Larry Underwood

Larry Underwood (Adam Storke) in The Stand.

Larry Underwood is one of the main characters in The Stand.

Before the breakout of the superflu Underwood wrote and performed a well-known single called, "Baby, Can You Dig Your Man?". He suffers from low self-esteem and does not believe that he is capable of good, and that he must change the way he is. He is one of the survivors of the superflu known as Captain Trips.

Larry, who is in deep debt and feels that he is incapable of anything good, tries to redeem himself by visiting his mother (who he has not seen in years) in New York, which means leaving his beach house in California, after some time spent in New York more and more people start to catch the superflu (and consequently die because of it), including Larry's mother. After the death of his mother at the hands of the superflu, Larry was called to Mother Abagail in Hemingford Home, Nebraska. He escaped New York City with Rita Blakemoor, a woman with crushing anxiety and prescription drug addiction. Larry finds that, as much as he likes Rita, she can annoy him incredibly easily. He loses his temper a few times with Rita and shouts at her once or twice. At one point Rita leaves the then apologetic Larry, but returns, to Larry's delight, as she was too scared when by herself. Rita eventually overdoses on pills and chokes to death during her sleep, Larry to scared and upset by Rita's death, leaves her body in the tent in which they were sleeping. After travelling for a while by himself he feels as though he is determined to become a new man, "a new Larry Underwood". After more travelling he begins to be stalked by Nadine Cross (a troubled soul) and Leo Rockway (a young boy who's family died due to the superflu, and was taken into care by Nadine) - Leo's past traumatised him and left him in a temporary violent and Neanderthal-like state, a state which he was still like during the stalking of Larry. After a while Larry starts to suspect that he is being followed, and once he reaches Maine, is attacked by Leo (who is barring a knife), Larry manages to disarm Leo and is urged by the the worrisome Nadine not to harm him - which he was not intending to. Larry teams up with Nadine and Leo. Along Larry's journey he is successful in gaining the trust and love of Leo (whose real name turns out to be Joe), which Larry originally wanted to impress Nadine, but later feels genuine love for the boy, who slowly returns back to the way he was before the superflu - Leo even starts to talk again, instead of making animal-like grunts. After some more travelling a distressed woman by the name of Lucy Swann spots the threesome and joins them. Once Larry and his group reach the Stovington base, which he knew how to reach due to directions left by Harold Lauder and Fran Goldsmith on a barn, which were left for all survivors and passersby, they follow further directions to Nebraska, ultimately leading to Boulder. Larry's group, which consisted of less than 20 people joined the survivors at Boulder, the survivors at Boulder consists of Mother Abigail, Nick Andros, Stu Redman, Glen Bateman, Harold Lauder, Ralph Brentner, and many more.

Larry pays a visit to Fran, believing that she lives with Harold - Larry wanted to thank Harold for the directions that he had left and wanted to do so with payday candy bars and some wine. Larry forms a friendship with Fran after telling her about his background and how he reached boulder. At a later date Larry pays Harold a visit for the afore mentioned reasons, whilst inside Harold's house he nearly stumbles upon Harold's hidden "Ledger" under a loose stone in his living room but decides against investagating any further out of respect for Harold. Larry (after some persuading by Stu Redman) becomes one of the seven members of the Boulder Free Zone Committee despite his self-doubts.Larry and Fran sneak into Harold's house due to Harold's increasingly strange behaviour, Larry and Fran discover and read Harold's so-called "Ledger" and find out that Harold intends to kill Stu out of jealousy (Harold is jealous of Stu and Fran's relationship), Larry takes this to stu who also reads it. However, the dairy did not mention Harold's plan about bombing the next Boulder Free Zone Committee meeting, therefore Larry, Stu, and Fran are oblivious to the Committee's inevitable danger and decide to discuss the newfound diary at the next Committee meeting. At the next Committee meeting, the bomb is triggered by Harold - killing two Committee members, those members being Nick and Sue stern. Larry, Glen, Ralph, Fran, and Stu survive the blast due to the return of Mother Abigail - who had been missing for a large amount of time. Harold and Nadine flees town to join up with Randall Flagg Just before Mother Abigail passes away due to her wounds, Larry is told (along with Glen, Stu, and Ralph) that he must travel west to  Las Vegas, Nevada to stand against Randall Flagg, and is told that, in this mission, he is second in command - just behind Stu. On the journey to Nevada, Stu breaks one of his legs in multiple places and must be left behind (Kojak stays with Stu, who is later found by Tom Cullen and taken back to Boulder), this leaves Larry in charge. Larry and his group intentionally gets caught by Flagg's men so they could complete their mission of somehow destroying him, Larry and the other two are then put in seperate cells in different wings of the Nevada police department. Glen is shot by Lloyd Henreid at the command of Flagg. Later on Flagg's orders his men to construct two steel cages with square holes in each side, meaning to kill Larry and Ralph in front of his followers by ripping them apart, tying their arms to chains connected to trucks and ordering the men in the vehicles to drive forward. However, Larry accepts that he is going to die and feels that his and Ralph's gruesome deaths will cause an uprising against Flagg, most of Flagg's followers start to turn against him - one follower, Whitney, the chef, stands up to Flagg and preaches to the crowd that Flagg is insane, a statement to which they agreed. Flagg kills Whitney by creating an electrical/firey substance from the tip of his finger and forcing it to cover Whitney's face and ultimately float away into the sky, Flagg then challanges the crowd, asking if anyone else would like to speak up. Before he can even get an answer Trashcan Man returns to the Dark Man begging forgivness and bearing the gift of a neuclear weapon (The nueclear weapon which gradually gave Trashcan Man radiation poisoning), The crowd run away with terror as the electricty that Flagg had created and used to kill Whitney with was slowly being drawn toward the nuclear weapon. Flagg and Lloyd fail and persuading Trashcan Man to take the bomb away in time. Larry witnesses Flagg scream in anger and evaporate/disappear completely. Larry finds comfort as he thinks to himself "I will fear no evil". The bomb then explodes killing all of Flagg's men, along with Larry and Ralph. The nuclear bomb destroys the whole of Las Vegas. Later on it is revealed that Lucy Swann (who became Larry's partner before Boulder and would stay as his partner up until his death) is pregnant due to Larry, Stu mentions in a conversation that Lucy gave birth to twins.