Thinner, book review. (Stephen King)

A book with a very distinct message this one, and it's showing its age, too.

Like a lot of King novels (this one was originally released under his pseudonym Richard Bachman by the way), Thinner has a magical realism to it - the world ticks by and all is nice and normal, as it would be for you and I on any given day, but with a twist, a curse, an old Gypsy curse in this case, and it's one of my favourite things about this author's books. Everything is so normal bar that one thing: be it an ancient alien monster that dresses like a clown, a door in time that might help prevent the assassination of John F. Kennedy, or an old man living with a seventy year old mouse, reality is only ever skewed just a little.

Having killed an old Gypsy woman who stepped out in front of his car (he was concentration on his wife's hand down his pant rather than the road), and the police chief and local Judge whitewashing the whole affair, William (Bill) Halleck walks away, scot-free - well, he would have if the old Gypsy, Lemke, hadn't brushed his cheek on the courthouse steps and whispered that one word: Thinner.

The weight starts to drop off immediately, and the first half of this book is all about his cloths getting baggy, seeing his doctor, friends and colleagues, who, along with his wife and daughter, think it's a good thing but then start to worry, all whilst Bill is in denial, pretending to himself that he didn't hear what Lemke said. The second half is Halleck on the road searching for the Gypsy, tracking him down, and it is the better half, more fluid, emotional, but it's also where the age of the book starts to show.

The writing on a whole is okay, some of the latter chapters almost reach excellence, but when Halleck thinks of his teenage daughter as having 'coltish legs' and a random stranger unnecessarily uses the N word amongst the many other racist slurs against Gypsies, you begin to realise how times have changed.

That disappointment aside (it was written in the mid 80s - which is NOT an excuse by the way but a possible reason), the last hundred pages fly by, and as tensions rise and Halleck's weight plummets (he was 255 at the beginning, now down to 115), and the ending nears - which I won't spoil - the message I referred to at the beginning becomes blatantly clear.

Treat people how you would like to be treated.

Whether it's yourself, your loved ones, neighbours and strangers alike, and take responsibility for your actions. Think before you speak but speak anyway, but be honest, with yourself and those around you, because if you don't, something terrible could happen, something terrible like . . .

Three stars for Thinner then but only just, and no surprise that it was first published under his pseudonym.

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