Showing once again that you can’t judge a book by its cover, Stephen King’s Thinner, originally released under his pseudonym Richard Bachman, is most certainly not the romance novel I’d originally hoped it would be. ;-)
The plot is set in motion when our main character (Billy Halleck), an overweight stereotype of all the ills of modern America (hefty, well off, a family concerned about material goods and image), accidentally runs down and kills a gypsy woman. The leader of this particular band of gypsies (Taduz Lemke) lays down a simple curse. Our Mr. Halleck will get thinner.
This comes out sounding like a pretty sweet deal. Halleck now has a true no-hassle means to lose his excess bulk. The problem is, the weight loss, once started, never stops, and it becomes readily apparent that he will waste away until such point as he dies (see? not romantic in the slightest).
Can Halleck find a way to undo the curse? Is it in fact a curse, or a mental disorder? How will his family deal with this crisis? And, how will it all end?
It’s a pretty well written story, not overly long, and the result is it’s pretty tight. There aren’t some of the long interludes where the story lags (ala. Insomnia), and it makes for a good read. It’s an oldie but a goodie, and I’d recommend this one.
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