Stephen King – Thinner (1984)

Stephen King – Thinner (1984)

The french title is “La Peau sur les Os” which could be translated as «Skin & Bones».

I have a long history with this book. It was written in ’84, but it took twenty years for me to hear about it. In fact, back in 1999, a friend at the time told me about this book, as well as The Long Walk. He summarised the story for me and it really made me want to read it! However, I didn’t read it for several years before finally getting round to it in 2019. I loved it… and I had to wait until 2026 to write my review.

We’ll have to rely on my memory for this review too, hoping it hasn’t deteriorated too much yet!

A man (a good husband and father, but an arrogant lawyer) is driving, and his wife, sitting in the passenger seat, is in a mischievous mood. His attention is no longer really on the road, and as a result, the car hits a woman and kills her. Subsequently, the deceased woman’s father touches the lawyer and casts a spell on him. The lawyer is obese and weighs over a hundred kilograms, but from that day on, he loses a kilogram a day. Until he is skin and bones…

There you have it! The tone is set. The horror has only just begun!

This book is the fifth novel published under the pseudonym Richard Bachman, released a few days after The Talisman (also co-written by Peter Straub); it is the first Bachman novel to be published in hardback, as well as the first published under this pseudonym to feature a supernatural element. The similarities between Thinner and King’s novels caught the attention of experts, and Steve Brown, a bookshop employee, uncovered the deception whilst examining the copyright forms at the Library of Congress. In January 1985, Brown wrote a letter to King informing him of his discovery and his intention to reveal everything publicly, but the writer beat him to it by admitting in February that Bachman and he were one and the same person. Sales of Thinner skyrocketed, rising from 28,000 to 280,000 copies in just a few weeks!

It’s worth noting that one literary critic had been thoroughly fooled by the Richard Bachman pseudonym and had even written that The Long Walk ‘could have been written by Stephen King if he knew how to write’! I find that quite hilarious.

King has used other pseudonyms, such as Beryl Evans and John Swithen. He has written seven books under the name Richard Bachman. The idea for this novel came when his doctor strongly advised him to lose weight, as he was then weighing over 100 kg. King followed this advice, albeit reluctantly, and began to think about what would happen if someone started losing weight and could no longer stop the process.

This book has its slow moments, certainly, but I loved it all the same. It has its flaws and the ending is quite poetic, artistic, even symbolic. The whole thing was adapted for the cinema by Tom Holland in 1996 in a film of the same name. The film and the book have seemingly different endings.

Tom Holland (not to be confused with the British actor born in 1996, known for his role as Spider-Man) specialises in horror films. He is notably the director of Fright Night, as well as the first episode of the Chucky series. He made another adaptation of a Stephen King story, the fabulous The Langoliers. He is also the uncle of Dexter Holland, lead singer of the band The Offspring.

In this book, the name and character that made the biggest impression on me is Ginelli!
There are always one or two names that stick with me from every book. In Cujo, I remember Vic and his son Tad. The mother played a huge, really important role, but I’ve forgotten her first name. Well, it’s Donna, just in case. I’ve just refreshed my memory with a quick search.

In The Long Walk, I remember Garraty. He’s mostly called that throughout the novel, even though his first name is Ray. It’s like in the army where you rarely know your comrades’ first names!

This is a story that can really touch you, especially if you have weight issues. Stephen King has the decency and class not to portray the Gypsies as the big bad guys, but rather as a very close-knit community that’s best not to cross. Harm one of their own, and you’ve offended them personally – and then they can become quite dangerous. They also detest injustice and probably possess quite a bit of esoteric knowledge in their own way.

Thanks to this author, I’ve learnt loads of things I’d never understood anywhere else. In three pages, he’s explained metabolism to me better than anyone else. He also has the perfect answer to the question ‘Why do good people suffer and die very young?
— Because anything is possible!’ Quite simply.

As you can see, I haven’t seen the film and I have absolutely no regrets about finally reading this novel. And with regard to my penultimate paragraph, I will never forget one of the most important lines: ‘Everyone pays… even the innocent!’