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Thinner

3.51 of 5 stars 3.51 · rating details · 70,074 ratings · 844 reviews

When an old Gypsy man curses Billy Halleck for sideswiping his daughter, six weeks later he's 93 pounds lighter. Now Billy is terrified. And desperate enough for one last gamble...that will lead him to a nightmare showdown with the forces of evil melting his flesh away.

Audio Cassette, Abridged, 0 pages

Published September 1st 1985 by DH Audio (first published 1984)

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Mar 20, 2012 Stefan rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Thinner is the last of the Bachman books before the world officially knew that Richard Bachman was actually Stephen King (although by this point most fans were at least 90% sure.) As such, this novel is more in the style of king than in the more raw style that I found in the other earlier Bachman books.

Thinner is a great "revenge" novel. The story moves quickly and the main character's race against time keeps the pages turning at a fairly rapid pace. The nice thing about this one is that, in tru...more

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Feb 18, 2013 Gary rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Stephen King at his absolute best, weaving everyday themes of guilt, responsibility, revenge, prejudice, friendship, love... into a taut supernatural thriller. Great writing, great story and characters and a jaw dropping 'Oh Noooooooo!!!' ending. Absolutely recommended whether you are a Stephen King fan or not. This will keep you wanting more right to the end. 5 stars? No-brainer.

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Mar 01, 2009 Ryan Mishap rated it 1 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: when-i-was-a-lad

Ahh, the good old Gypsy stereotype, c'mon give me a break.

I devoured Koontz and King back in middle school and part of high school. In retrospect, I could have spent my time on better books, but these chillers were an escape from things I didn't want to think about, especially at night when I couldn't sleep and my mind twisted my perceptions nauseatingly.
I'm not saying you should bother reading these, especially now that Koontz is openly being Christian and Stephen King thinks he is a writer,...more

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Nov 19, 2010 Maciek rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: horror, owned-books, own-in-paperback, saw-movie, favorites, reviewed

'Thinner,' the old Gypsy man with the rotting nose whispers to William Halleck as Halleck and his wife, Heidi, come out of the courthouse. Just that one word, sent on the wafting, cloying sweetness of his breath. 'Thinner.' And before Halleck can jerk away, the old Gypsy reaches out and caresses his cheek with one twisted finger. His lips spread open like a wound, showing a few tombstone stumps poking out of his gums. They are black and green. His tongue squirms between them and then slides out...more 'Thinner,' the old Gypsy man with the rotting nose whispers to William Halleck as Halleck and his wife, Heidi, come out of the courthouse. Just that one word, sent on the wafting, cloying sweetness of his breath. 'Thinner.' And before Halleck can jerk away, the old Gypsy reaches out and caresses his cheek with one twisted finger. His lips spread open like a wound, showing a few tombstone stumps poking out of his gums. They are black and green. His tongue squirms between them and then slides out to slick his grinning, bitter lips.
Thinner.

Richard Bachman was not a very nice guy, and "Thinner" shows why. It was the last Bachman novel, before the cover was finally blown and it turned out that Richard Bachman was in fact Stephen King.
Or as King prefers to say, his dark half. The fingers that typed out the Bachman books might have been King's, but the one who sent words to the fingertips was old Richie. The creep from grocery stalls, airports and train stations, whose novels were printed without any sort of advertising and promotion, and who gained his reputation by word of mouth alone.
In fact, "Thinner" sold 28 000 copies when it was published, which is over ten thousand more than King's collection "Night Shift" did several years earlier. Of course, when it turned out that both were copyrighted by the same guy the sales of "Thinner" went through the roof.

It's hard for me to choose a favorite from the Bachman books, but I can safely say that Thinner is a perfect closure to a career that ended much too soon. The Bachman novels were all pretty grim, but I think that Thinner, together with The Long Walk, are the most thought-provoking and interesting.
Also, Thinner is the sole Bachman novel that can be classified as horror, though it is much more than that.

As with "Quitters, inc.", a classic short story about giving up smoking, King took another of the American nightmares and turned it around - weight. Billy Haleck, the protagonist, is a succesful lawyer who also happens to be fifty pounds overweight. Billy is camping at the border of heart attack country; his doctor, his wife, hell everyone tells him to drop some pounds, but Billy just can't get enough of the sweet taste, of the sour taste, of all delicious tastes of all delicious food. After all, all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy!

One night while Billy is driving home and his wife, um, distracts him, he hits an old gypsy woman who dies instantly. The case is quickly dismissed; after all, Billy is a lawyer and no one in town is exactly a fan of gypsies. Just as Billy gets out of the courthouse, the old gyp comes to Billy and touches his cheek, whispering the sole, menacing word - "thinner".

Billy dismisses the old man as mad, and goes back to his life as if nothing had happened. Till he hits the scale. He notices that he starts losing weight - at first he, his wife and his physician are all happy and rejoice in the blissful success of all diets he undertook. But when the pounds keep dropping and Billy keeps eating he starts being suspicious. He's not afraid of cancer, because his results were perfect...he's afraid that the old gyp might have meant what he said.
And the pounds keep dropping...

The strenght of "Thinner" lies in its complexity. Most works deal with likable protagonists and unlikable villains. That's not the case with "Thinner" - it's up to the reader to decide whom he will root for. If there is a person to like - After all, Billy did kill the old gyspy woman; and after all, the old gypsy's revenge is much out of proportion. "Thinner" is not a simple horror story, as many would pigeonhole it; the clever meachnisms of characterization and themes allow "Thinner" to work on several levels: as a cautionary tale on the pointlesness of conflict and hatred, the clash of cultures, family drama, corruption...the story of the white man and the gyp who crossed him. Or is it the other way round?

I don't want to spoilt any of the plot detail, because it's truly a jou to watch it unfold. The novel was adapted into a movie in 1996, and while it greatly simplifies the novel it carries most of the story thanks to great performances of Robert John Burke and Joe Mantegna-. It's definitely worth seeing, but only after you've read the book.
"Thinner" is one of the great horrormeister's most underrated works and deserves to be much better known and appreciated. It will make you turn the page, it will make you think and question your decisions, I don't know if it will scare you but you'll certainly remember it long after turning the last page. Eat hearty.

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Sep 25, 2011 Leo rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This one was pretty damn enjoyable. I found it slowed down around the half-way point, then picked up just in time for a really wicked build-up to the gritty, outstanding final few chapters. The real highlight for me was Richard Ginelli, one of King's coldest, coolest and most dangerous characters that I've come across. (Ginelli gets a really brief reference in book two of the Dark Tower series - I got a good kick out of that!)

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Dec 13, 2012 Lee rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: 2012-gr-challenge

I first read this when I was in junior high and I love it just as much today as I did back then. I love how King puts so much detail in his stories that they feel new even on a third read. You always find something you missed or completely forgot about. To me this is an excellent quality in an author and makes their books so much more enjoyable.

As usual Billy is a well written character with a lot of depth and emotion. You really get drawn into his life and what is happening to him. King is a ma...more

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Nov 24, 2008 Mrs. rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This book was written by Richard Bachman, and for years, King denied that he was Bachman. The thing I love about the Bachman Books is that they do have a slightly different tone from the other King novels. It's almost as if "Bachman" feels more cold toward his characters- a character we get to know will lose everything, wheras in a King novel, he may hold on to something.

In "Thinner", the main character is a well-to do lawyer who accidently kills a woman and is let off by the very court he works...more

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Jan 05, 2012 Mary rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: Anyone who enjoys horror

Recommended to Mary by: Library Book Sale

Shelves: read-but-unowned, 1970-1989, 90-95, bought-at-a-library-book-sale, hardcover, horror

When heavy-set attorney Billy Halleck accidently kills an old gypsy woman, his dreams of losing weight turn to nightmares as the old woman's family curses him. The ancient curse slowly forces Billy to lose weight, then more and more rapidly as time goes by. Now Billy must find a way to escape with his life.

I have read quite a number of Stephen King's books and although he is very popular as a writer, I find many of his books a little longwinded and drawn out. However, I found Thinner very scary...more

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Feb 13, 2013 Rachel rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: Readers new to Stephen King or the Horror genre.

Shelves: horror

As a child I remember being fascinated by the covers on my mother's book collection. The one's that always stuck in my mind were those of Stephen King's books. It, The Tommyknockers, The Dark Half, I would stare at these books trying to imagine what stories lay within but, knowing even my mother was scared by some of these tales, I never dared tried to read one.

During my younger teens we came across a used book store while on holiday. Pawing through cardboard boxes of cheap second-hand paperback...more

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Feb 06, 2013 C. rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. For years and years I always named THINNER one of my top favorite Stephen King novels. Of course, I was going from the memory of having read it in high school, most likely my freshman year. Now, having revisited the novel at 40 as opposed to 14, I’m not sure I’d place it so close to the top of my list, but it’s still, in my opinion, a pretty good read.

Connecticut lawyer Billy Halleck has recently escaped justice after accidentally running down an old gypsy woman when the judge presiding over the...more For years and years I always named THINNER one of my top favorite Stephen King novels. Of course, I was going from the memory of having read it in high school, most likely my freshman year. Now, having revisited the novel at 40 as opposed to 14, I’m not sure I’d place it so close to the top of my list, but it’s still, in my opinion, a pretty good read.

Connecticut lawyer Billy Halleck has recently escaped justice after accidentally running down an old gypsy woman when the judge presiding over the case--a friend of Halleck’s who just happened to not dismiss himself from the case--lets Billy off without so much as a slap on the wrist. So the gypsy woman’s father, Taduz Lemke, decides to take matters into his own hands in the form of a curse. After the hearing, he touches Billy’s cheek and whispers to him the word, “Thinner”. Billy shrugs it off at first, but later that word comes back to him when he steps on the bathroom scale and sees he’s lost a few pounds.

Losing a few pounds is a good thing at first as Billy is a portly fellow, and he needs to drop a few pounds anyway. But when he starts eating even more than he did before, and yet the weight still flies off him, he becomes worried.

And when he discovers the judge who let him off and the officer in charge of the case--the one who didn’t bother giving Billy a breathalyzer test after the accident--have also both been cursed, he realizes he has to do something before he wastes away to nothing.

Meanwhile Billy’s wife Heidi and his doctor insist there’s no such thing as gypsy curses and they try to have Billy involuntarily committed. But before they can act, Billy takes off in search of the gypsies, intent on persuading Lemke to take off the curse. But when his efforts fail, he resorts to less legal means in the form of a former client and current Mafioso, Richard Ginelli.

If you’re one of the five people who still don’t know, THINNER was the final Richard Bachman novel released in the 1970s and 80s when Stephen King was trying to discover if his fame was the result of talent or luck--and to publish more novels without over saturating the market. Shortly after its publication, King was outed as Bachman and the book re-released as a Stephen King novel, “writing as Richard Bachman”.

Sandwiched between behemoth books THE TALISMAN and SKELETON CREW, THINNER is a very small book at only 309 pages. But those 309 pages contain plenty of action and the story moves along at a great pace. King’s writing was tight and sharp and his characters, while not exactly the kind of people you root for, come across as believable and solid, especially Halleck in his relationship with his daughter, and Ginelli in his efforts to help free Billy from the curse. While it’s never stated outright, there’s a real respect on Ginelli’s part and a desire to do right by Billy, a man whom he sees as a friend in a life with few real friends to begin with. There’s even mention earlier in the novel of Ginelli telling Halleck, once he makes partner in his law firm, that he should probably not come around much anymore in order to keep his reputation from being tarnished by his association with Ginelli. And even though several years pass between visits, Ginelli doesn’t hesitate to jump at the chance to help his old friend the moment Billy needs it. I think that was always one of the aspects I liked most about this book over the years. It’s just a little thing and probably not as big a deal as it came across to me, but the respect and devotion Ginelli shows Billy, the lengths he goes to to help his friend, who is in desperate need of help, was excellently portrayed by King.

Another aspect of the story I felt King really pulled off well was Halleck’s feelings toward his wife which go from loving and appreciative in the beginning to the end where things have taken a complete 180. I won’t give details, but Halleck sort of blames his wife, in part, for what happened and when she totally dismisses his theory of the gypsy curse and then tries to have him committed, the honeymoon is obviously over. Granted, I felt that note was a little overplayed at times and does not help the reader to sympathize with the Halleck character at all--like I said, these aren’t people you root for--but it was managed with King’s usual gradual touch. That touch is, for me, what made THE SHINING and ‘SALEM’S LOT such successful novels, and it’s used to great effect in THINNER as well.

I don’t think the novel, as a whole, is quite as effective as I remembered it being for 20+ years, but it’s still a good novel and a worthwhile read. It’s a vicious story with equally vicious characters and it doesn’t waste a lot of time on unnecessary subplots or sidetracks. King’s focus was clearly on telling this story as succinctly as possible, the end result being a quick, energetic read, offering a terrifically horrifying situation, and told in a way that doesn’t waste a single word. It may not be in my top five anymore (considering he’s written over 40 novels since then) but THINNER is still, in my opinion, a dmn good read.(less)

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Jan 25, 2013 Jason rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

His best.

Billy Halleck, an arrogant, obese lawyer in Connecticut, has recently fought an agonizing court case in which he was charged with vehicular manslaughter. While he had been driving across town, his wife Heidi distracted him by giving him a handjob, causing him to run over an old woman who was part of a group of traveling Gypsies. Billy is acquitted thanks to the judge, who is a close friend of his. However, as Billy leaves the courthouse, the old woman's ancient father, Taduz Lemke, str...more
His best.

Billy Halleck, an arrogant, obese lawyer in Connecticut, has recently fought an agonizing court case in which he was charged with vehicular manslaughter. While he had been driving across town, his wife Heidi distracted him by giving him a handjob, causing him to run over an old woman who was part of a group of traveling Gypsies. Billy is acquitted thanks to the judge, who is a close friend of his. However, as Billy leaves the courthouse, the old woman's ancient father, Taduz Lemke, strokes Billy's cheek and whispers one word to him: "Thinner." The word, and the old man's behavior, startle Billy.

From this point on, Billy quickly loses weight; the loss becomes more and more rapid and he realizes that Lemke has cursed him. He also learns that the judge who gave the unfair verdict was also cursed by the old man — scales start growing on his skin. The town police chief who helped soft-pedal the charges against Billy is cursed with a horrifyingly extreme case of acne. Both men eventually commit suicide.

With the help of his friend Richie "The Hammer" Ginelli, a former client and Mafia figure, an emaciated and desperate Billy tracks the Gypsy band north along the seacoast of New England to Maine, where the stage is set for a confrontation between himself and Lemke, resolving the issue of the curse and the blood-debt owed by Billy.

After Richie terrorizes the Gypsy camp, Lemke agrees to meet with Billy. Lemke has brought a pie with him and adds blood from Billy's wounded hand to it, saying that the curse can be transferred to someone else but not destroyed. The weight loss will stop for a short time and then resume unless another person eats the pie, which will strike him/her with the curse and allow Billy to regain his health. Lemke begs Billy to eat it himself and die with dignity, but Billy instead takes it home, discovering along the way that Richie has been murdered by the Gypsies. He intends to give the pie to Heidi, whom he has come to blame for his predicament; the next morning, though, he finds that both she and his daughter Linda have eaten from the pie. Realizing that both of them are now doomed, he cuts a slice for himself so that he can join them in death.
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Jan 04, 2013 Melissa rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: horror

I wasn't really a big fan of this book, which puts me in the minority. I like a lot of King's other works, Different Seasons and The Shining were terrific. But this one left a lot to be desired for me.

Billy Halleck is a local lawyer who has more than just a few pounds under his belt. He's fat. Or at least he is until he's cursed by a gypsy after running over one of the clan. The problem is he got away with the manslaughter, and the man wanted revenge. So now Billy is losing weight at an alarming...more I wasn't really a big fan of this book, which puts me in the minority. I like a lot of King's other works, Different Seasons and The Shining were terrific. But this one left a lot to be desired for me.

Billy Halleck is a local lawyer who has more than just a few pounds under his belt. He's fat. Or at least he is until he's cursed by a gypsy after running over one of the clan. The problem is he got away with the manslaughter, and the man wanted revenge. So now Billy is losing weight at an alarming rate and there's nothing he can do to stop it. Short of finding the gypsy and reasoning with him, Billy is going to die.

Billy is not a sympathetic character. He whines and moans and blames others for his problems. In fact, I don't really see any growth in him at all until perhaps the very last chapter of the book, and by then it was too late for me to really care for him as a character at all. And then there's the gypsies. They're pretty much stereotyped and not in a kind way at all. In fact, there weren't any redeeming characters in this book at all. No one to root for, which aside from a cheap thrill doesn't really make the book worth reading.

I do have to say that the descriptiveness of the writing was very good and up to King's usual standard. You can't complain that it wasn't filled with horrifying detail or scenes that you could absolutely picture through the description. But when broken down the plot just didn't hold up because of the stereotyping, lame attempts at humor using racist jokes, and other flashy tricks with no real substance. This could have been a great book for showing a man trying to do right and correct things to make his suffering go away; but instead you have him whining and blaming everyone else the entire time and ending up just the way you predict he will at the end.

I'll still read King's books, he's got some decent stuff out there and few clunkers like this one. But I can't say that I'd recommend this particular book to anybody.

Thinner
Copyright 1985
318 pages

Review by M. Reynard 2013

More of my reviews can be found at www.ifithaswords.blogspot.com (less)

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Dec 25, 2012 Eyehavenofilter rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Not being a raving Stephen King fan, which by living in Maine Is probably a cardinal sin with a capital "S" I still enjoyed this tale of revenge, "a dish best served cold". King wrote this under the pseudonym, but in true King style, we are introduced to the main character "Billy" who is a fat, obnoxious, selfish, #€¥%, who deserves to be punished for running down a Gypsy woman, and as these types usually do, refuses to take responsibility for his actions, ends up innocent of man slaughter, but...more

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Sep 13, 2012 La Stamberga dei Lettori rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: sakura87

King stesso lo afferma nella Prefazione - in cui, ancora una volta, ci racconta i retroscena dell’affaire Bachman: L’occhio del male (titolo originale: Thinner, ‘più magro’, che è anche la maledizione scagliata dallo zingaro su Billy – a tal proposito: vorrei proprio sapere dove l’espressione occhio del male è diffusa sul suolo italiano, e quando ha soppiantato il più comune malocchio) è pura storia. Non cercateci diversi livelli di lettura, non cercateci chissà che approfondimento psicologico o...more

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Jul 07, 2012 Bjj rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Straight into a very slight plot spoiler – because this book is written by Stephen King but under a pseudonym I was greatly amused to see a reference within the text to “Stephen King books” - my copy has the real author name in great big letters on it – I think maybe this sentence should have been revised for this edition, but it gave me a laugh anyway. Self promotion doesn’t get any more blatant than this – maybe more authors should try it.
But I digress – about the rest of the book. Gyspy curs...more

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Apr 16, 2012 Jia rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: 12th-grade-advisory-books

A fun read. The Bachman stuff is super bleak, and this novel is no exception. King's usual narrative style is present though and the story unfolds with a taught clip that seems to be missing from his newer more pondering and meditative works, but there's nothing really deep here. In Thinner we have a classic American horror story full of xenophobic themes and interesting issues of guilt and shame. The mystery and magic are well-preserved and the slow downtick of Billy's weightloss creates an anx...more

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Nov 22, 2011 Steven Belanger rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Stephen King fans by and large rate this one highly; I have to respectfully disagree. It was the first best-selling Bachman book--but still published under Bachman, not King, which tells you a little about what King himself thought of it. The premise of the curse from a Gypsy is soooo Drag Me to Hell (and a bit of a stereotype); the main character is an Everyman who you don't root for three-quarters of the way through (if at all); and the ending is a downer on so many levels, not the least of wh...more

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Apr 07, 2011 Bianka rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: 11th-grade-advisory-books

Thinner
By Stephen King
320 pp. Signet
ISBN: 0-451-19075-0

Thinner is written by the very well known author, Stephen King, and it's about a lawyer named Billy. Billy lived his life as an obese man who took everything for granted. Until one day, when he was driving home, he runs over a very old gypsy woman. Billy has to go to court because of his accident, but gets away with not going to jail by being good friends with the judge. The father of the old gypsy casts a spell on Billy, without him knowin...more

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Feb 23, 2011 Lee rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: fiction

Ah, Stephen. How I've missed you. Kind of.

Thinner is the final Bachman book, or at least the last one published before Richard Bachman "died". I remember reading something by Stephen King where he explained that his stories tend to have happy endings because life tends to have happy endings. It's just that newspapers don't fill themselves up with "Steve Bobbertson made it home safely from work yesterday, again" when they could instead try to find an alliterative headline for some one-in-a-thousa...more

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Dec 27, 2009 Megan added it · review of another edition Recommends it for: King fans, day trippers, beach reads

I've read other Bachman books, but this one stands out as being particularly hilarious. There's a self-referential moment towards the end that made me guffaw in a way that I never have at a horror novel.

That said, King does some pretty annoying stuff when it comes to—what I presume he's illustrating, anyway—internal feedback loops of characters. The protagonist's stream of consciousness spews the phrase "tit-grabber" in reference to another minor character about 80 times, and I was over it befor...more

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Jan 02, 2013 Daniel Lomax rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. I really am going to spoil everything, so you had better not read this review if you have any intention of reading the book.

The subtitle of William Makepeace Thackeray's "Vanity Fair" was "A Novel Without A Hero". His idea was to tell a story in which none of the characters - or at least none of the male characters - were admirable or amiable. Becky Sharpe is often cited as the heroine of the story, but I think this is a misreading (in fact the narrator states, on about page one, that she's no h...more I really am going to spoil everything, so you had better not read this review if you have any intention of reading the book.

The subtitle of William Makepeace Thackeray's "Vanity Fair" was "A Novel Without A Hero". His idea was to tell a story in which none of the characters - or at least none of the male characters - were admirable or amiable. Becky Sharpe is often cited as the heroine of the story, but I think this is a misreading (in fact the narrator states, on about page one, that she's no heroine, and she certainly never behaves like one). A century later Tom Wolfe tried the same thing with "Bonfire of the Vanities", in which he attempted to write a book in which none of the characters had a particularly good moral compass.

I don't really feel that either of those writers succeeded - is Amelia of Vanity Fair so bad? Becky's husband may be a bit of a milksop but he's not morally objectionable as such, is he? Bonfire of the Vanities comes closer, but the judge's short temper is justifiable and his judgement, after all, is fine; and I see no reason to disapprove of the private detective. (Forgive me for my lousy memory; I can't be bothered to go back and look up the names of these characters.)

With "Thinner" Stephen King has achieves something that neither of those fine writers quite could. Every adult is contemptible and despicable, nobody is spared the rod. Billy kills a woman by accident and takes advantage of a corrupt court process to get away with it; Lemke (the father of the victim) sentences not one but three men to death in revenge, by laying slow and cruel curses upon each; Billy's wife Heidi goes behind his back and tries to get him sectioned; Billy enlists an old friend, a Machievellian crime boss named Ginelli, to scare Lemke into lifting the curse, and Ginelli has tremendous fun scaring people out of their wits; finally, the most Lemke can do is allow Billy to pass on the curse to somebody else, so he chooses his unsupportive wife as the new victim, telling himself that the whole wretched mess was her fault in the first place. Having spent the whole time telling himself he was acting selfishly only because his sweet daughter should not be deprived a father, he finally resolves to deprive her of a mother instead. Verily, this is a novel without a hero.

Onto the politics of the book. As another reviewer pointed out, the old Gypsy curse cliche is indeed repeated, but King makes it clear not only that he knows it's a cliche, but that Travellers are often the butt of racist attitudes, and several passages offer us political and sociological defenses of travelling communities. So it's facile to suggest that Thinner is either engaging in racism or doing nothing different with the old "gypsy curse" plot motif. My only concern is Lemke's laughable accent, when we finally get him in dialogue.

About halfway through the book I realised there was a feminist objection; all the female characters were vacuous or contemptible (excepting Billy's daughter, who is only a child and in many ways a fringe character). However, by the end of the book, *everyone* is contemptible, and some of the female characters turned out to have substance after all; Gina in particular becomes more interesting, and Heidi acquires a third dimension.

David Kronenberg says that you must never be bored in the presence of the character. Thinner achieves something for which I can only think of one precedent in King's career (out of the thirty-two of his books I've read, not that I'm counting): it has more than one really, truly compelling character. Whenever Ginelli is on stage I want to know everything he has done and everything he will do next, and I hang on Lemke's every word. The only other example I know is Firestarter (you'll all disagree with me, I know it), which has Charlie and Rainbird. In both cases I wait with baited breath for a showdown between the two really enthralling characters. However, in Firestarter it's underwhelming - Rainbird doesn't live up to the hype - and in Thinner there is none. Ho hum, I'll keep wading through the books.

A popular question is this: what, besides sheer entertainment, is the point of fiction? Is it a meaningful enterprise? I think one of its functions is to explore what philosophers call "thought experiments". A philosopher can detail a scenario in order to make you consider a philosophical question in a new light; but sometimes this is not enough. It takes a novelist to really draw you in and make you *feel* the question. So when Gandhi says "an eye for an eye leaves the whole world blind" or whatever, it sounds agreeable but I don't really feel the force of what he's saying. Then I read Thinner, and I really, y'know, feel it.

Besides all this, Thinner is perhaps King's most concisely and neatly written book I've read yet, with moments of ornate prose that caught me off-guard. Morally it's a mess, but it's supposed to be; narratively it's a magnum opus, much underrated, and it gets all five of my stars.(less)

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Nov 27, 2012 Dana Salman rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: stephen-king, library-books

Preface: I don't think I would've been fooled into thinking that a guy named Richard Bachman had written this book had I read this book in its time, even if Stephen King put a reference of himself in here. The writing style (and the ever-present naughty bits whose descriptions I really could do without) are too obviously him. No one can write like he can.
I mean that in a very caring way.

I have three classes of Stephen King books.
The first would include all the books that end with the characters...more

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Dec 27, 2011 RaskolnikovRR rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: sidney-sheldon, stephen-king

All that glitters is not gold. All that is Stephen King is not worth reading, or in this case Richard Bachman. It’s King wielding the pen either way and I am terribly disappointed in him. It was more like a R.L.Stine novella for adults, except for some good-paced writing. The plot in itself is not worth it and the characters are shallow, which is very contrary of King. There was no plot in Misery either, hell it was about a writer trapped with a psycho bitch in a worn down house, but that it did...more

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Jan 12, 2012 Nicholas rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

A fun read. The Bachman stuff is super bleak, and this novel is no exception. King's usual narrative style is present though and the story unfolds with a taught clip that seems to be missing from his newer more pondering and meditative works, but there's nothing really deep here. In Thinner we have a classic American horror story full of xenophobic themes and interesting issues of guilt and shame. The mystery and magic are well-preserved and the slow downtick of Billy's weightloss creates an anx...more

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Sep 25, 2011 Zack rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This review is for the novel Thinner by Richard Bachman, a pseudonym of Stephen King. This was written in the early 1980s and it takes place primarily in Connecticut, but later on in Maine. The main character is a middle-aged man named Billy Halleck. He's a fairly succesful lawyer, married to a woman named Heidi, and the father of a teenage daughter named Linda. Billy is about 40 pounds overweight when the story begins. He does something to provoke the wrath of an old Gypsy man, resulting in a t...more

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Apr 13, 2013 Becca's Books rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here.

Welcome to Fairview. Expensive houses, green grass and plenty of money. In one of these expensive houses lives Billy Halleck, a married, over-weight lawyer, who's been told by his doctor that he is entering "heart-attack country". The story begins on the morning that Billy wakes up to the smell of a fry-up cooking downstairs. Whilst enjoying a hearty breakfast with his wife Heidi, and daughter Linda, Billy overlooks what happened not too long ago, and it's playing on his mind, repeatedly.

What...more

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Sep 08, 2012 Sakura87 rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: autori-nordamericani, novecento, horror

King stesso lo afferma nella Prefazione - in cui, ancora una volta, ci racconta i retroscena dell’affaire Bachman: L’occhio del male (titolo originale: Thinner, ‘più magro’, che è anche la maledizione scagliata dallo zingaro su Billy – a tal proposito: vorrei proprio sapere dove l’espressione occhio del male è diffusa sul suolo italiano, e quando ha soppiantato il più comune malocchio) è pura storia. Non cercateci diversi livelli di lettura, non cercateci chissà che approfondimento psicologico o...more King stesso lo afferma nella Prefazione - in cui, ancora una volta, ci racconta i retroscena dell’affaire Bachman: L’occhio del male (titolo originale: Thinner, ‘più magro’, che è anche la maledizione scagliata dallo zingaro su Billy – a tal proposito: vorrei proprio sapere dove l’espressione occhio del male è diffusa sul suolo italiano, e quando ha soppiantato il più comune malocchio) è pura storia. Non cercateci diversi livelli di lettura, non cercateci chissà che approfondimento psicologico o sottinteso, non ne troverete: c’è solo trama, una trama buona se si cerca un puro horror che intrattenga per qualche ora permettendo di spegnere il cervello.
Basterebbe questo per concludere la recensione, ma d’altronde basterebbero poche pagine per raccontare la storia di un grasso e ricco avvocato vittima di una maledizione gitana che lo sta letteralmente asciugando. La moglie di Billy Halleck, infatti, ha scelto proprio un bel momento per aprirgli la zip e fargli un servizietto di mano: in macchina, esattamente mentre un’anziana zingara sta attraversando distrattamente la strada con la sua sporta della spesa.
Billy ha ben poche colpe, ma anche se fosse stato imbottito di alcool e cocaina, la cittadina di Fairfax avrebbe chiuso entrambi gli occhi e se li sarebbe sigillati con la ceralacca pur di proteggere un suo stimato cittadino: dal processo esce senza una macchia, nemmeno una sospensione temporanea della patente. Per non parlare del fatto che la vittima è un’indesiderabile. Billy tuttavia non dimentica, e nemmeno Lemke, un orrendo zingaro che sembra vecchio come Matusalemme, e che dopo averlo toccato in volto lo condanna con una semplice parola:
- Dimagra.
Insieme a un chilo dopo l’altro, Billy perde tranquillità, salute, famiglia. Il raziocinio, la convinzione di essere fisicamente ammalato, cede finalmente il posto all’evidenza dei fatti: la medicina deve arrendersi alla stregoneria. Quando l’uomo realizza che entro poco perderà anche la vita, decide di rivolgersi all’amico gangster Ginelli perché convinca Lemke a ritirare il malocchio. Non a caso italiano, la patria della jettatura.
Un romanzo, in definitiva, che ingrana immediatamente e che procede a ritmo serrato. Raccapricciante al punto giusto, angosciante al pensiero di quei chili che filano ogni giorno, una giustizia vecchia come il mondo che scaglia la sua spada laddove quella umana fallisce. E forse King davvero non intendeva far riflettere, ma è impossibile non rimuginare sulla vita degli zingari e sul modo in cui vengono accolti e poi espulsi, sulla paura del diverso e sul modo in cui condannarlo diventa fondamentale mezzo per l’autoaffermazione della propria identità: troppe pagine l’autore dedica a illustrare – raccontare – la loro vita, la loro arcana e spaventosa bellezza, a condannare la giustizia parziale fino al punto di portare il lettore a parteggiare per loro.
In ogni caso, Richard Bachman è una delle due facce di Stephen King: va goduto per il puro amore dell’intrattenimento, ma non certo esaltato per la sua profondità.(less)

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Jul 02, 2009 Martin Maher rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: s-k-book-club, stephen-king, richard-bachman, horror, read-in-2009

Another great read from the King of horror: Stephen King. This was the first time I read him under the pseudonym of Richard Bachman & was also my first SK bookclub read. To those that haven`t read the book, the story is about an overweight lawyer by the name of Billy Halleck who accidentally knocks down a gypsy woman & kills her. The case goes to court, but it gets away with it (thanks to his friend the judge!). Outside the courtroom the gypsy`s father puts a curse on Billy by putting hi...more

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Dec 20, 2011 Tom O’Connell rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

If I'm reviewing this with the whole Brautigan experiment in mind, I would say it's a resounding failure. What I mean is, it doesn't feel any different from any of his mainstay (King-branded) work and that was, admittedly, a little disappointing. Here was a golden opportunity to really push the envelope stylistically, but the end result was one of the most Stephen King of all Stephen King's novels.

As a Stephen King novel, though, this one's pretty great. It doesn't flounder around with superfluo...more

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Nov 06, 2011 Brandi Pitts rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Summary

Billy Halleck makes a mistake by hitting an old gypsy woman who walked out in front of him. The father of the gypsy woman puts a judgment on Billy by whispering "thinner". After that day Billy started to lose weight and kept on losing weight until he was terriably thin. Trying to find a way to uplift the curse the old gypsy man laid on him Billy travels looking for the gypsy man before its too late.

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I really liked the book Thinner by Stephen King. Stephen King does such a good job...more

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About Stephen King

Librarian Note: There is more than one author in the Goodreads database with this name.

Stephen Edwin King was born in Portland, Maine in 1947, the second son of Donald and Nellie Ruth Pillsbury King. After his parents separated when Stephen was a toddler, he and his older brother, David, were raised by his mother. Parts of his childhood were spent in Fort Wayne, Indiana, where his father's family...more Librarian Note: There is more than one author in the Goodreads database with this name.

Stephen Edwin King was born in Portland, Maine in 1947, the second son of Donald and Nellie Ruth Pillsbury King. After his parents separated when Stephen was a toddler, he and his older brother, David, were raised by his mother. Parts of his childhood were spent in Fort Wayne, Indiana, where his father's family was at the time, and in Stratford, Connecticut. When Stephen was eleven, his mother brought her children back to Durham, Maine, for good. Her parents, Guy and Nellie Pillsbury, had become incapacitated with old age, and Ruth King was persuaded by her sisters to take over the physical care of the elderly couple. Other family members provided a small house in Durham and financial support. After Stephen's grandparents passed away, Mrs. King found work in the kitchens of Pineland, a nearby residential facility for the mentally challenged.

Stephen attended the grammar school in Durham and then Lisbon Falls High School, graduating in 1966. From his sophomore year at the University of Maine at Orono, he wrote a weekly column for the school newspaper, THE MAINE CAMPUS. He was also active in student politics, serving as a member of the Student Senate. He came to support the anti-war movement on the Orono campus, arriving at his stance from a conservative view that the war in Vietnam was unconstitutional. He graduated from the University of Maine at Orono in 1970, with a B.A. in English and qualified to teach on the high school level. A draft board examination immediately post-graduation found him 4-F on grounds of high blood pressure, limited vision, flat feet, and punctured eardrums.

He and Tabitha Spruce married in January of 1971. He met Tabitha in the stacks of the Fogler Library at the University of Maine at Orono, where they both worked as students. As Stephen was unable to find placement as a teacher immediately, the Kings lived on his earnings as a laborer at an industrial laundry, and her student loan and savings, with an occasional boost from a short story sale to men's magazines.

Stephen made his first professional short story sale ("The Glass Floor") to Startling Mystery Stories in 1967. Throughout the early years of his marriage, he continued to sell stories to men's magazines. Many of these were later gathered into the Night Shift collection or appeared in other anthologies.

In the fall of 1971, Stephen began teaching high school English classes at Hampden Academy, the public high school in Hampden, Maine. Writing in the evenings and on the weekends, he continued to produce short stories and to work on novels.(less)

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Quotes from Thinner

“I guess when you turn off the main road, you have to be prepared to see some funny houses.” — 36 people liked it

“sure, we need the gypsies. we always have. because if you don't have someone to run out of town once in a while, how are you going to know you yourself belong there?” — 4 people liked it

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