Blaze: A Novel
by Richard Bachman and Forward by Stephen King
Summary
Once upon a time, a fellow named Richard Bachman wrote Blaze on an Olivetti typewriter, then turned the machine over to Stephen King, who used it to write Carrie. Bachman died in 1985 ("cancer of the pseudonym"), but this last gripping Bachman novel resurfaced after being hidden away for decades—an unforgettable crime story tinged with sadness and suspense. Clayton Blaisdell, Jr., was always a small-time delinquent. None too bright either, thanks to the beatings he got as a kid. Then Blaze met George Rackley, a seasoned pro with a hundred cons and one big idea. The kidnapping should go off without a hitch, with George as the brains behind their dangerous scheme. But there’s only one problem: by the time the deal goes down, Blaze’s partner in crime is dead. Or is he? Includes a previously uncollected story, “Memory”—the riveting opening to Stephen King’s new Scribner hardcover novel, Duma Key.
Excerpt
Chapter 1
George was somewhere in the dark. Blaze couldn’t see him, but the voice came in loud and clear, rough and a little hoarse. George always sounded as if he had a cold. He’d had an accident when he was a kid. He never said what, but there was a dilly of a scar on his adam’s apple.
“Not that one, you dummy, it’s got bumper stickers all over it. Get a Chevy or a Ford. Dark blue or green. Two years old. No more, no less. Nobody remembers them. And no stickers.”
Blaze passed the little car with the bumper stickers and kept walking. The faint thump of the bass reached him even here, at the far end of the beer joint’s parking lot. It was Saturday night and the place was crowded. The air was bitterly cold. He had hitched him a ride into town, but now he had been in the open air for forty minutes and his ears were numb. He had forgotten his hat. He always forgot something. He had started to take his hands out of his jacket pockets and put them over his ears, but George put the kibosh on that. George said his ears could freeze but not his hands. You didn’t need your ears to hotwire a car. It was three above zero.
“There,” George said. “On your right.”
Blaze looked and saw a Saab. With a sticker. It didn’t look like the right kind of car at all.
“That’s your left,” George said. “Your right, dummy. The hand you pick your nose with.”
“I’m sorry, George.”
Yes, he was being a dummy again. He could pick his nose with either hand, but he knew his right, the hand you write with. He thought of that hand and looked to that side. There was a dark green Ford there.
Blaze walked over to the Ford, elaborately casual. He looked over his shoulder. The beer joint was a college bar called The Bag. That was a stupid name, a bag was what you called your balls. It was a walk-down. There was a band on Friday and Saturday nights. It would be crowded and warm inside, lots of little girls in short skirts dancing up a storm. It would be nice to go inside, just look around—
“What are you supposed to be doing?” George asked. “Walking on Commonwealth Ave? You couldn’t fool my old blind granny. Just do it, huh?”
“Okay, I was just—“
“Yeah, I know what you was just. Keep your mind on your business.”
“Okay.”
“What are you, Blaze?”
He hung his head, snorkled back snot. “I’m a dummy.”
George always said there was no shame in this, but it was a fact and you had to recognize it. You couldn’t fool anybody into thinking you were smart….
Copyright © 1973 by Stephen King. Reprinted by permission of Simon and Schuster Inc.
Reviews
“[A]n Alfred Hitchcock–like exercise in moral ambivalence. It’s impossible not to root for Blaze…Powerful and moving”—Booklist
“[H]as all the classic markings of the auteur”—Publishers Weekly
Author's Biography
During the years 1966-1973, Stephen King was actually two men. Stephen King wrote (and sold) horror stories to magazines such as Cavalier and Adam, while Richard Bachman wrote a series of novels that would not be published until the early 1980s and were then collected as The Bachman Books. Bachman died of pseudonym cancer in 1985, shortly after another of his novels, Thinner, was attributed to Stephen King….Blaze—both brutal and sensitive—was the last novel written during Bachman’s early period. It is his legacy.
King’s proceeds from Blaze will be donated to The Haven Foundation, which supports freelance artists.