Thinner

The last of the Bachman books.  I had an old copy.  Here is how I can tell:

Maybe if you don't want people to think it's a pseudonym, add a bit more detail to the biography?

I thought that I had read Thinner when I was younger, then wasn't sure, then decided that probably I didn't since I didn't remember a thing about it.  For some reason, I found the beginning to be a really slow read, but it went faster as I went along.  I think that I would still argue without a doubt that this book would be better as a short story, although perhaps SK views a 300-page book as akin to a short story.

Anyway, the main idea of this book was that a lawyer, who had gotten away with manslaughter, was cursed by a gypsy and started losing massive weight.  Obviously.  This curse started when the gypsy touched him and said, 'Thinner' -- hence the title.  Two other people were cursed in this book, one with scales and the other with a horrible skin condition.  I am really curious to know how the gypsy summoned these two conditions ('Scales!').

We start in Connecticut, then guess where we go?  No really.  See if you can guess.  Did you guess Maine?  Because you are correct!  We have already had a conversation about not setting pseudonym books in Maine, so I will just leave it at that.

There were some pretty gruesome moments in this book.  Maybe not quite horror and I didn't find the premise of the thing very scary, but very gruesome.  To exact his revenge, the main character, Billy, calls on a gangster friend to do the dirty work and he is about as brutal as you can get without actually killing anyone (part of the deal).  Also, ball bearings did considerable damage in this book.  Possibly more than they could do in real life using a slingshot.

Then everybody eats a slice of pie and dies.  For real.

I am still not quite convinced on this book.  It definitely was not my favorite, but it wasn't nearly as bad as I thought it was going to be from the beginning.  Probably skippable, if you are doing anything other than reading everything by SK in chronological order.