But all of that changes one night when receiving a blow job from his wife whilst driving, losing concentration and whilst surrendering to the bliss of his wife’s touch cant react in time as a Gypsy woman walks out in front of his car and kills her. Thinner tells the story of Billy Halleck, a gargantuan tub of lard, who apart from being morbidly obese is happy with his lot, he enjoys life, his wife, his job, his family. I have now forgiven him for such a crime, but it has taken a very long time for me to not wish a curse on him for his stupidity!īut anyway I digress – the reason you are here is to read a review of Richard Bachman’s Thinner – so I guess I better get started!
He just gave all his first edition hardbacks of King’s work to the charity shop…did he not realise that I was a bibliophile, that I work for a literature magazine, that I am a huge fan of King’s work? It cut deep….and I gave some thought of whether my dad actually loved me at all. I wanted to read my fathers copy and when I spoke to him about it he told me that a few years ago he’d got rid of all his books. I remember thumbing through the books, taking them off the shelves and staring at the covers – Thinner is one that lodged itself deep in there and so with a bit of nostalgia I decided to take that journey and read it (the book to the right is the copy my dad had).
My dad used to have every King book and the majority of these were in hardback and first editions some even signed (my mother used to get him them for Christmas and birthday presents).
I wanted to take a journey back to some of King’s work as Bachman and had fond memories of staring at this books cover on my dads bookcase when I was little – the cover image used to scare the crap out of me (I was six at the time).
Just think of the challenge that would have awaited both writers as they tried to better the others achievements – because lets face it the man needs some competition – he has had the horror genre by the balls since the 70’s and moved it to wherever he wanted it to go laying down a benchmark that he continues to widen for other writers to follow. It is a shame that the pseudonym of King got out into the world, because it would have been great to have seen if Richard Bachman could have challenged King in the realm of Horror writing – Bachman ( although King) could have quite easily have become King’s nemesis. Richard Bachman is the pseudonym of Stephen King ( if you didn’t already know) and his alter ego has produced some standout books such as Rage, The Long Walk, Roadwork, The Running Man, Thinner, The Regulators and Blaze – all of which were well received, but when word got out and fans began to notice the fabulous mind behind these works could be that of King – these small burning titles quite literally blew up!
0 kommentar(er)
