith-Redman

Fran’s baby (named after her late father) is delivered in January and his birth causes celebration in the Free Zone. However, he soon falls ill with the superflu and is regarded as good as dead. However, because of his partial immunity passed on from his mother, Peter becomes the first living being to successfully beat the virus and recover. In the mini-series, the baby is a female and is named Abagail, after the prophetic Abagail Freemantle.

Harold Lauder

Harold is 16 years old and lived in Ogunquit, Maine, at the beginning of the novel. He is the brother of Fran Goldsmith’s best friend, Amy Lauder, and is an outcast in his local high school. Harold doesn’t help matters for himself by being rather obnoxious and uppity. A talented writer, he prefers to use a manual typewriter. After the superflu hits the world, it wipes out the entire population of Ogunquit except for himself and Fran. The two decide to head to the Stovington Plague Center in Vermont, leaving their directions on the roof of a barn.

Harold falls in love with Fran and sees himself as her protector of sorts. When they meet Stuart Redman, Harold refuses to allow him to join, even going so far as to attempt to shoot Stu, but after a conversation in which Stu tells him he just wants to come along and that Harold can have Fran, Harold relents. After the facility proves to be a disappointment, the survivors head to Nebraska, and then Colorado to join Mother Abagail, picking up more survivors along the way. Harold attempts to profess his love for Frannie, only to be rebuked. As Fran becomes involved with Stu, a jealous Harold plots his revenge.

Harold quickly becomes a respected and well thought of member of the Boulder Community. Often, his ideas are used to better the community. In a moment of clarity, Harold realizes that he truly is accepted and valued in this strange new world, and that he has the freedom to choose a new life for himself as a respected member of society. Unable to escape his past humiliations, however, he rejects his last chance at redemption and surrenders instead to his dreams of vengeance, particularly on Fran and Stu (he goes so far as to aim a rifle at Stu while scouting for the missing Mother Abagail, but does not fire). Soon after this, Nadine Cross approaches him and reveals an in-depth knowledge of Harold’s insecurities, hatreds and fears. She hints at her own. They enjoy a decadent sexual playtime. Harold succumbs to Nadine’s seduction. He fulfills Flagg’s wishes and creates a bomb to destroy the Free Zone Committee.

After detonating the bomb—which kills seven people—Harold and Nadine make their way to Las Vegas. However, Harold ends up wrecking his motorcycle and breaking his leg after slipping on an oil slick. Flagg, mistrustful of Harold for being "too full of thoughts," has apparently arranged the accident. Harold survives the accident, though terribly injured, and attempts to shoot Nadine. He misses and Nadine abandons him and continues to travel alone to meet Flagg in the desert.

Realizing that he is dying, Harold writes a note in which he takes responsibility for his actions, though he knows he cannot be forgiven. He states that he only hopes the Almighty can accept that he was misled. Harold commits suicide by shooting himself in the head. His body is later found by Stu, Larry, Glen, and Ralph, and Stu remarks that Harold’s actions were a waste not only of Nick and Susan, but of himself as well. In the miniseries, he is played by Corin Nemec.

Glen Bateman

An associate professor of sociology who went into retirement when the superflu hit, Glendon Pequod "Glen" Bateman met Stu near Glen’s home in Woodsville, New Hampshire. A senior citizen whose handicap is arthritis, the wise Bateman is often on hand to dispense advice to his young friend. A loyal friend, Bateman, much like Stu, also experiences dreams of Mother Abagail, and joins Stu, Frannie, and Harold on their journey to meet her. Bateman becomes part of the reform committee in Boulder. He also becomes one of the four men who must meet Randall Flagg in Las Vegas. But as Stu falls by the wayside, Glen along with Larry and Ralph go to Las Vegas and are detained by Flagg’s forces. Flagg offers Glen his freedom if he will "get down on (his) knees and beg for it." Glen refuses, laughing at the Dark Man for being so transparent, upon which Flagg orders Lloyd Henreid to execute him. "It’s all right, Mr. Henreid," Glen says as he dies, "you don’t know any better." In the miniseries, he is played by Ray Walston.

Kojak

Glen Bateman’s dog, whom he adopted after his original master died of the superflu. He was formerly named Big Steve. After Glen leaves with Redman, Kojak is left behind. He follows them and is later attacked by wolves after arriving at Mother Abagail’s empty house. However, he manages to walk to the Free Zone. He joins Glen, Stu, Ralph, and Larry on their to journey to Las Vegas. When Stu is injured, he stays behind and kills wild animals to feed Stu. After being found by Tom Cullen, he is taken back to Boulder. It is stated that he will live for 16 years after his master’s death, putting his own death in 1996-7 (original edition), 2006-7 (revised).

Susan Stern

Part of an unwilling harem, Susan is one of the women Stu rescues. Sue becomes a member of the original Boulder Free Zone Committee and recruits fellow captive Dayna Jurgens to spy out west. She is killed by Harold Lauder’s bomb in Ralph Brentner’s home. In the miniseries, she is played by Cynthia Garris.

Dayna Jurgens

One of the women whom Stu’s party rescues from the harem (in the uncut version). While she originally seems to display some romantic interest in Stu Redman, this never extends beyond flirtation, though it does cause Fran some consternation. In Boulder for a short period of time, she is recruited by fellow former captive Sue Stern to spy out west. She works with a light crew in Las Vegas and sleeps with Lloyd Henreid as part of her ploy to obtain information. While working with the light crew, she sees Tom Cullen on a passing truck. Flagg, being aware of her identity, summons her to his office and attempts to have her reveal the third spy who he cannot see. In order to protect Tom Cullen, and to save herself from the torture that Flagg will put her through, Dayna commits suicide by breaking a plate glass window and impaling herself on the glass. (Thus the beginning of Flaggs powers failing) Her body is desecrated by Flagg and later burned outside of Las Vegas. In the miniseries, she is played by Kellie Overbey.

Larry Underwood

Larry is a cocky young singer who, at the beginning of the novel, is starting to reach real success with his debut single, "Baby, Can You Dig Your Man?" He falls in debt to a local drug dealer while living in Los Angeles, and travels to New York to visit his mother and lay low. As New York City starts falling to pieces, Larry comes to his mother’s aid, only to have her die from the superflu. Not long after, Larry finds himself to be one of the few people left in New York City. He meets an older woman (in her 50s) named Rita Blakemoor and the two decide to leave New York together. They experience one of the most chilling chapters in the book while leaving New York when they are going through the Lincoln Tunnel; Larry often thinks back to this event and is terrified by it. However, she eventually dies from a seemingly intentional drug overdose, leaving Larry alone. Haunted by her death and by the dreams of Randall Flagg, Larry is in a semi-catatonic state for several days until he finally collapses from exhaustion in New Hampshire. Recovering after a night’s sleep, Larry travels to Maine, where he plans to spend the summer, until he meets Nadine Cross and young Leo Rockway (known then only as "Joe"). The three travel together to Ogunquit, Maine, where they find Harold Lauder’s sign and its directions. Deciding to follow the directions, Larry leads them to Stovington, Vermont, meeting Lucy Swann along the way, where they find Harold’s directions to Nebraska. Larry leads the ever growing party to Nebraska and eventually to Colorado, following Harold’s directions across the country. Though Larry is initially interested in Nadine, she spurns his advances, leading him to begin a relationship with Lucy. Arriving in Boulder, Larry settles down with Lucy and Leo, becoming a member of the Free Zone Committee. Nadine attempts to reconcile with him, but Larry refuses her, choosing to remain with Lucy. Larry later breaks into Harold Lauder’s home with Fran Goldsmith after Leo instructs him to investigate before something horrible happens. They find Harold’s ledger, which states he intends to kill Stuart Redman. However, Harold’s plan is already in motion, and Stu narrowly escapes the assassination attempt the next day. Larry leaves Boulder with Stu, Ralph, and Glen when Mother Abagail instructs them to go to Las Vegas. Larry leads the party after Stu breaks his leg en route to Las Vegas, where he and Ralph eventually die in the nuclear explosion caused by Trashcan Man. In the miniseries, he is played by Adam Storke.

Nadine Cross

A teacher at a private school, Nadine has retained her virginity due to some vaguely defined but powerful sense that she is destined for something as dark as it is unique. Upon the outbreak of the superflu, Nadine finds a young boy whom she calls Joe; Joe has regressed to a savage state of mind but trusts her and stays with her. Nadine later meets Larry Underwood when Joe finds him sleeping. Joe is working up the courage to kill Larry, but Nadine stops him. The pair secretly follow Larry to Maine, where Joe finally tries to kill Larry, only to be easily overpowered. After conversing with Larry, they agree to join forces and find other survivors. Nadine is attracted to Larry but her subconscious conviction that she must remain "pure" has strengthened and begun to take shape: she begins to both fear and anticipate that she is meant for Flagg. Upon arriving in Boulder, Nadine begins to surrender to the seductive lure of the Walkin’ Dude, and Joe (who has recovered enough to give his real name as Leo Rockway) refuses to have anything to do with her anymore. Later, Leo reveals that she had already known that it was too late to sleep with Larry. Nadine makes a last desperate attempt to seduce Larry, thus breaking her virginal commitment to Flagg and freeing her, but he is by now firmly committed to Lucy Swann and rejects her advances. Nadine surrenders to Flagg completely, communicating with him via a Ouija board, an echo of her terrifying experience with a Ouija board in college, when she was first touched by Flagg ("WE ARE IN THE HOUSE OF THE DEAD, NADINE"). On Flagg’s orders, she seduces Harold Lauder (though she will not do "that one little thing" with him, though they are apparently free to do whatever else, sexually, that they wish) and uses him to attempt to assassinate the committee, a plot that would have succeeded but for the return of Mother Abagail and a subconscious premonition of Frannie’s. Nadine travels west with Harold; when his motorcycle crashes she implies it was her choice that Harold die in a motorcycle accident rather than be killed by Flagg upon arrival in Las Vegas. Harold fires his gun at her and very nearly hits her, suggesting that she might unconsciously prefer death to the dark consummation awaiting her and revealing that Flagg only has limited power. Nadine continues on towards Vegas until one night Flagg comes to her in the desert, reveals his true nature to her, and rapes her, an experience which so violates and horrifies her (while at the same time causing her immense pleasure) that she falls into catatonia. Flagg takes her with him to Vegas and installs them both in the penthouse suite of the MGM Grand, soon after announcing her pregnancy. At last Nadine recovers sufficiently to taunt Flagg with his coming failure and succeeds in goading him into throwing her off the balcony, killing her and the unborn child. In the miniseries, she is played by Laura San Giacomo.

Lucy Swann

The first survivor encountered by Larry Underwood’s party, 24-year-old Lucy has survived the superflu while watching her husband and daughter die. Lucy joins the party on their route to the Stovington Plague Center. She becomes romantically involved with Larry, a feeling that she feels is not shared because of Larry’s attraction to Nadine Cross, despite her seeming disinterest in him. However, when forced to make a decision, Larry chooses to remain with Lucy, much to her surprise. Lucy stands by Larry through his tenure as a member of the Free Zone Committee and serves as a devoted wife to him and as a mother to Leo Rockway. Unlike Fran Goldsmith, Lucy supports Larry’s decision to go west to confront Randall Flagg, though she does not know that she is pregnant herself at the time. Lucy takes care of Frannie during Stu’s absence and, at the end of the book, she gives birth to twins. In the miniseries, she is played by Bridgit Ryan.

Judge Farris

A black man in his late seventies who joins Larry’s party in New England while making their way to Nebraska. Known only as "The Judge," he is a well-spoken, educated and insightful man who used to be a judge in the 1950s, but has long since retired. Larry recruits the Judge as the first Free Zone spy. The Judge attempts to infiltrate Las Vegas from the north, but is intercepted by Flagg’s sentries in Idaho. A firefight ensues, and the Judge is killed by a shot to the head. The sentries had been under strict orders not to "mark his head," so that it could be delivered as a message to the Free Zone, and Flagg appears to brutally kill the surviving sentry (Sam Raimi) for hampering his plan. In the miniseries, he is played by Ossie Davis.

Nick Andros

A 22-year-old, deaf-mute drifter originally from Caslin, Nebraska, Nick is beaten and robbed outside of (fictional) Shoyo, Arkansas, by some local thugs shortly after the start of the epidemic. He befriends the local sheriff and his wife and is forced to watch them die as the epidemic rolls along. As the epidemic progresses, he also watches two of the four thugs who beat him die of the plague in the local jail (which he is guarding as the newest deputy due to the lack of any other healthy people around). He later frees the third, only to be confronted by the fourth, Ray Booth (who hadn't been found and arrested yet). He is very nearly killed by an infection caused by a scrape he received during a scuffle with Ray Booth, who has returned to kill him; Nick, in a panic, accidentally fires the gun holstered on his belt, which scrapes his leg and becomes infected. He eventually recovers and begins his journey to Hemingford Home, Nebraska. Along the way he meets Tom Cullen, and later Ralph Brentner, and they become a surrogate family to him. Nick leads the growing band of survivors to Nebraska and meets Mother Abagail, who guides them to Boulder. Nick serves on the Free Zone Committee, of which he is the leading thinker, and eventually recruits Tom Cullen to spy out West. Nick is killed by Harold Lauder in his assassination attempt on the Committee and it is later revealed that it was Nick who was meant to lead the stand against Randall Flagg. However, Nick’s spirit appears to Tom Cullen after his death, guiding him on his way home and showing him how to save Stu Redman’s life during his bout with illness.

In the Complete and Uncut edition, Nick loses sight in one eye for a period of time when he is attacked by Booth, the leader of the four thugs. Booth is shot and killed by Andros, but the resulting damage causes Nick to wear an eyepatch for almost the rest of the story, which isn't present in the miniseries. In the miniseries, he is played by Rob Lowe.

A minor continuity error exists in the novel; the sheriff questions him about his age, and Nick says that he is 22, yet when he writes down some details about his life for the sheriff (who has taken a liking to him) he states he was born in November 1968, which, at the time of the story, would make him 21.

Tom Cullen

Tom Cullen is a man in his 30s to early 40s who suffers from a mild case of mental retardation. Nick encounters him while cycling from Arkansas to Nebraska through Oklahoma. The two bond closely despite the fact that Nick cannot speak, and Tom cannot read Nick’s notes, though when the two encounter Ralph Brentner, Tom is finally able to learn Nick's name. Tom generally possesses a childish speech pattern, peppered with exclamations of "my laws" and "laws, yes," and he makes frequent references to himself in the third person. Tom also believes that everything is spelled "M-O-O-N" as in "Tom Cullen sure is tired… M-O-O-N, that spells tired." When needing to make a logical connection, Tom, who isn't severely retarded and is capable of normal thought, sometimes slips into a form of self-hypnosis wherein he is able to make connections that he cannot while "awake" (that is, conscious and focused on something superficial). Nick, Stu, and Glen use this ability to place a post-hypnotic suggestion in Tom that allows him to act as the third Free Zone spy. During his hypnosis, Nick, Stu, and Glen discover that while hypnotized, Tom possesses the same type of foresight as Mother Abagail, referring to himself as the same Tom that Nick met in Oklahoma, but at the same time he proclaims himself to be "God’s Tom." He travels West, giving a hypnotically-imprinted back-up story to get him into the city, and is able to avoid detection by Flagg. Tom’s anonymity seems to stem from his disability, as Flagg tells Dayna that every time he tries to see the third spy, all he sees is the moon; this confirms Dayna's sighting of Tom earlier (while both were on Vegas work crews), and thus it is the only cause she needed to commit suicide rather than tell Flagg about Tom. As the full moon rises over Las Vegas, Tom’s post-hypnotic suggestion kicks in, and he begins the return trip to Boulder, appropriately noting "M-O-O-N, that spells moon." During his return to Boulder, he encounters Stu suffering from a broken leg and pneumonia due to exposure. Originally, Tom was far east of where Stu fell, but a prophetic dream tells him that he must double-back to find Stu. With the help from Nick's spirit, who appears to him in visions (due to the fact Nick is already deceased from Harold Lauder's bomb, unbeknownst to Tom), Tom is able to nurse a delirious and dying Stu back to health while snowed in for most of the winter at a motel in central Utah. Together, they return to Boulder to report the destruction of Las Vegas. In the miniseries, he is played by Bill Fagerbakke. Tom Cullen's name may be reference to William Cullen.

The casting of Fagerbakke as Tom Cullen is frequently mentioned in various media about the miniseries, and though he won no awards or nominations for his performance, many consider it to be the performance of Fagerbakke's career.

Ralph Brentner

Nick and Tom are the first characters to meet Ralph, an amiable farmer, as their paths cross on a highway between Oklahoma and Nebraska, and together they form the first party to find Mother Abagail. Despite a lack of formal education, Ralph is possessed of a great deal of common sense and is very handy, and is elected to the first Free Zone Committee. Ralph typically serves as Nick’s "voice," reading his notes to the others during committee meetings. Ralph survives Harold Lauder’s assassination attempt, and is chosen as one of the four to stand against Flagg. Along with Stu, Glen, and Larry, he walks to Las Vegas, and is instrumental in convincing Larry to leave Stu behind after he breaks his leg. Ralph is captured by Flagg along with Glen and Larry, and is to be executed by dismemberment in front of the MGM Grand hotel. Ralph is the first to notice the "Hand of God" as it descends from the sky and onto Trashcan Man’s nuclear weapon, detonating it and killing him and everyone else present. In the miniseries, he is played by Peter Van Norden.

Randall Flagg

Main article: Randall Flagg

Randall Flagg, also known as "the Dark Man" or "the Walkin’ Dude," is the main antagonist of the novel—more (or less) than a man, he is the embodiment of evil, an antichrist-like being whose goal is destruction and death, diametrically opposed to Mother Abagail’s personification of good. (The Dark Man character appears in many guises in other King novels and short stories, often with the initials "R.F.") His appearance shifts between human, demon, and various animals, and it is implied that he has lived many lives in many times; "Flagg" is just the name of his present form. Flagg is described by Tom Cullen as follows: "He looks like anybody you see on the street. But when he grins, birds fall dead off telephone lines. When he looks at you a certain way, your prostate goes bad and your urine burns. The grass yellows up and dies where he spits. He’s always outside. He came out of time. He doesn’t know himself." On the occasional instances when the reader sees through Flagg’s perspective, this is borne out: he does not know where he came from, has no memory of his life before Captain Trips though he vaguely remembers isolated violent or hateful events, notably by taking part in race riots in the 1960s, being involved in the kidnapping of Patty Hearst, and some vague speculation that he was involved in Charles Manson's family. Most of these memories are marked by the note that Flagg was able to escape just at the last second at the ends of many of these types of events. Those events nourished his evilness (which has been spread through other, similar works in King's oeuvre, supposedly including his life as Walter O'Dim, or the Man In Black from the Dark Tower series), allowing him to become very powerful, yet very unstable.

Like Mother Abagail, Flagg appears to various survivors in their dreams, attracting those who are drawn to logic, rationality, technology, law and order, and a strong dictatorial leader (all the things that evil represents, in King's vision). He rescues Lloyd Henreid from starvation in prison and with him as second-in-command establishes a community in Las Vegas, Nevada. Though Flagg has the ability to predict the future, along with several other demonic powers, as the events of The Stand unfold he begins to lose power little by little as his plans more and more go awry. At the end of the novel the Hand of God literally detonates a nuclear bomb, destroying Flagg’s followers (and most—if not all—of Las Vegas). The uncut edition of the novel includes an epilogue in which Flagg, in a new incarnation, wakes in an unknown tropical location, where he meets a primitive tribe telling them that he has come to teach them civilization and identifying himself as Russell Faraday. In the miniseries, he is played by Jamey Sheridan.

Lloyd Henreid

Lloyd starts off as a petty criminal who, along with Andrew "Poke" Freeman, engage in a killing spree across Nevada, Arizona, and New Mexico resulting in six murders, Freeman’s death, and Lloyd’s detention in a Phoenix prison. Once the plague hits, people at his prison start dying, including the guards. Lloyd is forgotten in his cell and eventually becomes the sole survivor. Lloyd is able to save himself by eating food he has saved, along with whatever rats, roaches, or other vermin he can catch, and very nearly the leg of a dead cellmate (in the uncut version, Flagg insinuates that Lloyd did indeed eat some human flesh, despite Lloyd's attempts to hide the cuts in the leg before the Dark Man arrived). He is found by Randall Flagg, who frees him from his cell after Lloyd, at that point starving and nearly delirious, agrees to be Flagg’s right-hand man despite suspicions about the man being the devil. At this time, Flagg also gives Lloyd the black stone with the red flaw as a symbol of Lloyd’s allegiance to Flagg. Lloyd, oddly enough, finds himself feeling more intelligent and able than he thought he was, running several of the day to day duties in Vegas and even overseeing operations at a military base; he attributes his newfound abilities to Flagg. Lloyd is fiercely loyal to Flagg, and chooses to remain with him despite his growing doubts over Flagg’s control of the situation, and the opportunity to leave Las Vegas with several close friends. Lloyd is present at the execution of Larry and Ralph, and is killed in the nuclear explosion caused by the Trashcan Man’s atomic warhead. Before that, Randall Flagg makes him shoot Glen Bateman. As Glen dies, he forgives Lloyd with his dying breath, saying "It's alright, Mr. Henried ... you don’t know any better." His last words were: "Oh God we're all fucked!" Lloyd is interesting in that he is conflicted between loyalty and common sense: although he is aware that Flagg's empire is crumbling, he stays on in gratitude to the newfound respect Flagg has given him. This is similar to Harold, who also has inner conflict between Flagg and humanity. In each instance, however, both characters choose evil. In the miniseries, he is played by Miguel Ferrer.

"The Trashcan Man"

Donald Merwin Elbert, better known as the "Trashcan Man," is a schizophrenic pyromaniac who often found himself in trouble as a youth due to his fixation with fire. He was treated with shock treatments at an institution in Terre Haute, Indiana, before being incarcerated for arson as a teenager. Trash leaves prison during a work detail (carrying plague victims’ bodies from prison cells) and returns home to Powtanville, Indiana. Trash indulges his ambition of setting cities afire, setting fire to oil tanks in his hometown of Powtanville, and destroying the city of Gary, Indiana (Des Moines, Iowa in the miniseries), very nearly killing himself and permanently disfiguring his arm in the process. He abandons his base ambitions of starting fires randomly all over America to join Randall Flagg, the dark man appearing in his dreams and promising him work, "great work" (as Flagg puts it) in the desert. After treating his severely burned arm, he finds a bicycle and makes his way west with all speed. Along the way, Trash briefly hooks up with a cocky, maniacal street hood named The Kid, but when The Kid threatens not only to kill Trash (several times, always for petty reasons), but to overthrow the Dark Man, Flagg sends wolves to save him. The Kid ends up holed up in a car with the pack of wolves surrounding it day and night. The threat neutralized, Trash moves on. He reaches Las Vegas and he also receives a black stone with a red flaw. Due to his savant talent regarding destructive devices, he is put in command of searching for weapons in the desert and assisting in arming the fighter jets at Indian Springs Air Force Base. Trash does well until, when being teased by fellow workers, a comment causes him to flash back to his tormented youth. In a schizophrenic episode, Trash destroys several trucks and aircraft, kills the most experienced pilots and flees into the desert. Overcome with anguish over his actions, Trash makes an attempt at redemption by bringing Flagg the most powerful weapon he can find; an atomic bomb, in the form of a warhead detached from a missile. Trash transports a nuclear warhead in a trailer attached to an ATV across the desert, coming down with a lethal case of radiation sickness in the process; the sickness has reached its terminal stage just as Trash arrives in town. Trash ultimately brings about Flagg’s (apparent) destruction as the Hand of God descends and activates the warhead, destroying Las Vegas and everyone in it. In the miniseries, he is played by Matt Frewer.

"The Kid"

"The Kid" is a thug from Louisiana who meets the Trashcan Man en route to Las Vegas. He drives a souped-up hot rod and has a fanatical love of Coors beer and Rebel Yell whiskey. He is also ambitious, unstable, and easily angered, as Trashcan discovers, when The Kid nearly kills him for spilling a can of beer on the carpet. After becoming monumentally drunk, The Kid forces Trash to give him a handjob while sodomizing him with a pistol. The Kid and Trash travel together until they reach the Eisenhower Tunnel, where The Kid is trapped in a car surrounded by wolves sent by Flagg. The Kid survives for several days until, facing starvation, he jumps out of the car and fights the wolves, strangling one as he dies. His body is later found by Stu, Larry, Glen, and Ralph; Larry dubs him "the Wolfman." In the original edition, The Kid appeared as a minor character and was never seen directly, only in Trashcan’s flashbacks; the extended edition includes the full story of his encounter with Trashcan as it takes place. It has also been revealed in interviews that The Kid is meant to be the reincarnation of late-50s serial killer Charles Starkweather.

Julie Lawry

An unstable sex-crazed teenager who lives through the pandemic. She attempts to seduce Nick Andros into leaving Tom Cullen, but when he refuses she tries (unsuccessfully) to kill them with a rifle. She ends up joining Randall Flagg. She is killed in the atomic explosion in Las Vegas. In the miniseries, she is played by Shawnee Smith. (In earlier versions of the credits, she was played by Traci Lords.)

Charles D. Campion

A soldier stationed out in the California desert, Campion is the original carrier of the superflu. On duty the night the virus escapes the complex, he manages to flee before the lockdown of the base. He takes his family and runs, but he finally succumbs to the flu outside of Arnette, Texas, unleashing the events of the story. His initials—"C.D.C."—hint at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in Atlanta, Georgia, which is where Stu Redman et al are first sent (the facility is referred to as the "Atlanta Plague Center" in the book). In the miniseries, he is played by Ray McKinnon.

General William "Billy" Starkey

As the commanding officer of Project Blue, Starkey is aware that the superflu is almost impossible to control once loose. But he covers up the accident and its ensuing pandemic as long as he can; under his leadership, journalists who try to let the truth be known are murdered. Ironically, he is kind to his subordinates. After being dismissed by the President, he commits suicide in the laboratory where the superflu was created. In the miniseries, he is played by Ed Harris.

Writing

King had grand plans when he started writing The Stand:

I never said this to anybody because it sounds so goddamned pretentious, but I wanted to do The Lord of the Rings with an American background. It didn't come out that way, but I thought it would be fun to do an epic fantasy with an American backdrop. So many fantasies take place in some make-believe land. You have to learn a new language to even read the book. You see, I began to see the energy crisis as just one domino in a complex economic structure that was going to go down completely. The more I thought about this particular Gordian Knot, the more I thought, "Suppose you cut right through the middle of it. Suppose everybody died except maybe a certain percentage of the world's population - then there'd be enough oil!" I began to embroider on the idea - the empty towns, the sand dunes."

King nearly abandoned The Stand due to writer’s block. Eventually, he reached the conclusion that the heroes were becoming too complacent, and were beginning to repeat all the same mistakes of their old society. In an attempt to resolve this, he added the part of the storyline where Harold and Nadine construct a bomb which explodes in a Free Zone committee meeting, killing Nick Andros, Chad Norris, and Susan Stern. Later, Mother Abagail explains on her deathbed that God permitted the bombing because He was dissatisfied with the heroes’ focus on petty politics, and not on the ultimate quest of destroying Flagg. When telling this story, King sardonically observed that the bomb saved the book, and that he only had to kill half of the core cast in order to do this.

"The Complete & Uncut Edition"

The time change of The Complete & Uncut Edition produced several anachronisms that may have resulted from careless editing, e.g. a character being paid a dollar for a morning’s babysitting; another being paid 35¢ per hour for manual labor in the 1970s; black and white TV sets owned by the poor and color TVs being owned by the more affluent characters; rental of a beachfront house in Malibu for $1000 (U.S.) per month; one character being portrayed as having been "in the war" (presumably Vietnam) despite being too young for such service; and a "new" Datsun Z after Datsun had been absorbed by Nissan. This may be explained, however, by the fact that The Stand takes place in a different world than ours. There are also a number of typos in prints of The Complete & Uncut Edition that have not been corrected in any subsequent printing of the book.

Relation to other works

The Stand shares some aspects of other parts of King's literary "universe":

King's short story "Night Surf" is set in a Captain Trips-infected world.

King’s short story "Children of the Corn" is referenced in Nick Andros and Stu Redman’s dreams.

Stu Redman's hometown of Arnette appears as the childhood home of Steve Ames in Desperation.

Randall Flagg and other elements of The Stand also appear in The Dark Tower series: the superflu is said to be what killed all the inhabitants of a parallel Kansas in Wizard and Glass, Abigail Freemantle is mentioned as being on a quest "near"/"parallel" to Roland Deschain’s quest in Wizard and Glass and the Dark Tower's Crimson King and his red eye sigil might be referenced in Flagg’s black stones are marked with a red eye, and Glen Bateman dream of a man standing on a cliff, with peering, endless red eyes gazing into the east.

In chapter 36, a western fiction novel named Rimfire Christmas is mentioned. The author of this novel is "a woman who lives up north, in Haven" - a likely reference to Roberta (Bobbi) Anderson, one of the main characters in King's The Tommyknockers.

Mother Abigail refers to the prophetic visions as "The Shining Lamp of God", or just "the shine". This could be a reference to King's The Shining.

Flagg appears as the evil wizard in "Eyes of the Dragon."

Film and TV versions

A TV miniseries called The Stand scripted by King and directed by Mick Garris, and starring such actors as Gary Sinise, Molly Ringwald, Rob Lowe, Miguel Ferrer, Laura San Giacomo, Ossie Davis, Ed Harris and even a cameo role by Kareem Abdul-Jabbar was broadcast in 1994 on ABC. The series was later released as a double-sided DVD, which has since then been discontinued. A DVD re-release is scheduled for September, 2007.

In popular culture

• A routine from stand-up comedian Patton Oswalt relates that President George W. Bush has "read that novel The Stand too many times" and now he "thinks there's a dark man in the desert and has to fight him".
• The following songs are based on The Stand: "The Stand" by The Alarm; "Among the Living" by Anthrax; "Beg for the Plague" by Political Statement, and "The Stand" by Yngwie J. Malmsteen.
• Larry Underwood’s song "Baby, Can You Dig Your Man?" inspired a song of the same name by the band Self. "Crimson King" by heavy metal band Demons & Wizards from their album Touched by the Crimson King also references the novel's main antagonist, Flagg.
• Rod Glenn’s debut novel, The King of America, was in part influenced by The Stand and The Dark Tower series.
• Robert R. McCammon's novel Swan Song bears a strong resemblance to The Stand, featuring an apocalyptic event that significantly reduces the world's population, and an evil, supernatural figure against whom a band of survivors struggle over time.
• The producers of the ABC television series Lost have stated that The Stand has greatly influenced it. The Lost character Charlie Pace, portrayed by Dominic Monaghan, is loosely modeled on Larry Underwood in The Stand.
• Mark Shreeve’s new age album Legion was influenced by The Stand. The third track was named "Flagg," and it featured a short introduction spoken by Mark Shreeve which, according to the sleeve notes, is "based on a character created by Stephen King." The seventh track (instrumental) was named "The Stand."

External links

• The Stand at IMDb