‘Stephen King’s The Long Walk: Why Its Disturbing Power Endures’
The debut novel of Stephen King, The Long Walk, remains a haunting investigation of social topics, human endurance, and the dark sides of competition, even decades after its initial release.Published under the pseudonym Richard Bachman in 1979, The Long Walk introduced readers to a chilling vision of a dystopian America where teenage boys participate in an annual walking contest with lethal stakes. The story’s unsettling premise, combined with King’s early narrative mastery, makes the novel strikingly relevant even today. Beyond the surface of a survival contest, the book explores themes of conformity, authoritarian control, and the psychological toll of relentless…