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Slow Read: The Stand: Daily Summaries Delivered
by Sarah Stewart Holland & Laura Tremaine
Sarah Stewart Holland & Laura Tremaine slow read Stephen King's classic The Stand. slowread.substack.com
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- 2 days ago45 min
SLOW READ: The Stand (The Circle Closes)
Welcome to SLOW READ, where we tackle the books you’ve always wanted to read at a pace you can handle.Hosted by Sarah Stewart Holland and Laura TremaineWe are currently reading The Stand by Stephen King (unabridged version)You can find our full Reading Schedule hereJoin the SLOW READ community on Substack for bonus episodes, book club meetings, and Side Quests with Sarah & LauraWe have come to the end of our journey with The Stand by Stephen King. In this episode, we dissect what it all meant and what we’ll remember about this experience. Make sure to subscribe on Substack for our next SLOW READ!Mentioned:Wolf HallWar and PeaceDon QuixoteBrothers KaramazovBlazing Eye Sees AllSister Helen Prejean / Dead Man Walking The Circle That Doesn’t CloseLaura: We are here today at the end of The Stand by Stephen King to close the circle.Sarah: But I think it’s a lie. Why did he say the circle closes? That’s not what happens at the end of this book.Laura: That’s true. That’s totally true. But it starts with “the circle opens.” That’s the opening. So he has to close it.Sarah: Or is it just that the circle continues? That would have been a more accurate title for this epilogue. Just saying.Laura: I do have to say that I purposely, when I made our reading schedule for The Stand — we knew we wanted to do it for six months, like January to June, which we did — I planned it to close our circle here the same week the book opens, which is the second week of June. Just because I liked that symmetry.Sarah: I love it. I love a symmetry.Laura: We have a few little pages to get through, but before we do that — we will be continuing the slow read. We have picked our next book.Sarah: I picked it and I forced it on Laura. That’s the truth.Laura: We’re going to tell you all about that next week, where you’ll hear the reveal. If you cannot wait another second to find out the book, our paid members learned last week during our book club meeting. So you can go watch the replay of that if you just can’t stand it another second. But today we’re going to tackle “dusk of a summer evening” and the circle closing — which is a lie, because it doesn’t actually close.Sarah: It doesn’t actually close, but there are things to say about how King ended this whole thing. Because if you do any sort of Reddit search, any sort of Googling about The Stand, what people want to talk about is the end.Laura: Pretty much. Whether it was a true stand, or a letdown for some people, or if it’s what people expected. There’s a lot of that.The Split Epilogue: An Epilogue for the Good GuysSarah: We get this kind of split epilogue, right? So we get “dusk of a summer evening.” The people we get to see from the Free Zone contingent — the good side — are Stu and Franny and Peter.Laura: I’m sorry, three people. Babies are people too. On their journey back to Maine, they stop at Mother Abigail’s house.Sarah: I don’t know if that path makes sense, for the record. Geographically I’m always like, where are you guys going? What are we doing? But whatever, it’s fine.Laura: Maybe there’s something about the way you’d have to travel by foot. I’ve always thought this is weird. I’m going through all this area of the country, including Nebraska, this summer on my RV road trip with my family. So maybe I can report back to us. But
- 1 weeks ago52 min
SLOW READ: The Stand (Chapters 74 - 78)
Welcome to SLOW READ, where we tackle the books you’ve always wanted to read at a pace you can handle.Hosted by Sarah Stewart Holland and Laura TremaineWe are currently reading The Stand by Stephen King (unabridged version)You can find our full Reading Schedule hereJoin the SLOW READ community on Substack for bonus episodes, book club meetings, and Side Quests with Sarah & LauraREMINDER: Our final book club meeting discussing The Stand will be THURSDAY, JUNE 11 at 6pm PT / 8pm CT / 9pm ET and we’ll be announcing our next SLOW READ! You don’t want to miss it. Mentioned in this episode:* The Shining by Stephen King * Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel* The Crocodile Hunter * “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas” (”…if the fates allow”) * Noah Kahan, “Maine” * Steel Magnolias The Stand, or The Walk?Laura: How are you feeling?Sarah: Well, it’s giving Sopranos. You know how in The Sopranos it was the penultimate episode that usually contained the most action? I feel like that show set up that structure — although apparently not, because The Stand has been around a lot longer. The main action, especially a majority of the violence, the falling out between Randall Flagg and members of the Free Zone, the nuclear bomb — all of that happened in our last section. So now we’re getting that real finale. We’re caring for the characters we really loved. We’re seeing where they ended up. We’re tying up some loose ends.Laura: I felt like these last chapters post-nuclear-bomb were so arduous. I felt like King is personally trying to remind us that this whole thing is about the journey and not the destination, which is such an annoying message. I was just like, we are still walking. It should have been called The Walk, not The Stand. Honestly, the whole book is just about journeying.Sarah: Well, I will say this. It’s not standing still, that’s for sure. But there’s a moment near the end where Stu says they’ll have to stand a watch for him. So it really felt like this conclusion of the book was more a philosophy: it’s not that you have to walk forever, but that you do have to stand watch. Maybe the stand wasn’t some sort of high-noon final battle between good and evil, which is what I expected when I started the book. It’s more like standing watch — standing watch for our worst instincts, standing watch for the ways in which humans can perpetuate great cruelty and harm on each other. We’re standing sentry, keeping an eye out. And even though I’m an Enneagram One and I love a black-and-white conclusion, I thought this was truer, wiser. I really liked it.Laura: It also seems to be saying that nothing is ever really over. It might be over for you individually, if you come to the end of your story, but life just keeps on keeping on. I have always quibbled a teeny tiny bit with how we spend these last chapters with just Stu and Tom — and even primarily Stu. We’re in Stu’s mind mostly. It’s no longer an ensemble cast. We started all the way back in Arnette, Texas, at the gas station — Stu is our first point man — and then we also end with so much Stu. I love Stu as a character. It’s just, oh, he wasn’t the one I was the most attached to. How did you feel about Stu being the final stand?Sarah: I loved it. I thought it wasn’t just Stu — it was the combination of Stu, Tom, and Kojak, who I believe is the real hero of this novel. I really liked the way King put the strengths and weaknesses of these three creatures together. It didn’t feel arduous to me. I was excited to see the ways in which they were stripped away and rebuilt. I liked that Nick kept appearing. I liked that we were worried about Franny. And I liked the changing threat — that we went from the heat of the desert and the nuclear fallout to this incredible winter hellscape. And Tom is such a great addition to every scene he’s in. The way they were facing very openly “we might not make it” felt like real learning, as opposed to how people were orienting themselves when Captain Trips first started wreaking havoc.Kojak, the Rea
- 2 weeks ago1h 1m
SLOW READ: The Stand (Chapters 72 - 73)
Welcome to SLOW READ, where we tackle the books you’ve always wanted to read at a pace you can handle.Hosted by Sarah Stewart Holland and Laura TremaineWe are currently reading The Stand by Stephen King (unabridged version)You can find our full Reading Schedule hereJoin the SLOW READ community on Substack for bonus episodes, book club meetings, and Side Quests with Sarah & LauraMentioned in this episode:* Tribe: On Homecoming and Belonging by Sebastian Junger * 1984 by George Orwell * Paradise Lost by John Milton* Carrie by Stephen King We StoodSarah: We have been reading Stephen King’s epic The Stand, and I think we’ve come to the part where we stood. Did we stand?Laura: I think we’re still standing.Sarah: Are we standing?Laura: I think we stood. I think we did it. We are wobbling in our woo!Sarah: We would love for you to join us for our final book club meetings for The Stand. There’s obviously going to be a lot to say as we wrap up this epic novel. All of those are coming up in June. You need to check our Substack for details of our book club meetings, our final episodes, and maybe some announcements for what we’re doing next. All of that is going to be on Substack. You can join us there at slowreadbookclub.com and we’re going to have side quest conversations for you. Tomorrow our side quest will be on summer reading and summer plans. We can’t wait to talk about that with you.Laura: Yep. If you join us at the Slow Read Substack, you will get all of our side quests that we’ve been covering through this time. And they have been wide ranging, friends.Sarah: They really have. Sometimes they go along with the book. Sometimes they don’t.Laura: They don’t. But they are excellent conversations with Sarah and I, only for our Substack members. Over on Slow Read, go to slowreadbookclub.com for all of that and more.Sarah: And more.“Is That It?” — First Reactions to the EndingSarah: We’re going to talk about chapter 72 and 73, and I deserve an award for not texting you the second I finished the section. It was hard. If I had finished this section before we saw each other in person for the first time in 12 years, I wouldn’t have been able to resist. I didn’t really plan to not read it until after, but I’m glad it worked out that way or I would not have been able to keep my mouth shut.Laura: Because you would have wanted to talk about it.Sarah: It’s so talkable. We stood. Of course I want to talk about it. I’m curious what you think reading it for the first time. Did you feel like dun dun dun? Did you feel the music swell in your head?Laura: Yeah, I definitely did. I wanted to just bare minimum text the wide-eyed emoji, but I didn’t — again, because I deserve an award. And my husband, who had been doing a good job kind of keeping pace with us, sped ahead and finished the book, so he’s been saying some cryptic stuff. It got me all keyed up. But yeah, it kind of snuck up on me, but not really. By the time you get to chapter 73, by the time you’re in Larry’s head, you’re like, okay, we’re here, we’re gonna stand. But then it’s over kind of quickly, and so you’re just like, what just happened?Sarah: I know. That’s what I kind of wanted to ask slow readers — if you’re like, “is that it?” Nicholas was defin
- 2 weeks ago7 min
Join Laura for STEPHEN KING SUMMER 2026!
The 6th annual Stephen King Summer Book Club kicks off next week and I want you to be a part of it!Stephen King Summer is part of Laura’s Secret Stuff Substack and when you sign up for it, you’ll get the Stephen King Summer Book Club + all her other Secret Stuff content AND the full Stephen King Summer archives.JOIN STEPHEN KING SUMMERFor Stephen King Summer 2026, we’re reading:HOLLYThe Life of ChuckCUJOand we’ll do watch alongs each month in addition to our zoom book club meetings. I would love to see some Slow Readers over on Secret Stuff this summer! This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit slowread.substack.com/subscribe
- May 18, 202657 min
SLOW READ: The Stand (Chapters 65 - 71)
Welcome to SLOW READ, where we tackle the books you’ve always wanted to read at a pace you can handle.Hosted by Sarah Stewart Holland and Laura TremaineWe are currently reading The Stand by Stephen King (unabridged version)You can find our full Reading Schedule hereJoin the SLOW READ community on Substack for bonus episodes, book club meetings, and Side Quests with Sarah & LauraMentioned in this episode:* Michael Pollan on the Ezra Klein Show * Rosemary’s Baby (1968 film) * The Sopranos The Announcement Before We BeginLaura: Hello, I’m Laura Tremaine.Sarah: And I’m Sarah Stewart Holland.Laura: This is Slow Read, where we tackle the books you’ve always wanted to read at a pace you can handle. And we are in the final chapters of The Stand by Stephen King.Sarah: If you have been reading along with us since January, lordy, things are finally happening. And if you are binging and catching up with us, well, welcome.Laura: There is a lot to discuss, including whether or not Randall Flagg is a bride’s dream come true.Sarah: He is not.Laura: Spoiler for the whole episode. He is not.Sarah: Now, we would love for you to join us for our last couple of book club meetings for The Stand. Our May meeting is next week. And then we’ll have a big final meeting in June to process the end of The Stand and our whole slow reading experience together. You will want to be there for these meetings because they’re going to be very satisfying to discuss this novel after being with these characters for six months — and each other for that matter. And we’ll be revealing what our next Slow Read is going to be. It’s a big one. It’s a big announcement.Laura: These book club meetings are for our Substack paying members only. And when you join us over there at the Slow Read Substack, you will get not only our book club Zooms with me and Sarah, but you’ll also get a host of other goodies, like all of our Side Quests where we share our personal stories about our dreams, death, parenthood, love triangles. Don’t you want to hear us talk about those things that are tangentially related to The Stand that we have been discussing for the last five, six months? Join us over on slowreadbookclub.com. That’s on Substack.The Balance of Good and Evil (Before We Even Get to Chapter 65)Laura: Okay, Sarah. Chapters 65 through 71. Wow.Sarah: It’s weird because Stephen King has spent the whole book setting up how powerful Randall Flagg is. And then the closer they get, he’s starting to poke holes in that power — which felt like a lot of what this section was. But it hasn’t really lessened my trepidation for our boys as they get closer to Vegas. You know what I mean?Laura: A lot of things I think are happening. He is poking holes in how all-powerful he is, but it feels like sort of the yin and yang to what he also did with Mother Abagail.Sarah: Yeah.Laura: So there’s a real balancing happening in this part of the book, which for me was a little jarring — to go from all of these hundreds of pages spending in the Free Zone with these characters that we love and how they’re setting up their community and all this, and then now to spend the last couple sections in Vegas. I’m like, this is a decidedly different vibe. And I agree with you. It doesn’t make him any less scary.Sarah: But that’s because we know from life experience — not to mention our own literary tastes — that just because he’s not all-powerful doesn’t make him any less terrifying. It’s almost he’s almost more terrifying now that he’s feeling a little desperate.Laura: Right, because he’s backed into a corner. People backed into a corner are
- May 11, 202646 min
SLOW READ: The Stand (Chapters 61 - 64)
Welcome to SLOW READ, where we tackle the books you’ve always wanted to read at a pace you can handle.Hosted by Sarah Stewart Holland and Laura TremaineWe are currently reading The Stand by Stephen King (unabridged version)You can find our full Reading Schedule hereJoin the SLOW READ community on Substack for bonus episodes, book club meetings, and Side Quests with Sarah & LauraIf you prefer to read instead of listen, below is a cleaned up transcript of the episode as well as links to all the books and Substacks we mentioned in this episode…and several fun bonus links and videos!Mentioned in this episode:* The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien* The Tune of Things: Is Consciousness God? (Christian Wilman in Harper’s, 2025)* Moby Dick by Herman Melville* The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne* Paradise Lost by John Milton* “Top of the World” by The Chicks (Official Video)* Stand By Me (1986 film) — IMDbThe Writing in This SectionSarah: Laura, after a very long time in the free zone, we are back with Randall Flagg and his crew, which have been varying levels of infiltrated by the committee spies. How did you feel about this section?Laura: I thought these particular chapters were some of the best written of the whole entire book. I have two standout sections that I consider the best in terms of incredible sentences and just the craft of it — this is one of them. Not a ton of wild imagination necessarily, but the sentences in this section, I was like, oh, that’s so well written. How he looped back several different things, and then the section many hundreds of pages ago with Glenn Bateman — that one felt really well written too, really poetic. But this section feels different. Like he was in a flow state, Mr. King, when he did this part.Sarah: I totally agree. I thought it was really engaging. And I also want to say — in this section as a whole, King makes a ton of literary references. He references Edgar Allan Poe, he references Lord of the Rings. I looked up the law book that Judge Ferris is reading, the one King mentions multiple times, and that’s a real book — it’s literally about racial social justice. I looked at it and was like, okay, he is doing some things. King is doing some things. This is pre-Black Lives Matter as a movement, but obviously these conversations were being had. We’re coming out of the 60s, back in the 70s when this was first written — it makes sense.Laura: And back to the writing style changing — I feel like that’s also part of the fact that we’re now in Vegas, and we haven’t been there for hundreds and hundreds of pages, and the writing is just different. It almost feels like these little sections — Judge Ferris, Dana, and then Harold — could almost be novellas with just a little more structure put in. They’re so well done. But it’s a really different tone from the time we’ve been spending in the free zone, which is a little folksy, a little quote-unquote normal novel stuff. This is really different, and that feels intentional. The Vegas parts have a different flavor. And I also like that he’s making the connection that not everyone in Vegas is evil. People are people. It’s not black and white.Chapter 61: Poor Judge Ferris
- Apr 27, 20261h 12m
SLOW READ: The Stand (Chapters 56 - 60)
Welcome to SLOW READ, where we tackle the books you’ve always wanted to read at a pace you can handle.Hosted by Sarah Stewart Holland and Laura TremaineWe are currently reading The Stand by Stephen King (unabridged version)You can find our full Reading Schedule hereJoin the SLOW READ community on Substack for bonus episodes, book club meetings, and Side Quests with Sarah & Laura______Mentioned in this episode:* Giants in the Earth by Ole Edvart Rølvaag * The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood * How to Change Your Mind by Michael Pollan * Contagion (film, 2011) Living Inside the BookLaura: And after a few hundred pages of peaceful community building, some stuff really happens in this section finally.Sarah: I’d say so. I found myself traveling recently to Vegas of all places. And I was driving and I looked up at the moon and it was like fully half. And I’m like, oh, we’re not to the full moon for Tom Cullen. As if I have to wait for the full moon in my life for him to come back. I’m like real in it. I noticed every mention of Boulder. I noticed every mention when I was walking around Vegas. It feels like almost at the pace it’s happening. I’m a little stressed and I’m just in it. The anticipation of what’s going to happen next, especially after this section, is very, very high.Laura: I am having a similar experience by doing this so slowly. I’m reading it so differently than I would read any other novel, which changes your relationship to the character. Of course it’s a reread for me. Where if you’re mildly irritated by a character, you’re just reading so fast that you don’t really sit with those emotions. You’re like, well, that’s sort of annoying, and you just keep it moving because you’re propelled by the plot or by finishing or whatever. By doing it slowly, it really changes the way I think about the characters because, like you said, we’re kind of in it real time, like they’re friends.In the past, when I didn’t have much sympathy for Larry Underwood because he just seemed very narcissistic, on this read, doing it slowly, I’m sort of seeing the fullness of his character differently—and having a lot of sympathy for him until we get to this section and he wore me slick.Sarah: This is always my experience with slow reads. I read War and Peace last year and I just felt like I lived about 20 percent of my life in Russia all year long. When you do a slow read, you also live a little bit in the book. You’re not hopping in and out. You’re not speeding through. You’re just existing there and soaking up all the slow changes and the atmosphere and the annoying people and the people you like and everybody’s choices. That’s why I like it so much.Laura: Because when you read quickly, you get the high level of what an author is doing with a character. You understand if they’re meant to be manipulative or the hero. But when you go slowly, you just feel like you know them. You can sort of think about this book when you’re driving around town doing your errands, like you would think about people you know in real life. It’s just really a different experience, but I’m loving that part.Sarah: Yeah, it’s the best. I love hanging with characters like that. Even when they’re all dying. Even when they’re all dying. Laura: Which brings us to the bummer of this section.Chapter 56: Babies, Bombs, and Bad NewsLaura: Chapter 56, we start out — are the babies dying? This is rough. I feel like this theme is going to hit the mothers among us. The beginning of this chapter, Ralph stops Stu and tells him that a new group is coming in to join the Free Zone. There’s about 40 of them. Wonderful news. There’s a doctor among them. But not so great news is that one of them, Mrs. Wentworth, was pregnant with twins. She delivered on the road as they were walking. And both of her twins die under mysterious circumstances. Everyone’s mind immediately goes to: did the babies breathe air and immediately get the super flu?Sarah: That doesn’t make sense virology-wise, because I’m an amateur virologist now. I
- Apr 20, 202656 min
SLOW READ: The Stand (Chapters 52 - 55)
Welcome to SLOW READ, where we tackle the books you’ve always wanted to read at a pace you can handle.Hosted by Sarah Stewart Holland and Laura TremaineWe are currently reading The Stand by Stephen King (unabridged version)You can find our full Reading Schedule hereJoin the SLOW READ community on Substack for bonus episodes, book club meetings, and Side Quests with Sarah & LauraIf you prefer to read instead of listen, below is a cleaned up transcript of the episode as well as links to all the books and Substacks we mentioned in this episode…and several fun bonus links and videos!Mentioned in this episode:* The Stand by Stephen King* Cujo by Stephen King* Kojak (CBS, 1973–1978, starring Telly Savalas)* The Message (Bible in contemporary language)* Erin Hicks Moon’s Substack* Homeward Bound: The Incredible Journey (the 90s movie with the two dogs and the cat)Welcome to Slow Read: The Stand. We are your hosts Sarah Stewart Holland and Laura Tremaine.This is episode [N] of Slow Read: The Stand.If you prefer to read instead of listen, below is a cleaned up transcript of the episode as well as links to all the books and Substacks we mentioned in this episode…and several fun bonus links and videos!Mentioned in this episode:* The Stand by Stephen King* Cujo by Stephen King* Kojak (CBS, 1973–1978, starring Telly Savalas)* The Message (Bible in contemporary language)* Erin Hicks Moon’s Substack* Homeward Bound: The Incredible Journey (the 90s movie with the two dogs and the cat)Chapter 52 - Mother Abagail’s CrisisSarah: We are now deep into Stephen King’s The Stand.Laura: Deep.Sarah: Deep. And this week we’re talking about chapters 52 through 55 and all the ridiculous things it contains. Do you like what I did there with “ridiculous things”?Laura: Oh yes. God. Killing it. Laura: All right — we are now in the heat of August and the chessboard is being set. We spent all our time in this section in the Free Zone, where society is forming, spies are aligning and alighting on their missions. We are burying bodies, having elections, thinking about law enforcement. But first, we start in Chapter 52, where our Free Zone fearless leader is actually a not-so-fearless leader. We start with Mother Abagail, who seems to be having a bit of a spiritual crisis. What did you think of this section as a whole? Because I was reading it thinking — is this a horror book? Is this a literary book? What are we doing?Sarah: I got a little bored when I was writing up the summary and kind of getting ready for this episode. A lot of things happened that I thought were interesting as I was reviewing it. But while reading it, I kept putting it off. I think I was just a little — I’m ready for somet
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