Roadwork (1981)

Well then. As much as it pains me to do this, I calls 'em like I sees 'em, and this was an effort in futility on just about all fronts.

Now I know, I know, the Bachman books are depressing and dark and bleak and grim. I know all that. I expected it, and was even looking forward to it. But this... This was almost painfully tedious to get through. It was so pointless. So futile.

I've read all of the Bachman books, and they've all been dark and grim and whatnot... but they've all had a point. I didn't feel like the same could be said about Roadwork. Maybe I missed it, but it seems to me that this is a story about a man who stubbornly, stupidly, and blindly refuses change, and determines to stick it out to the bloody end. He gives not a single thought to anyone else he might hurt, like his wife, or his employees, or innocent bystanders, or police officers simply doing their jobs.

No. Why think about them? Fuck them. He ain't leaving his house. He don't wanna. They ain't gonna make him. Right, Fred? Right, George.

So there.

Excuse me while I go bash my face into a brick wall so I can better empathize with Bart Dawes.

One last thing. The audio reader for this book was... just... really bad. Dawes was OK, but every other character sounded like they should have been a cartoon. Mr. Ordner, the boss, would have been one of those big burly bulldogs in a 3 piece suit with a smoldering cigar in one hand and a drink in the other. Mr. Magliore would be a fatcat Get It Man, whose right hand man would be a lanky tomcat with big ears, sharp claws, and showing ribs. Mary Dawes would be a whiny, foofy poodle.

This is how I saw these characters while listening to this guy read.

It did not help my enjoyment of the story. ( )

This is Stephen King, the writer, at his best. His alternate author personality, Richard Bachman, provided King with the ability to write in the non-horror genre without pressure from his fans.
Unfortunately, Bachman's "cover" was discovered.

I felt that the writing was mature and the story resonated deeply with this middle-aged reader.

Okay not the whole outcome of this tale, but the theme of loss strikes a chord in all of us at some point in our lives. ( )

There's a freeway extension coming through. It will require the demolition of both Barton George Dawes' home and office, and that's something that Bart just can't let slide.

The book is interesting and well written, but there's just something wrong with it. I think part of the problem is that the book is for the most part a drama, but there's this sort of thriller going on in the background. First thing Bart does is purchase a couple of guns while arguing with a voice in his head. Yet it's too far in the background. I guess I would have preferred the suspense elements of the book to be sprinkled more liberally through the entire narrative rather than surfacing from time to time only to submerge again while Bart's midlife crisis/breakdown continued.

The writing is pretty impressive, considering Stephen King wrote so well about Bart's midlife crisis while he was such a young guy and the ending was pretty strong. Maybe I would have liked it better if it had started with the standoff and then was presented as a flashback. But then I would be making the book into something that it is not. ( )

Roadwork is one of the scariest books Stephen King--originally using the Richard Bachman pseudonym--has ever written. It's unlike the vast majority of his work in that there is not a single monster, no aliens, nothing supernatural to make it so. Rather, the fear felt by the reader comes from the acute psychological discomfort of watching a formerly complacent and successful middle manager methodically lose his mind in the face of impending, inevitable change.

The story opens with Bart Dawes, manager of a large commercial laundry outfit, purchasing some guns. As he does so, we are privy to the violent and disturbing conversation he's having inside his head. As is so often the case with Stephen King, who has no qualms about telegraphing the end early on, we know that this one is going to end badly, almost certainly with a bang. What we don't know is how moved we will be by that time, having become attached to this pathetic wretch of a man who can't come to terms with the ineluctable march of progress.

The change Bart Dawes is grappling with is a freeway connector which is to be built through his town. Not only is the laundry he manages to be torn down to make way, but his own home is scheduled for the wrecking ball, as well. Bart knows that what's coming will come, yet rather than accept things and move on he refuses. At no point does he ever seem to believe that his refusal will halt the process, yet still, he will not make a move. And as he digs in at home and at work (where he's supposed to be closing the deal on a new facility), in the back of his mind violence is bubbling.

Roadwork is sad and disturbing, and if King's introduction ("The Importance of Being Bachman") is to be believed, could only have come from the rainy day pen of his alter-ego. ( )

In the early 1970s, during the height of the energy crisis, the government decides to extend a highway through an unnamed Midwestern city, claiming the right of Eminent Domain. Many homes will be torn down, businesses closed, people left hunting for jobs. And right in the thick of things is Barton George Dawes, tasked with trying to find both a new house for he and his wife and a new building for his company, an industrial laundry. But nothing goes smoothly for Bart, and the pressures to start over in a new place, the government's stepping in to take away what's his, and the too-soon death of his son to a brain tumor subtly start to take their toll on his psyche. He buys two guns, not sure what he plans on doing with them, but almost instinctually, he starts down a path pitting him against the new highway extension and the government and potentially destroying his once happy marriage.

"Roadwork" is a slow-paced story, with a surprisingly likable anti-hero. When Bart first made his appearance, his purchasing the guns is fairly innocuous -- a man walking into a gun shop to buy something for his brother, an amateur hunter. But I could tell something was off kilter with him, something not quite definable but it made me want to continue reading, to find out what exactly he has in mind when he buys the guns. I empathized with him as he struggled with the impending loss of his home and his job, with his trying to come to grips with his son's death. He also acted honorably when picking up a female hitchhiker, offering her enough money to get to Las Vegas and declining her offers to sleep with him for it. I found myself liking him more and more so that, by the time I understood just what he had planned -- even knowing the potential outcomes -- I was cheering for him.

For anyone who's never read anything by King because the horror factor keeps you away, this is a good novel to ease you into his work. ( )