In Which We Discuss Roadwork

See, I said I'd get through them a bit faster.

Roadwork was Stephen King's 10th published novel, in 1981.  It covers a man slowly backing himself into a corner while trying not to think about what he's doing.

I think I must have read this before, since I'm sure I read the entire volume of Bachman Books when I first got it.  And certain parts of it - Olivia mostly - rang a bell.  Other than that, it didn't particularly stand out to me.  It's short, I'll give it that - around 320 pages.  The last hundred went fastest.

Again, James Smythe offers far more insight than I can.  Apparently, the novel was King's response to watching his mother die of cancer.  He hated it at first, but has since come to consider it one of his favourite early novels.

There are also links to other novels; the Blue Ribbon Laundry, which Barton runs, shares a name with the one Carrie's mother works in, as well as the one where the Mangler came to life in Night Shift.

Next up is Cujo, the novel King doesn't remember writing because he drank his way through it.  King was drinking and doing drugs heavily in this period of his life, and an intervention was staged after the publication of Cujo.  King didn't become fully sober and straight until the late 1980s, before writing Needful Things.  We should bear this in mind through the next few novels.

While researching that, I learned that King's daughter, Naomi, is living with her same-sex partner.  Good for her!