Tracing The Trails Of Richard Bachman : Thinner
“But it’s hard for a man to give up all his pleasures, even when they don’t pleasure him no more.”
-Stephen King, Thinner
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Thinner would be the last book to be published by Richard 
Bachman before the world would find out that he was actually Stephen King. This book has a noticeably different tone from the rest so there is a part of me that isn’t surprised that this would be the one to break his cover. The other four books (Rage, The Long Walk, Road Work & The Running Man) were written very early on in his career, my understanding is that most of them were written even before Carrie, his first published novel. This is just my assumption, but as far as I know, Thinner was a book he wrote in the normal course of his career at the time and he simply released it as a Bachman book. His original plan for Misery evidently was to release it as a Bachman book so I believe that he was intending to periodically put out books as Richard Bachman, until his identity was revealed.
Stephen King as a writer had come a long way by the time Thinner was released. He had grown and improved a great deal in terms of his craft and as such, Thinner felt much more like a Stephen King book to me than any of the others. The Bachman Books have a definite feel of timepieces, old works by a young author, while Thinner comes across as contemporary and natural, sitting alongside King’s other books of the time.
The story itself is one that will feel familiar to most. The main character of the story is attorney, Billy Halleck. In an event which takes place before the start of the book, Billy accidentally runs over and kills an old woman in his car. When he goes to trial, his case ends up being dismissed by a friendly judge and he manages to avoid punishment. As the book starts, he has just been tracked down by the aged father of the woman who places a curse on him by uttering a single word, “Thinner.”
Billy happens to be morbidly obese, veering close to heart attack country in the words of his doctor. Once the curse has been placed on him, he starts to lose weight inexplicably. And he continues losing weight. Every day, the scale reveals more weight loss until it gets to the point where he and his wife begin fearing cancer. After an extensive medical workup, doctors are unable to come up with any explanation and the loss continues. As the others who had been involved with his legal case begin to fall victim to bizarre ailments as well, he begins to investigate the man who had confronted him and discovers that he and his deceased daughter had been part of a traveling group of gypsies. Eventually, Billy starts to come to the conclusion that he has been cursed.
The book for the most part falls into the middle of the road for me in terms of King’s books. Not one of my favorites but there is still plenty there to enjoy. The story isn’t bad, it just has the feeling of ground that has been covered many times and there wasn’t much in there that really surprised me or took me off guard. There are some ironic moments in the story as more details about his car accident are given that cast an unfortunate light on the crash. I felt sympathetic somewhat for Billy’s situation but I also felt like he was the one ultimately responsible for putting himself there. As he attempts to track down the gypsies in an effort to have his curse lifted, I felt curious in the sense of wondering where the story was going but I never felt that invested in his success or failure.
There is one bright spot to the book I will acknowledge, namely that of the ending. I don’t want to give anything away but I thought what he did with the ending worked really well. After a relatively low key narrative, the conclusion to the book manages to ramp up to a pretty dark ending. As I got down to those last few pages, I figured out where things were going but I couldn’t turn away. It managed to elevate a book for me that, up until that point, I felt was fairly forgettable.
One aspect I would be curious to find out would be the exact circumstances of the book in terms of how King felt about it and why he made the decision to publish it as Richard Bachman. Maybe he decided the book wasn’t that great but couldn’t live with simply trashing it. Who’s to know, but I couldn’t help but consider the possibility that he decided to put Bachman’s name on it because he didn’t want to sacrifice all of the work that had gone into that book.
Obviously, I have no idea if that is really true and I don’t want to give the impression that I’m advocating a conspiracy theory. It was just how the book made me feel.
In terms of the main stage of the life of Richard Bachman, this book marked the conclusion. Sadly, in 1985 it was announced by Bachman’s close friend, Stephen King, that Richard Bachman had passed away from a “cancer of the pseudonym”. In later years, some unpublished Bachman books would be discovered and shown the light of day. I will review those books as I come to them in the time line but for now, I’m looking forward to diving back into the Stephen King universe. This diversion has been fun, but it’s time to get back to it.
My name is Chad Clark and I am proud to be a constant reader.
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