Blaze (Stephen King, writing as Richard Bachman, 2007)

It's been a few months since I last read any Stephen King, which is a shame as I have loads of his stuff on my shelf (every book in fact, apart from the new hardback ones). I zipped through Blaze in 4 days, a book King wrote but didn't publish back in the 1970's that he has since updated and rewritten in the style of his psuedonym Richard Bachman. Now I've read all but one of the previous Bachman works - Rage, The Running Man, Roadwork, The Long Walk, and Thinner - and to be perfectly honest, I don't really see how they differ from King's other writings. I enjoyed them all, particularly The Long Walk, and I enjoyed Blaze just as much.

Blaze is the nickname of Clayton Blaisdell III, a man who was beaten so badly by his father when young, he know has a permanent dented forehead and a poorly developed IQ. The book follows Blaze's attempt to kidnap and ransom a baby, interweaved with details of his quite tragic childhood and past life. The supernatural element to all this are Blaze's conversations with George, his recently deceased friend. It is established late on that George is inside Blaze's head, and Blaze knows this, but this doesn't explain how when the protagonist is supposed to be mentally challenged, 'George' manages to offer intelligent advice. 

I thought that it would turn out George never really existed and Blaze had a split personality, but the truth was more vague than that! Leaving the eerie aspect aside, King does a great job of making Blaze a sympathetic anti-hero, even as he kidnaps the baby, Joe, who he comes to care for and protect. We see as Blaze grew up he suffered psychological and emotional traumas that help to explain his mental state today. King makes you reassess how the mentally ill are treated, and makes you consider how they got to where they are - I don't think this was intentional, but a by-product of how much King makes you care for Blaze. Needless to say, the ending was quite sad.