If you ask me, The Long Walk may well be the most fascinating novel Stephen King has ever written. Written back in 1966-67, while King was a college freshman, the novel earned the author nothing more than a form rejection letter. Finally, after a few years of dust-gathering, the manuscript was released into a much more welcoming world in the form of Richard Bachman's second novel. It's a magnificent story -- not perfect, but magnificent nonetheless. It's a disarmingly simple tale centered on a seemingly mundane activity, yet in King's masterful hands The Long Walk burrows into the core of a number of characters, lays down miles of metaphors about the human condition and absolutely mesmerizes you with its emotional force and power.

The setting is an alternate, possible fascist America; King leaves things pretty murky on the sociopolitical end of things, almost surely by design. The Long Walk is really one of your "it can't happen in America" kind of stories, and the horror of it all (and, yes, I would categorize this as a horror novel) is made more powerful by obscuring the lines between our America and this fictionalized America. Here, The Long Walk is the premier sporting event in the land. Spectators turn out in droves, bets are made left and right, and the whole nation watches and cheers. Obviously, this is not a regular walk, nor is it a race in the purist sense. Endurance -- mental even more than physical -- is the key to victory in this sport. To win, all you have to do is outlast 99 other competitors -- and the winner receives nothing less than whatever he wants for the rest of his life. Before you yell "Sign me up," you'll want to hear about the details. You have to maintain a pace of at least 4 mph; fall below the pace, and you get a warning. You are allowed three warnings (and you can "lose" a warning by walking another hour on the pace), and then you get ticketed. Getting ticketed doesn't get you a place to rest or even a little much-needed nourishment; all it gets you is one or more bullets in the head.

The obvious question is: why would anyone volunteer for this, knowing that he was almost surely going to die? That's a large part of what this whole novel is about. The contestants do a lot of talking while they're walking; most of them dance around the "why" issue, but we see clues to some of the reasons as each lad draws closer and closer to death. For some, reality doesn't really set in until the guns started blazing. Cockiness turns to anger, fear, shock and just about every other kind of dark emotion you can imagine. The boys are stripped bare in both body and mind as the Walk goes on and on, through all kinds of weather. Through his characters, King is basically asking the reader how he/she will face death when it comes. Will you freeze up early on? How long will you fight to stay alive after you've pushed your body far beyond the breaking point? Will you lie down and accept your fate, or will you lose control and lash out at your perceived enemies?

The most weighty questions actually involve the crowd. As the Walk progresses, more and more people come out to cheer the Watchers on, secretly hoping to see someone get ticketed before their very eyes. This goes far beyond craning your neck to see everything you can at an accident scene. For the Walkers, the crowd eventually becomes Crowd, an amorphous creature always right there roaring and grabbing at them, living (and dying) vicariously through them. Obviously, one thing the Long Walk represents is life itself. The Walkers literally age before our eyes as exhausting hours turn into ever darker, more painful days. Death's approach changes every one of them. Fate has its way with each one's odds of winning, allowing for no favorites among them, as even those with the most going for them sometimes find themselves felled by injuries and sickness.

During the journey, the Walkers arrange themselves into little groups, develop enemies, and help -- or don't help -- one another keep going. Is life a competition or a journey? Different things motivate them to keep going -- family, a girl back home or -- for some -- just the satisfaction of outlasting another Walker they don't like (oddly enough, the Prize never really seems to mean much to any of them).

I could just go on and on with the symbolism of this story. I haven't even described the characters, and I think it is better if I don't -- except to say that the story is told from the perspective of "Maine's own" Walker, Ray Garraty. I could read this novel over and over again without ever growing tired of it. It's just endlessly fascinating and illuminating.

Even as a very young writer, King had a lot to say, he understood people, and -- most of all -- he knew how to tell a story better than just about everyone else who has ever lived.