Stephen King's The Stand: Summary Stephen King's The Stand is a thrilling novel that portrays the forces of good against evil. In the year 1991, a plague strikes America, leaving only a few thousand people alive who are "immune" to the epidemic. Of the survivors, those who serve G-d instinctively join in Boulder, Colorado, while those who worship the "Dark Man" are drawn to Las Vegas, Nevada. The two groups separately re-build society, until one must destroy the other. Franni Goldsmith comes very close to killing herself. She thinks she can not deal with her parents' deaths, being unwed and pre