For my write-up today of Stephen King’s The Stand: The Complete and Uncut Edition, I will talk about Richard Deitz. In the miniseries, Deitz is a doctor at the government facility where Stu Redman is being held, and Deitz notices that Redman is one of the few people who does not have the superflu. In the book, Deitz has the same sort of job (I think), but he’s a Colonel. Something else to note is that Stu in the book is afraid because he does not know exactly what is going on—in terms of the massive superflu.
I did not like Deitz on the miniseries of The Stand. I don’t think we were supposed to like him, for that matter. He laughed at his patients when they were dying, almost as if he admired the disease.
In the book, at least so far, he’s not that evil of a character, in my opinion. He explains to Stu Redman that he cracks jokes when things look serious in order to cope and to keep his “shit together”, which may be poor taste, but it’s understandable and not cold and psychotic. As in the miniseries, Deitz is upset when Stu pretends to cough and then tells Deitz that he was just faking to make Deitz feel like he was vulnerable to the disease—to see things as a possible insider, rather than as an outsider evaluating the disease and those who had it. But, in the book, after some reflection, Deitz could understand where Stu was coming from, and he actually admired Stu. On page 112, Deitz says about Stu (though he does not name Stu specifically):
“I was almost pissed enough to hit him, because he scared the living Jesus out of me. I am not pissed anymore, however. The man put me into his shoes, and for just a second there I knew exactly how it feels to shake in them. He’s a fairly bright man once you get past the Gary Cooper exterior, and one independent son of a bitch.”
I like Deitz’s practical, fair-minded, military-man outlook. I hope that he doesn’t do in the book what he does in the miniseries, namely, try to kill Stu Redman. But I’ll see what happens.