King started this book way back in 1976, when I was only 1! It's a behemoth of a book, at 1100+ pages, that is apparently the pared down version of his first draft. That's a little scary to think about.
UTD is a sincerely good King book. I was getting worried about him, having not been enthused about his newest work.
The story begins on October 21st, when an invisible barrier comes crashing down around the town of Chester's Mill, a small sock shaped town in Maine ( I think it's Maine). Dale Barbara is trying to head out of town after a 4 on 1 fight with some of the local thugs. He almost gets a ride but the young girl changes her mind and drives on, leaving Dale aka Barbie to walk on. He doesn't make it out of town before he's trapped by the Dome. Interestingly there wouldn't be a book if Dale had hitched that ride out....
Thankfully King provides a cast of characters list because the town holds a couple of thousand people and I believe we're introduced to almost all of them. Some of the most repugnant is Big Jim and Junior, a father-son duo that is dead set on turning the Dome to their advantage. The only word I have to describe them both is: Repugnant. Kudos to King for writing such vile and nasty people that actually makes you want to punch through the book and into their throats.
It's batted around that the dome is a terrorist act, a karmic intervention, aliens, and some maniacal person in town. I would be a terrible person to give away the end of the book since it's such a task to wade through, so I won't.
Even with it's size, UTD is surprisingly easy to speed through because King has his foot jammed on the gas pedal the whole way through.
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