by Jay Wilburn
The plan is to reread all of Stephen King’s works in the order that they were published. Richard Chizmar of Cemetery Dance had the vision. I’m doing it because I am a writer and I want to improve my fiction. And I love Stephen King’s stories. I think there is something to be learned through this process.
You can also go back to the beginning and read Before Carrie or any of my other posts up through this one and beyond by checking out this link to the Master List of all my #StephenKingRevisited posts.
Let’s bleed out our curses with Thinner …
This was a Bachman book. There is a Creepshow ad in the back. My copy also had a Bargain Bookstore stamp printed in red ink in it in several places. The fact that the store was in North Carolina when I grew up in Georgia tells me my dad bought it while he was out on the road during his days of traveling.
Several of the chapters countdown by weight while others have regular titles.
“Lips spread open like a wound” and “tombstone teeth” make for a visceral opening paragraph.
“It’s all right and even if it’s not, it’s all over.” Great line.
Feafully? Not sure what it means. It looks like a dialect or arcane alternative spelling for fearfully. Had to put a lot of work into this to not really figure it out.
Handjobs while driving are always a mistake, kids.
The daughter plays Dungeons & Dragons. Seems like that could use some explaining as it never comes up again, but I suppose that’s fine.
The bit around the ritual of weighing one’s self was good.
King talks about Oshkosh bib overalls in his books more than I remembered. King had light “puddle” in someone’s lap. He either wrote that in the Talisman or picked its use up from Straub. King characters also use the word “anathema” more often than I tend to hear its use in real life.
King throws in a headshop called The King in Yellow.
There’s another Walden Books in this story. I really miss those. They’re watching Three’s Company and budgeting on a Commodore computer. Ashtrays in hotel rooms are not something I’ve seen in a while. A character eats McDonald Land cookies. I miss those, too.
The doctor using cocaine in front of his patient is a crazy bit. Using distilled water to protect his sinuses was one I hadn’t heard before. I wonder if that was a trick King tried, one he heard of, or one he just made up.
“They went upstairs and had magnificent sex for one of the last times.” A great piece of King foreshadowing.
“All our worst revelations come in the bathroom.” Another great line.
“You’re starting to sound like a Stephen King novel.” Very cheeky line. I wonder if he was trying to play with the “Bachman” audience on that one.
He switches perspectives in mid chapter. I’ve wanted to do that on a couple stories, but a lot of people don’t like that. I think he uses it well to justify the wife’s perspective on what is going on in the story.
They didn’t let him add gangsters into The Shinning the way he wanted to, but he made up for it a little in this novel. Once the gangster is on the scene, a lot of action occurs “off camera” and has to be recounted later through several chapters.
Pitbulls are expensive? That was news to me.
“A hat that looks like something left over from a kidney transplant.” I have no idea what that means or what that looks like and I’ve had a kidney transplant.
“Bruh” … I’ve heard that in memes and vines, but I haven’t seen anyone use that noise for a character in a story. And this was way before that noise was a viral meme.
A character ends up with a zig zagged lightning scar. Unrelated, King borrows some Harry Potter imagery for one of his later books. I wonder if his imagination was predisposed to the image before he read the Potter books?
There are about twenty or so pages between the “resolution” of the conflict and the actual conclusion of the book that could have been cut. But what do I know?
I thought I predicted the ultimate ending a couple times, but I didn’t expect that ending. I had forgotten the final bit of the story. So, I guess King surprised me twice with the same book. That’s not a bad endorsement for a story.
My next post will be Before Skeleton Crew which will be linked on the Master List of all my Stephen King Revisited posts.
— Jay Wilburn, not getting thinner
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