In order to be 100% transparent, inaction / stagnation are traits that I can't abide. Characters (and people) that stagnate hold no interest for me. They are one dimensional, and dare I say it, boring. I live for growth, realization, epiphany, and painful awareness of one's motivations in life. With that in mind, I have no problem telling you that it was with resentment that I pushed my way through Roadwork.
Roadwork is another of King's works written as Richard Bachman. This work is about a man, Barton Dawes, who is going to lose his home to a freeway. Rather than allow the state to buy his house and look for a better home, he is paralyzed by depression. Barton destroys his marriage, his career and his life with his inability to move forward.
The saving grace for Roadwork and Barton are the references to a son that died - which are the only parts of the book that I really enjoyed. The reader is led to believe that his motivations for wanting to remain are that all memories of a happier time, with his son and wife, are alive in this house. We are led to believe that perhaps Barton Dawes believes that outside his home he loses his child. But it is just an allusion and Barton does not come to realize this, as far as we are aware. Instead, we are left to read pages and pages of painful stagnation and action without motivation.
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