Roadwork

Written by Stephen King

Narrated by G. Valmont Thomas

Originally written under the Richard Bachman pseudonym, Roadwork is now available completely repackaged and under all-time bestselling author Stephen King's name. In this gritty narrative, a lone man takes on the wheels of progress in a showdown of cataclysmic proportions. When a highway project puts him out of work and threatens to destroy his home, he has more than enough time on his hands to plot his revenge. Driving his wife and friends away with his obstinate refusal to give in, he pushes the powers-that-be to the limit, taking a stand against what he sees as a criminal act in progress. Building to a shattering climax, Roadwork is a suspenseful tale you won't soon forget!

• Language: English
• Publisher: Penguin Audiobooks
• Release date: Apr 1, 2010
• ISBN: 9781101154816

Stephen King

Stephen King is the author of more than sixty books, all of them worldwide bestsellers. His recent work includes the short story collection You Like It Darker, Holly, Fairy Tale, Billy Summers, If It Bleeds, The Institute, Elevation, The Outsider, Sleeping Beauties (cowritten with his son Owen King), and the Bill Hodges trilogy: End of Watch, Finders Keepers, and Mr. Mercedes (an Edgar Award winner for Best Novel and a television series streaming on Peacock). His novel 11/22/63 was named a top ten book of 2011 by The New York Times Book Review and won the Los Angeles Times Book Prize for Mystery/Thriller. His epic works The Dark Tower, It, Pet Sematary, Doctor Sleep, and Firestarter are the basis for major motion pictures, with It now the highest-grossing horror film of all time. He is the recipient of the 2020 Audio Publishers Association Lifetime Achievement Award, the 2018 PEN America Literary Service Award, the 2014 National Medal of Arts, and the 2003 National Book Foundation Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters. He lives in Bangor, Maine, with his wife, novelist Tabitha King. 

Reviews for Roadwork

[thewallflower-1 · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

Every time I look at my list of Stephen King books I want to read, I whittle it down a little more and a little more. This one survived the stack, but I wish it didn't. Maybe because I liked the theme of it, like Rage and The Long Walk. Written around the same time too, and published under the Bachman pseudonym. Like Rage, there is nothing supernatural and it's about a guy getting his revenge Charles Bronson style. Or at least it was supposed to be.From the beginning there is a promise that this is going to end in tremendous violence. In a one-man standoff against the government, standing up for what he believes in. The little guy who won't be pushed off his land, who won't be evicted from his memories in the face of progress. But it takes WAY too long to get there. And then it's only fifteen pages at the end. The part you came to see is buried under overwritten prose, Maine catechisms, and wool-gathering. The book is more about the main character toodling around while he doesn't make plans to evacuate his place of work and home in lieu of a new freeway they are building. Not to mention the content is outdated now (the energy crisis, making a big deal of buying a TV, laundry facilities).The tension is so strung out by the end the climax sags like a Las Vegas showgirl's chest. The main character doesn't do anything but gripe and drink -- two Stephen King staples -- letting the time until 90,000 words are written expire. His wife leaves him, his friends abandon him. It brings up interesting issues, but I can recall at least two Star Trek episodes that dealt with this exact issue in a much more entertaining way.

[areadingmachine · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

My least favourite of the Bachman Books collection it tells the story of a man and his home and the cities plans to build a highway over the top of his house. After losing his son to cancer and watching his life fall apart he is unable to leave the house that holds his only positive memories. He resolves to blow up his house and take himself out with it. He It is dark and desperate and aimed at an audience a little older than the other stories in the collection and is shown by the epilogue where we learn the only reason the road was going up was so because if they did not build something they would lose their budget......

[imaginationzombie · Rating: 1 out of 5 stars]

I've enjoyed several King writing as Bachman Books, but this was just disappointing. I knew exactly what would happen from the start.

[fearshop · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Very thought provoking. Knowing now that King wrote it after his mother's death makes sense. I think you need to be a little older to appreciate the helplessness that the main character had. This book will stick with me for some time I think.

[jseger9000 · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

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.

[beckyjg · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

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 Burt 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 Burt 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. Burt 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.

[ocgreg34 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

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.

[andyray_1 · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

This is one of the five Bachman books (so far). Can be easily passed up.

[martensgirl · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

I was dreading this work as I'd heard that it is one of King's worst. I don't think it was as bad as I was expecting. I felt that the protagonist was a well-rounded believable individual- King is an excellent creator of fleshed-out characters and this is no exception. Why only two stars? It's so boring! I felt that the plot surrounding his son could've been a bigger part of the story. I also felt the ending as a bit 'meh'.

[tonifgmamtc · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

This is about a guy who has had too much bad news and flips. His son died. He can't get over it. His relationship with his wife isn't the best. Road construction taking away his work and home. The man makes wrong decisions, but everyone seems to not be a good person in this story. Puts me in the mind of some real life situations so it's pretty much a downer. Makes everything seem pointless.