The Curse (novel)
The curse (in the original: Thinner ) is a novel by the American writer Stephen King from 1984, which was published as the fifth novel under the pseudonym "Richard Bachman" and also led to the exposure of his pseudonym. It was published by NAL Verlag in November 1984. The German translation by Nora Jensen was published by Heyne Verlag the following year.
content
Overweight lawyer Billy Halleck runs over a gypsy while on an excursion with his wife Heidi , while his wife sexually satisfies him. In a criminal case, which is led by the judge friend Carry Rossington, Billy is acquitted because the local police chief Duncan Hopley has obstructed the investigation against the lawyer and expelled the gypsies from town.
The father of the dead, Taduz Lemke, puts a curse on Billy on the steps to the courthouse . From now on, fat Billy Halleck loses weight every day. At first he is happy about the results of his “ diet ”, but his joy quickly turns into fear. Multiple medical examinations provide no explanations for the attorney's weight loss. Together with the family doctor Housten, his wife Heidi tries to explain Billy to be crazy and to admit him to a clinic that is supposed to find out more about his thinning, which Billy is resisting.
Eventually he learns that Judge Rossington and Police Chief Hopley have also been cursed. The judge develops into a huge lizard , Police Chief Hopley has purulent ulcers all over his face and shoots himself shortly after Billy's visit.
Out of desperation, Billy also gets angry with Heidi, who has never satisfied him so much before and it becomes clear that the accident could have been prevented had he not been so excited. He goes on a search for the gypsies and hopes to get rid of the curse that weighs on him.
Billy can track down the gypsies, but they only call him a murderer. Despite pleading, old Taduz does not take the curse from Billy, and Billy puts the "curse of the white man from the city" on the gypsies. His friend, the New York mafioso and restaurant owner Richard Ginelli helps Billy with his conflict with the gypsies. Several attacks by Ginelli, some of which were almost fatal, prompt Taduz Lemke to take Billy's curse and banish it with Billy's blood in a cake he brought with him.
Billy has to give this cake to someone to eat so that the curse will spread to them. On his return home, Billy gives the cake to his wife Heidi, presumably to get revenge for what happened. The next morning, Billy is surprised to find that his wife and his daughter, who has just returned, have eaten some of the cake. He takes the last piece of cake and eats it.
Exposure of the pseudonym
In contrast to the four previous works, the novel was not written until the mid-1980s and differed greatly from the other Bachman books in terms of its linguistic character and narrative rhythm. Rather, the novel was in the style of the typical King books, which led the bookseller Stephen Brown to take a closer look at the four previous Bachman books. Stephen Brown eventually unmasked the King pseudonym "Richard Bachman".
By the time the pseudonym was discovered, 28,000 copies of the novel had been sold by the NAL publishing house. Brown's exposure finally sold 280,000 copies of the book in the United States and hit the bestseller lists. Before the pseudonym Bachman was released, a reviewer praised this book, saying it was a book King would like to write if he could write it.
useful information
- The novel was made into a film by the director Tom Holland in 1996 under the title Thinner .
- The character of the mafioso Richard Ginelli also appears in the unfinished Internet novel The Plant . It is not known what role he should be accorded there.
- The name Ginelli is also mentioned in the book Three from Stephen King's The Dark Tower series in connection with a New York police officer who hopes to get to one of the "big fish" like Balazar or Ginelli.
- Originally, the novel should have the title Gypsie Pie ("Gypsy cake "); the publisher disliked this, as this title would have anticipated the end too much.
- King mentions himself when he thinks this story sounds like a Stephen King novel.
literature
- Stephen King: The curse. Ullstein Tb, ISBN 3-548-26309-7
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ Stephen P. Brown: Steven King Shining Through. In: The Washington Post. April 9, 1985, accessed June 27, 2020 .
- ↑ Richard Bachman. In: sz.de, Süddeutsche Zeitung GmbH, Hultschiner Strasse 8, 81677 Munich. October 6, 2016, accessed August 28, 2019 .