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

PlotEdit

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 an extremely powerful Weatherby bolt action hunting rifle and some explosives and barricades himself inside his house, leading to a several hour standoff with police and workers. He winds up blowing himself up with his 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.

The Bachman Books

Rage • The Long Walk • Roadwork • The Running Man • Thinner • The Regulators • Blaze