Roadwork

First edition cover of ROADWORK.

Roadwork is the tenth book published by Stephen King; it is his ninth novel, and the third novel written under the pseudonym of Richard Bachman. The book was released by Signet in March of 1981. It was collected in the 1985 anthology, The Bachman Books.

Plot

Smith & Wesson Model 29 revolver - .44 Magnum

The story takes place in an unnamed Midwestern city in 1973–1974. Barton George Dawes, grieving over the death of his son and the disintegration of his marriage, is driven to mental instability when he finds that both his home and his business will be condemned and demolished to make way for an extension to an interstate highway. Dawes buys a powerful Weatherby bolt action hunting rifle in 460 Weatherby Magnum (designed for hunting elephants and cape buffalo), a Smith & Wesson Model 29 .44 Magnum revolver and explosives and barricades himself inside his house. There follows a multi-hour standoff with police and workers. Barton blows up both himself and the house, but in the epilogue, it is revealed that the highway extension project was never really necessary, it was only done so the city wouldn't get its funding cut. The major theme is the transience of human existence, and the lack of permanence as a failing of a maturing society.

Weatherby Mk V rifle (460 Weatherby Magnum)

Author's comments

In the introduction to The Bachman Books, King stated: "I think it was an effort to make some sense of my mother's painful death the year before - a lingering cancer had taken her off inch by painful inch. Following this death I was left both grieving and shaken by the apparent senselessness of it all... Roadwork tries so hard to be good and find some answers to the conundrum of human pain." King also described his disappointment with the work, and stated that he was of two minds about having it reprinted, but decided to in the end in order to give readers an insight into his personality at the time. In a new introduction to the second edition of The Bachman Books, King stated that he had changed his mind and that Roadwork had become his favorite of the early books.

Connections to other King works

The mangle in the laundromat where Dawes works is nicknamed "The Mangler", because of "what would happen to you if you ever got caught in it." King had previously published a short story called "The Mangler" (1972), in which a demon-possessed mangle kills workers in an industrial laundry facility.

Though not officially connected to The Dark Tower; the character Phil Drake could very well be Father Callahan. He is a fallen priest who helps the homeless and has left "The mother church." He will not allow himself to be called father and has a "oddly scarred right (hand.)". King has never offered a different explanation for the similarities between the two characters.

Adaptation

It was announced in August 2019 that movie producers Andy Muschietti and Barbara Muschietti, who produced the It movies, plan to begin production on "Roadwork" in 2020.

Audiobook

The audiobook version of Roadwork is read by G. Valmont Thomas.