Uh, yeah, I sure hope it does.
“… That was the first thing, the first real thing, but things had been happening in my mind before that. But it was easier to do things than to talk about them. Can you understand that? Can you try?”
Stephen King (writing as Richard Bachman), Roadwork
Roadwork is King’s third Bachman book, and the first written by the author recognisably as King himself. This is not to say the style is King’s, though nobody writes quite like King does. Rather, this was written at a point when things were really changing in Stephen King’s life, for better and for worse.
Though not published until 1981, this book perhaps more than any other of his is rooted firmly in a time and place. King’s novels often provide an excellent social history of America from the 70s onwards, with their pop culture references, current events or even just the attitudes of the time. But Roadwork is utterly written to be in 1973. Perhaps more than any other book, this is King’s attempt at a more literary fiction, and it is filled with the cues and facets of real life. It being written so utterly in 1973 makes it a time capsule – we see the pop culture such as the release of The Exorcist, the TV dinners, the energy crisis… But it is also a time capsule of King’s life at that point.
Though published much later, this was written as one of King’s palette cleansers that occasionally crop up, this time between ‘Salem’s Lot and The Shining and with Carrie on its way to being published. It was also written not long after King’s mother died of cancer (‘inch by terrible inch,’ King once described it as), and as a result there is a rawness in the text that gives it a different flavour that many, if not most, of his other books lack.
This is a good book, but not a fun one. It is well written, but not pleasant to read. It is hard. Even King’s previous examination of death and grief from Night Shift‘s excellent The Woman in the Room does not touch the sort of madness that grief can drive a person. That was a moment, a scene, a snapshot into grief, but this gives us a chance to see someone wallowing in its depths. Notably, that short story was published as King, and this is a Bachman book. The Woman in the Room is emotionally devastating but cathartic and owned, but Roadwork is not. Our lead, Barton Dawes, has been poisoned by grief, and rather than try to heal he succumbs to the pain.
We are witness to his final few months when the self-destruction starts to become manifest. We are told he has been quietly, almost unconsciously, making the arrangements for the final blowout for months already, but the purchasing of the guns is what sets off the final chain reaction. There is no joy to be had here, no victory. Dawes catharsis is not ours to share, because Dawes does not really get released in death but is condemned to it as the easier option rather than living it. We are just witness to his final tailspin.
I’ve spoken in the past that King’s overriding themes are love and hope. Often, these are what save his characters, or give them their final redemption. Jack Torrence dies, but in his death is redeemed by his love for Danny; Johnny Smith dies, hoping to have saved the world; Dawes dies and they build the road anyway. He succeeds in nothing.
Where there is no hope in Roadwork, our theme here is male grief, specifically male. Though King does discuss Mary Dawes’ grief over their dead child, it is Barton who’s uncomfortable inner monologue we are privy to. Or rather, duologue with the imagined spirit of his dead child. Apart from Olivia, Drake, even Sal Magliore, characters who drift in and out of Barton Dawes’ life, Dawes is alone. He feels he has no one to express his grief to, and it ultimately destroys him. As hard as this was for King to write, at least he had a way to exorcise it by writing Roadwork – being a character in the book doesn’t offer that same catharsis. It’s just a straight up tragedy after tragedy.
Though King has written about toxic masculinity before, he’s usually focused on the violence that can result from it (Rage, The Shining, some stories in Night Shift). But what’s up for discussion here is not violence, though it does end in violence (with a bodycount of only one, it should be noted), but rather the idea that Men Don’t Cry. Dawes cries throughout the book, but usually in private, or attempts to suppress it when he is company, especially that of his wife. We get no indication of any of his side of family, and it feels like he has never had the chance to cope with that grief in a healthy way. Dawes has no romantic notions of ending up in the afterlife with his son, even if he worries about what will happen to his soul. The story ends with his death, and so too does his pain. If only he had seen a psychiatrist, or gone with Olivia, or just spoken with his wife, so much of this book’s tragedy could have been avoided. But that he keeps it bottled up is what puts him on the path to the end. He just wants it all, the pain, the sadness, the loss, to stop. Permanently.
I can see why King wouldn’t want this released as a King book. King had built up his brand as the horror writer, with Roadwork as straight and practically literary as they come. It wouldn’t fit with what he had steadily built up. But it must also have been a very emotionally hard novel to write and to be that vulnerable on the page. By putting it out under the Bachman name (which fit better under what Bachman represented of King anyway), I think King had the chance to put a bit of distance between him and it – the book and his mother’s death. A publishing form of processing the grief safely rather than wallowing it, in its way.
In the first introduction to The Bachman Books, he straight up admits to not liking Roadwork. Subsequent editions without Rage present but with a new introduction (I am fortunate to have a copy of each), King says that with time having passed he has a bit more an appreciation for it. I agree. I think had I tried to read this before, I would have been turned off by it, bored even. But as an older man, this reads as one of King’s most honest books. Though the story is wholly fictional, the emotion, the grief and madness and the inevitability of the final showdown bleeds through the pages like an open artery. In that sense, it makes it one of King’s most arresting reads – not necessarily enjoyable like ‘Salem’s Lot or The Stand can be, but almost a more important one.
Observations and Connections
The image for this essay comes from the infamous case of Marvin Heemeyer. If you missed the link above, here’s another one. It has many parallels with the general plot of Roadwork, but has a modified bulldozer called Killdozer.
As a Bachman book, connections with other of King’s books tend to be quite light, though Roadwork has more than most. Dawes manages the Blue Ribbon laundry, which taps into King’s own experiences once again, and is the same company Carrie White’s mother works at. Though, as this one was demolished in 1973 and Carrie is set in 1979, it can’t be the same one, probably just a different branch. This branch has a mangler present like the titular machine from Night Shift. Who would have thought the most present part of King’s universe so far would be Blue Ribbon laundromats? One connection I wish existed is that some of the peripheral characters appeared in other books, especially Olivia. I’d love to know what happened to her after the events of the book.
Incidentally, I can see this being another one of those King adaptations, like Stand By Me, The Green Mile or The Shawshank Redemption, that shows off King’s literary skills beyond horror. Apparently, there’s one in the works. We’ll see how it goes.
UP NEXT: King invites us to join him on the Danse Macarbe, and we are indebted to join.
Deeper Thoughts for the Horror Inclined 