SLOW READ: The Stand (The Circle Closes) — Slow Read: OUTLANDER

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Hosted by Sarah Stewart Holland and Laura Tremaine

We are currently reading The Stand by Stephen King (unabridged version)

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We have come to the end of our journey with The Stand by Stephen King.

In this episode, we dissect what it all meant and what we’ll remember about this experience.

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Mentioned:

Sister Helen Prejean / Dead Man Walking

The Circle That Doesn’t Close

Laura: We are here today at the end of The Stand by Stephen King to close the circle.

Sarah: But I think it’s a lie. Why did he say the circle closes? That’s not what happens at the end of this book.

Laura: That’s true. That’s totally true. But it starts with “the circle opens.” That’s the opening. So he has to close it.

Sarah: Or is it just that the circle continues? That would have been a more accurate title for this epilogue. Just saying.

Laura: I do have to say that I purposely, when I made our reading schedule for The Stand — we knew we wanted to do it for six months, like January to June, which we did — I planned it to close our circle here the same week the book opens, which is the second week of June. Just because I liked that symmetry.

Sarah: I love it. I love a symmetry.

Laura: We have a few little pages to get through, but before we do that — we will be continuing the slow read. We have picked our next book.

Sarah: I picked it and I forced it on Laura. That’s the truth.

Laura: We’re going to tell you all about that next week, where you’ll hear the reveal. If you cannot wait another second to find out the book, our paid members learned last week during our book club meeting. So you can go watch the replay of that if you just can’t stand it another second. But today we’re going to tackle “dusk of a summer evening” and the circle closing — which is a lie, because it doesn’t actually close.

Sarah: It doesn’t actually close, but there are things to say about how King ended this whole thing. Because if you do any sort of Reddit search, any sort of Googling about The Stand, what people want to talk about is the end.

Laura: Pretty much. Whether it was a true stand, or a letdown for some people, or if it’s what people expected. There’s a lot of that.

The Split Epilogue: An Epilogue for the Good Guys

Sarah: We get this kind of split epilogue, right? So we get “dusk of a summer evening.” The people we get to see from the Free Zone contingent — the good side — are Stu and Franny and Peter.

Laura: I’m sorry, three people. Babies are people too. On their journey back to Maine, they stop at Mother Abigail’s house.

Sarah: I don’t know if that path makes sense, for the record. Geographically I’m always like, where are you guys going? What are we doing? But whatever, it’s fine.

Laura: Maybe there’s something about the way you’d have to travel by foot. I’ve always thought this is weird. I’m going through all this area of the country, including Nebraska, this summer on my RV road trip with my family. So maybe I can report back to us. But they do stop at Mother Abigail’s house. They’re on the porch, the baby’s playing, and they’re talking about what happened in the Free Zone and what they think is going to happen next. It’s a little epilogue for the good guys, really. Did it feel true to you?

Sarah: Yeah. I think it’s true that the Free Zone would not stay together as this tight, cohesive unit. As people came together — I love this line — “all these people make me nervous as a one-legged man in an ass-kicking contest.” That’s something my grandpa would say. My grandpa always said, I want to live in the middle of 400 acres with a fence around it that says no trespassing. So to a certain contingent, living with other people is never going to be on the menu. From their perspective, the circle has closed, the threat is gone, so the need to stay close together for safety isn’t as intense. It makes sense that people would start to dissipate.

Laura: I do think it’s an interesting c