digital audio
English language
Published Jan. 20, 2016 by Simon & Schuster Audio.
The “extraordinary” (Booklist) novel of one man’s quest to find the source of his nightmare and to reverse it before he becomes…nothing at all. This #1 national bestseller from Stephen King, writing as Richard Bachman, “pulsates with evil…it will have you on the edge of your seat” (Publishers Weekly).
Billy Halleck, good husband, loving father, is both beneficiary and victim of the American Good Life: he has an expensive home, a nice family, and a rewarding career. But his is also fifty pounds overweight, heading, as his doctor says, into heart attack territory. One day, in a moment of carelessness, Billy sideswipes an old gypsy woman as she is crossing the street. The woman dies, but Billy has connections and gets off with a mere slap on the wrist. After the trial, the victim’s ancient father curses him with a single word: “Thinner.” Shedding weight by the week, Halleck is …
The “extraordinary” (Booklist) novel of one man’s quest to find the source of his nightmare and to reverse it before he becomes…nothing at all. This #1 national bestseller from Stephen King, writing as Richard Bachman, “pulsates with evil…it will have you on the edge of your seat” (Publishers Weekly).
Billy Halleck, good husband, loving father, is both beneficiary and victim of the American Good Life: he has an expensive home, a nice family, and a rewarding career. But his is also fifty pounds overweight, heading, as his doctor says, into heart attack territory. One day, in a moment of carelessness, Billy sideswipes an old gypsy woman as she is crossing the street. The woman dies, but Billy has connections and gets off with a mere slap on the wrist. After the trial, the victim’s ancient father curses him with a single word: “Thinner.” Shedding weight by the week, Halleck is desperate enough for one last gamble…one that will lead him to a nightmare showdown with the forces of evil melting his flesh away. Source: www.simonandschuster.com/books/Thinner/Stephen-King/9781508217381
This should have been a short story, if it had to be a story at all. Nothing about this book clicked with me, from the unsympathetic characters to the tedious "action", and King Bachman's treatment of the Romany seemed particularly tone deaf. Usually I enjoy King's work, but I admit I had to skim a lot of this just to make it through. Would not recommend.
4.5 I think. One of my favorite King books. I enjoyed it just as much this time as I did when I was a teen and read it for the first time.
