Changes In Stephen King's The Stand 1978-1990 Part 10

Most of the additional chapters in the revised version of The Stand occur early in the novel, and Chapter 20 is one of them (and, yes, when a novel has 78 chapters, Chapter 20 is still early).  The chapter focuses on Fran Goldsmith figuring out what to do with her life now that she is pregnant.  It's essentially a characterization chapter, which is why it probably got cut from the earlier, shorter version of the novel.  Fran hangs about in a hotel, King makes an AC/DC joke, and Fran's mother gets the flu, as Captain Trips starts hitting Maine hard.

The next chapter featuring Stu Redman only has some minor revisions, but the following chapter is quite expanded.  One minor revision in it though is quite fun.  In Chapter 22, King updates the reference from Jimmy Carter to George Bush.  So, instead of a description of the President of the USA as the "Georgia Giant" and a "clod-hopper"; he gets called "The dirty alderman."  Despite their shared Maine background, it appears King might have liked Bush less than he did Carter.  Then again, he also deletes the line, "The night that man had been elected had been a night of horror for him, and for all thinking men", but since the thought is attached to Len Creighton, who is one of the men responsible for the flu, it's probably just a reflection of the fact that Carter was not perceived as militaristic as his predecessors Nixon and Ford were, and thus might have been viewed as a threat by men such as Creighton to the military's development of biological weapons, and perhaps to Creighton's livelihood of war in general.

The expansion of the chapter involves Billy Starkey's suicide in the Project Blue laboratory where the superflu escaped from.  Before he goes though, Starkey pulls Frank D. Bruce's head out of the bowl of soup he had died in, a fact that had bothered Starkey when he observed it over the surveillance cameras.  As Creighton, who had taken over the command post from Starkey, notices though, Starkey was unsuccessful in clearing all the soup out of the man's eyebrows, which now becomes a fixation for Creighton, perhaps a suggestion by King that though the individuals change, the role remains about the same.

I'll pick up next with Chapter 23, which focuses on Randall Flagg, the novel's major villain (assuming you forgive Starkey, Creighton, and the rest of the military for messing with the superflu in the first place). 

Changes In Stephen King's The Stand 1978-1990 Part 9

The first thing that stands out about Chapter 19 of The Stand is that it has a picture in it.  The 1990 edition has several illustrations by Bernie Wrightson (or Berni; the spelling of his first name seems to vary), perhaps best known as the co-creator of the comics character Swamp Thing.  Wrightson had collaborated with King before on Creepshow and Cycle of the Werewolf.  Strangely, these illustrations are dated 1984 and 1985, suggesting that the revised Stand had a long gestation period.  The first one is of Larry taking care of his dying mother. In general, the illustrations don't add much to the novel, but they're a nice touch and a nod to the old tradition of novels with illustrations which had mostly died out in the 20th Century.

Beyond the inclusion of the illustration, other changes in this chapter are minor.  One interesting one is that King dropped a complaint from Larry's mother about the hospital emergency room being "full of Puerto Ricans".  One might suspect that the more politically correct times of 1990 made that 1970s ethnic complaint a bit taboo, but since he leaves in some of Alice Underwood's other ethnic and racist slurs in the text, it's probably just a result of his fiddling with the text.  The man is a thorough reviser.

I'll pick up next with Chapter 20, which appears to be a new chapter.  

Changes In Stephen King's The Stand 1978-1990 Part 8

Chapter 17 in the 1990 edition is an all new chapter, which features Billy Starkey observing the carnage in the military compound that unleashed the superflu and deciding the government should cover up the flu's existence and origin by killing anyone who stumbles upon the truth.  The chapter cuts to another scene where a Houston reporter and photographer get murdered by undercover military personnel.  In addition to fleshing out Starkey a bit, the chapter makes the handwringing about government and authority in the later Boulder Free Zone scenes more thematically powerful.

Chapter 18 picks up the storyline from the earlier edition again and features Nick Andros becoming the new sheriff by default  in Shoyo, Arkansas.  Oddly enough, the expanded chapter seems to be missing a paragraph from the earlier edition where Nick lowers his head to avoid lip-reading insults from the prisoners.  Otherwise, it seems to have the usual fiddling and minor expansions until the end of the older chapter, to which King adds a few more pages in which the sheriff and most of the town dies, saddling Nick with taking care of the men who assaulted him.  The doctor who treats Nick also notes that the town appears to be blockaded by the army and all the phones are dead, which continues the storyline from the previous chapter about the government trying to cover up the superflu, or barring that, its victims.

Chapter 19 moves to Larry Underwood and New York, and I'll pick up there next.

Changes In Stephen King's The Stand 1978-1990 Part 7

The new Chapter 13 gets expanded a bit where Stu Redman banters/duels with Dick Deitz, and, of course, also has the usual minor fiddling such as removing the italics from "The man with no face" when Stu dreams of Randall Flagg.  The big change is a major expansion in the middle of the old chapter.  King adds a chapter where Deitz tape records an account of the research on Stu and then takes the material from the end of the old chapter involving the nurse Patty Greer and makes it into a short chapter of its own.  Chapter 16 is essentially the same as the old chapter 12 with some minor fiddling (for example, Nehi becomes Jolt in the gas station shootout scene).

Chapter 17 is brand new though, and I'll pick up there next.

Changes In Stephen King's The Stand 1978-1990 Part 6

In the 1990 edition of The Stand, Chapter 8 gets expanded at the end and the reader gets a few more paragraphs detailing how the flu spreads across the country.  Chapter 9 gets a few more details about Larry Underwood's one night stand with the oral hygienist, and Larry's mom buys him a Sara Lee cheesecake with strawberries in addition to all the things she bought him in the earlier edition.  That last addition is odd, but I haven't heard that Stephen King received any sort of product placement money for the novel, so it's probably just a minor detail meant to add to the realistic feel of the novel (well, as realistic as an apocalyptic novel gets anyway) that got cut when the original manuscript got edited.

More major changes happen in Chapters 11 and 12, which aren't the 11 and 12 in the earlier edition.  The 1990 edition has 78 chapters whereas the earlier version has only 68, so, in addition to the various other changes, King adds ten new chapters to the book.

Chapter 11, the first of those new chapters, involves Larry visiting his mother at her workplace, where she lectures him about how selfish he is and then gives him money to go see a movie until she's done working.  He goes and sees one of the Nightmare On Elm Street movies.  Chapter 12 involves Frannie Goldsmith fighting with her mother over Frannie's pregnancy.  Both chapters certainly aren't essential for the plot, but are nice ways for King to develop the characters a bit more, especially for Larry's guilt complex and Frannie's concerns about motherhood.  Interestingly enough, both chapters involve the protagonists having conflicts with their mothers.

Chapter 13 returns to one of the chapters in the earlier edition, where Stu Redman gets some answers about his quarantine.  I'll pick up there tomorrow. 

Changes In Stephen King's The Stand 1978-1990 Part 5

Many of the early chapters introducing the cast of characters aren't much changed beyond some fiddling, some expanded characterization, and some updated cultural references.  Some of the times, King leaves some things unchanged that are puzzling.  For instance, the twentysomething rock singer Larry Underwood daydreams of having sex with Raquel Welch.  No offense to Ms. Welch, but not many male heterosexuals who were infants in the mid-1960s probably were fantasizing about her in 1990.  A then-contemporary sex symbol such as Cindy Crawford would have been more likely.  Perhaps, King really had a thing for Welch so he left that reference unchanged, or Larry just likes MILFs (given the later Rita Blakemoor plotline, that's certainly possible).

But I'm discussing changes, not the things King didn't change.  And Chapter 7 has a major change.  In the 1980 paperback, it begins with the nurse telling Stu to roll up his sleeve, whereas in 1990 it begins with an entire scene featuring the character Vic Palfrey trying to figure out how he ended up in the hospital, before it cuts over to the scene with Stu.  The addition is a nice one, though not for Vic since he dies in it, but it fleshes out a minor character and adds a bit more suspense to the threat of the superflu.

Some readers have complained that the earlier version of The Stand is superior to the expanded one since the storyline is more streamlined and the writing more taut, but, in general, if you liked The Stand before, then there's a good chance that changes such as addition of the Vic scene will make you like it more.

They make the novel even Standier.  

Changes In Stephen King's The Stand 1978-1990 Part 4

In his preface, King describes the 1990 Stand as an "expansion of the original novel" and that indeed is what most of the new material is.  Scenes get extended and characters get characterized more.  For example, in the first chapter of the 1990 Stand, the reader learns a bit more about Stu Redmond's background, including that his youngest brother died of pneumonia, for which Stu felt guilty, a bit of foreshadowing on a couple of levels.

Of course, King fiddles as well as expands.  He even fiddles at such tiny levels, it's fairly mind-boggling.  For instant, Stu's description by his drinking buddies changes from "Old-time tough" to "Old Time Tough."  That's right; he deletes a hyphen, adds a space, and changes the ts to capitals.

When I went to Kent State, I worked for a year in The Institute For Bibliography And Editing (IBE), where at that point they were working on crafting critical editions of the novels of Joseph Conrad.  To create a critical edition, they would gather all the editions possible of the novels, including manuscripts, publishers proofs, and related material such as letters commenting on the novels.  Then they would work on figuring what Conrad's intent was for the work and go from there to craft the ideal version of the novel including noting variants in the footnotes.  It was a tough job, not so much mine individually (I mainly scanned in Conrad's letters where he mainly complained to his agent about money and gout), but putting together an ideal version of a text because so many little changes existed among editions (many of them typos and screwups; others, changes of the minds of writer, editor, or publisher).

Seeing something like the switch from "Old-time tough" to "Old Time Tough" would make the IBE staff weep with despair, especially since the 1990 Stand, in addition to the expansion by hundreds of pages, also seems to be filled with tiny little changes such as that.

King once called the writing of the novel his own personal Vietnam.  Editing a critical edition would be like fighting the whole damn Cold War.