SLOW READ: The Stand (Chapters 16 - 25)

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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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Mentioned in this episode:

The Wire

The Sopranos

American Revolution by Ken Burns

The City We Became by MK Jamison

Stephen King books mentioned:

Mr Mercedes

Billy Summers

If you prefer to read instead of listen, below is a cleaned up transcript of the episodes as well as links to all the books and Substacks we mentioned in this episode…and several fun bonus links and videos!

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Laura: Today we’re talking about Chapters 16 through 25, where the Captain Tripp’s super flu pandemic rages on. Two gangsters have a shootout in a gas station in Arizona, and our deaf-mute character, Nick Andros, basically becomes the sheriff in Arkansas.

Sarah: The sheriff of nobody.

Laura: And Larry Underwood takes care of his sick mom in New York City. And then we finally get a little more backstory to the origins and architects of this virus and of Project Blue.

Sarah: Shit’s getting dark. I don’t know how to say it any other way.

Laura: Do you think so? Because I felt like this section, with the exception of one chapter which is one of my favorites, felt a little slow to me.

Sarah: What are you talking about? We got so many villains! We got some real murderous, scary people showing up. It feels like things are starting to fall apart. This is going to be fertile ground for dark people, dark energy, dark acts. I was kind of ready for people to start dying in bigger numbers... and now that it’s started, I’m like: Oh, no.

Chapter 16: Poke, Lloyd, and the Crime Spree

Laura: Chapter 16.

Sarah: This section comes in hot.

Laura: We meet Poke and Lloyd. These are two criminals.

Sarah: I need to say this first off: In my head, I pronounced it “Poke” like a poke bowl the whole time.

Laura: I know. It’s because I’m from Oklahoma, so I was like, yeah. To poke around, to be a poke... that’s definitely a rural nickname.

Sarah: No, a poke is like a cowboy. Like “Go Pokes.” See, look at these regional differences. Meanwhile, I’m pronouncing it like I live in California and eat poke bowls all the time. Anyway, they kill a bunch of people really fast. They killed six people in the last six days.

Laura: He calls it “pokerizing,” meaning he’s killing them, which is pretty intense. Not as bad as “gobble,” but it’s up there.

Sarah: These dudes have gotten out of prison. I understand that they need money, but the immediate killing left and right... I’m like, how did you think this was going to go? The part with Gorgeous George... that is a real common situation in crime fiction. You get a lower level guy who’s protecting the kitty or whatever. But then the prolific killing? I’m like, you people want to go to jail.

Laura: I don’t know how realistic it is, but it felt like glimmers into kind of what Stephen King has always wanted to write about. He’s known for his horror, but as you can tell, there has been very little supernatural elements so far. What has been scary about this story is the violence. In the last decade plus, he has taken a real turn to crime fiction.

Sarah: I don’t mind the violence—The Sopranos is one of my favorite shows of all time—but I want the portraits of the criminals to be complex. And this felt a little one-note.

Laura: To me, it felt like every other storyline has had a touch of the flu in it. And other than maybe the arresting cop having the sniffles, this has nothing to do with anything else we have read thus far. So you’re kind of asking yourself: What does this have to do with anything?

Sarah: It’s kind of a weird wash to listen to this and be like, well, yeah, that’s a violent, terrible way to die... but you might have just drowned in your own snot like everybody else is right now.

Laura: You’re kind of zooming out. Like, well, they don’t know it, but we know it.

Chapter 17: Starkey, Project Blue, and the “Miserable Worm”

Laura: Chapter 17. We are back to Starkey, the head of Project Blue. And we finally sort of get a little bit