The Long Walk is a dystopian horror novel by American writer Stephen King, published in 1979, under the pseudonym Richard Bachman.

In 2000, the American Library Association listed The Long Walk as one of the 100 best books for teenage readers published between 1966 and 2000.

Ray Garraty, from Androscoggin County, Maine, arrives at the start of the Walk on the Canada-Maine border, where he meets several other Walkers such as the sardonic McVries, the friendly Baker, the cocky Olson and the enigmatic Stebbins.

Throughout the first day, Garraty befriends Baker, Olson, and several other Walkers such as Abraham and Pearson, growing particularly close to McVries and becoming particularly intrigued by Stebbins.

The Walkers begin to resent the Major, and McVries stops walking in an attempt to fight the soldiers, but is saved by Garraty.

To distract himself, he tells McVries about how he felt a compulsion to join the Walk and that his mother was blinded by the thought of financial security.

McVries reveals that he joined the Walk against the wishes of his family, and Abraham tells Garraty that he did not withdraw after being accepted due to the amusement it provided his town.

Garraty wakes the next morning to find that many Walkers (including Pearson) have died overnight, as Barkovitch predicted.

This has disastrous consequences: Parker starts a revolution against the soldiers but is killed when nobody joins in; Abraham removes his shirt and catches pneumonia overnight because nobody can offer him a replacement, resulting in his death; Baker falls over and gains a severe nosebleed, and is given three warnings as nobody can help him up.

Heidi Strengell describes the book as a naturalistic novel, noting King’s representation of human nature through the characters.

[5] Critic Douglas Winter similarly viewed the novels as King's most despairing work, calling it a "bleak science-fictional mirror of contemporary America".

James Smythe of The Guardian connects several elements of the novel to the conflict: “the televised draft, the horror of seeing new friends die, the seeming lack of reason for it occurring in the first place”.

[16] In July, Hoffman and Jonsson were confirmed to star, along with Garrett Wareing, Tut Nyuot, Charlie Plummer, Ben Wang, Jordan Gonzalez, Joshua Odjick, and Roman Griffin Davis.