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Blaze

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Those of us who have been Constant Readers of Stephen King for years and years (since I was 13 years old) we knew about the dead novel called Blaze. It was a trunk novel that King wrote before the likes of Carrie and decided not to try and publish because he thought it was crap. For a long time out of mind Blaze sat in a carton at the Fogler Library at the University Of Maine at Orono in there Stephen King archive. Well...we love King, right? But most of us weren't afforded the chance to hop a plane across America to head to Orono to read that little hidden gem. Most of us. So it became the legendary unpublished novel by the world's most popular author. Mysterious. Wow! All these years later, King remembers Blaze and decides to give it a second chance. A little sprucing up and here it is for all the world to finally see. Written in 1973, this is nothing new. This is old Stephen King, starving, unpopular, unnoticed King. This is King when he was still struggling to keep his family eating. Great!


The basic story is centered round the 6'7" Clayton Blaisdell Jr., an all around dumb-as-a-ditch-post petty criminal with a heart of gold. When his partner is killed in a craps game, Blaze remembers the idea of the big score. He decides it's time to go through with the plan of kidnapping the infant heir of a rich family. Everything goes down with a few complications and Blaze is on the run for his life and the life of his little passenger.

King calls the striking resemblances to Steinbeck's Of Mice And Men an homage, and maybe it was, way back when, or perhaps it was a still-shaky author trying to flesh out his own novel with the structure of an old favorite. Either way, it works pretty well. The ending is a little rushed and there are a few spots of gratuitous flashback sequences that lend nothing to the tale as a whole, but it is Old King and that is Good King. Right away I fell into the story and was hooked. I can't say that about Lisey's Story or Cell or the abortion that was The Colorado Kid. This is King at his most honest. We Constant Readers appreciate that. Definitely worth the cash. At the end is a short story called Memory which enlarged into an idea that became King's next novel, Duma Key out in January of '08. Hmmmm. It's ok. Nothing fancy. Kinda choppy. Overall, Blaze is a nice reminder of why Stephen is one of my favorite authors of all time!

Dig it!

Back in 1988, when I was researching my book, THE STEPHEN KING COMPANION, I spent time at the Special Collections at the Fogler Library at Orono, Maine, where the original, typed manuscript of BLAZE had been deposited, along with a number of other unpublished novels. This was what King calls a "trunk" novel, meaning it's a book that he never published; he wrote it and put it in the trunk, thinking it was unpublishable.

Well, when I read it, page by page, from first until last, I felt differently: Unlike, say, SWORD IN THE DARKNESS (a novel about a race riot), which is another trunk novel by King, BLAZE shone with a gritty kind of storytelling that marked King's early fiction. Clearly a homage to John Steinbeck's novella "Of Mice and Men," the story centers on Clayton Blaze Blaisdell, who is party to the kidnapping, along with his party George Rackley; Clayton, whose checkered past -- in and out of orphanages and foster homes -- strikes a sympathetic tone with the reader, as he finds love (albeit one-sided) where he least expects it: the infant he has helped abduct. (You may recall the famous Lindbergh kidnapping in all this, as I did.)

The most difficult thing in fiction is to make the bad guy seem sympathetic, but King pulls it off. In spades. Just as we feel for Lenny in Steinbeck's "Of Mice and Men," so, too, do we feel for Clayton, who is a criminal on the run; he has stolen the infant but, in the process, has stolen our hearts, as well. That is the art of fiction, the art of storytelling, and King's always had that gotta-read-the-next-page-to-see-what's-happened quality.

In King's fiction, the character comes first; the story then comes out of the character. King's modus operandi has always been that if you grow to care about the character, the story will mean something to you; but if the characters in the novel aren't sympathetic, you won't care about their fates and, by the extension, the book itself. So King starts with compelling characters believably motivated and pursuing their own ends.

What most readers probably don't know is that King's royalties on this book go to fund one of his foundations, set up for indigent creators who find themselves in dire financial straits due to no fault of their own. The Haven Foundation is the beneficiary of King's sales, and it's the only foundation of its kind. It's also King giving back to the community that supported him, which speaks of King's enormous generosity. (Wouldn't it be nice if the publisher matched King's donation dollar for dollar? Then the publisher could give back to the community, as well.)

At the Amazon discount, you can't afford NOT to buy this book if you're a King fan or you're a fan of good old-fashioned storytelling. And, as a bonus, your purchase will help, indirectly, freelance writers who these days are the true mavericks, the last of a dying breed. (Long story here, and this isn't the time or place to talk about it.) Suffice it to say that fans who want a taste of the early King will find their appetites more than satisfied with this relentless and unstoppable storytelling engine that propels the reader from first page to last: BLAZE is a meteor cutting a bright swath across the heavens, and you'll find a lot to mine in this early but wholly satisfying story by America's storyteller, Stephen King.

Imagine a man who's spent almost his entire life finding trouble. He's mildly retarded, is a con man and a thief, has been in and out of jail, and has a big dent in his forehead that makes him ugly to boot. Top all of this off with the bone-chilling fact that he decides to kidnap for ransom the child of a rich family--a completely innocent and helpless baby!

Now imagine this: you find yourself unequivocally liking the guy! It doesn't matter that he's a con man and a thief. All of the horribleness he engages in seems justified due to the many difficulties he's faced in life. Heck, you cheer when he beats up the headmaster at his school (actually Hetton House, a county home), and you're even rooting for him to kidnap the baby without getting caught!

So is the mastery of Stephen King, writing as his pseudonym Richard Bachman. Blaze is a book that will have you scratching your head in bewilderment over the fact that you have found yourself in like with a person like Blaze (aka as Clayton Blaisdell, Jr.). Additionally, you'll feel sadness and sympathy, anger and pain. The story of Blaze's unfortunate life will leave you filled with the utmost desire to lift up your head and unabashedly roar at the fates.

Thirty-some-odd years ago, Stephen King was a young writer with a unique and emerging style and a frighteningly vivid - and just plain frightening - imagination. He was not as polished as a best-seller ought to be - though he was never nearly as pedestrian as his own self-effacing interviews of the time would have readers believe. He might not yet have been the author he would become, but his ability to share a vision and tell a story were unparalleled, and the world responded. Stephen King became one of the most prolific and successful writers ever published.

Thirty-some-odd years later, he is a polished and mesmerizing author. Recent works, such as "Lisey's Story", are so compellingly written that the subject matter and story line become almost secondary to the work itself; it is a pleasure simply to be reading Mr. King. But, as Joni Mitchell observed, something's lost when something's gained, and the polish and precision with which Mr. King tells his tales has tended in recent years to eclipse the raw imagination that once drove his work.

What would happen if you could somehow capture the fiery imagination of his earlier days with the literary tendencies of a true master novelist?

"Blaze", that's what.

This remarkable work is undermined by adjectives; it is something that can be enjoyed by almost anyone who reads it, but is sure to be appreciated most by Mr. King's core of Constant Readers, those of us who have traveled his long and winding road with him since the mid 1970's. It is a stunning fusion of the raw and hungry storyteller working the Night Shift in the back of his trailer and the staggeringly successful novelist whose name is uniquely iconic within his trade.

"Blaze" has a comparatively low profile at the moment. Marketed as a missing Bachman Book, it might easily be overlooked by the occasional reader who never took seriously those captivating tales published by Mr. King's alter-ego. But caveat emptor: Once you enter the scary and tragic world of Clayton "Blaze" Blaisdell, Jr., a part of you will never be able to leave.

Stephen King may be the "master of horror," but with BLAZE he proves that he's also just a plain ole good writer. This story is a mixture of a thriller, a mystery, a police procedural, and a personal struggle to figure out who you are.

Blaze, aka Clayton Blaisdell, Jr., is a dummy, and he knows it. Ever since his father threw him down a flight of stairs (and then hauled him back up and did it a couple of more times), Blaze hasn't had the brains for learning. The dent in his forehead might make him look scary, but we soon learn that Blaze isn't much of a threat -- except when he's really angry. He might look like a giant at 6'7" and nearly 300 pounds, but this man's heart is as soft as his mind.

Blaze has pretty much drifted through life by skirting the law and mostly (with exceptions) avoiding trouble. When he meets George Rackley, Blaze learns the art of the con. The two of them (or, rather, George) have been planning one big job for awhile now. That big job would be kidnapping the baby of a rich couple, collecting the ransom, and living the high-life somewhere with white sandy beaches and lots of sun.

But we soon learn that things aren't going quite the way either man had expected. For one, George is dead, even though he's still helping with the kidnapping plot. For another, Blaze, as we've already learned, isn't the smartest guy around.

What follows is a mixture of present day mystery/thriller as Blaze carries out the kidnapping of little Joey, mixed with the flashbacks of his life that show how Blaze ends up where he's at.

King (aka Bachman..does it really matter the name?) shows great control in the pacing of BLAZE, and expertly weaves the present with the past. You'll also be surprised (and entertained) by the joy that is Blaze, who is a wonderful, fully-developed character.

This one is a winner!

Clayton Blaisdell, Jr. (Blaze) has never had an easy life. A drunk driver killed his mother when he was three years old. His father was a drunk and when Blaze was in the first grade, his hungover father threw him down the stairs three times in a fit of anger. Although Blaze survived, he suffered brain damage and was made a ward of the state. He was sent to live at Hetton House, which was home to him for much of his youth, although several families did take him in when they needed their crops picked. After leaving Hetton House Blaze drifted along, moving from job to job and pulling various petty crimes. It's not until Blaze meets George Rackley that he starts pulling regular con jobs. George has an idea for a big con - kidnapping the baby of a wealthy family and holding it for ransom - but he dies before they can pull it off. But that doesn't matter to Blaze, he can still "talk" to the dead George and he decides to kidnap the baby himself.



Since this was a "trunk" novel by Stephen King (King himself warns readers of this in his introduction), written in 1973 and published under the name Richard Bachman, I wasn't expecting much, especially since I'm not a big fan of the books put out under the Bachman name. I was, however, pleasantly surprised. When King is at his best, he's a great storyteller and "Blaze" is a good example of his storytelling skills. Told in both the present and through the use of flashbacks, I liked the flashbacks best as they helped develop Blaze as a character. King has a knack of creating characters that come alive and readers care about one way or the other and Blaze does come alive for better and worse. He is at times a sympathetic character, especially in the way he has been treated, used and abused throughout his life and at other times a very brutal character who kills several people. You know from the beginning that the book can't end well, but King still has readers turning the pages both to learn more about Blaze's past as well as what is happening in the present. The book is not perfect, King goes a little overboard in creating Blaze's miserable childhood and a plot line involving a family called Bluenote was a bit too convenient and melodramatic. Although Blaze is a fully developed character, the others aren't as full developed, with only Blaze's childhood friend John Cheltzman coming close. King may have done this on purpose as the book is from Blaze's viewpoint. However, I would have liked to know more about George, he was an interesting character, but there wasn't enough about him, even in the flashbacks.



Fans of Stephen King, especially those that like to collect everything he writes, will enjoy "Blaze".

If you've been wondering as I have where the "real" Stephen King had gone, you can wonder no more. He's back as Richard Bachman, and better than ever with BLAZE. It was odd to read in the foreword how King had put this book away for decades, how he had pretty much forgotten about it, had thought it might be lost, and so on. In my mind, trunking a story as good as this one is nearly equal to throwing a satchel stuffed with a million dollars in cash out the window, letting it be covered with snow, and not caring if Bigfoot came and carried it away while you slept. This is a GREAT book, one of King's best ever, in fact, and it should be given its due. Of course King had his reasons, and there was a LOT going on in the master's head while this one sat in a box. In the following years King produced some really fine work. So I can't fault him, really. What I can do is say how much I missed the old King, who wrote CARRIE and THE SHINING and CHRISTINE--all books of my youth that I devoured like nobody's business. And what I can do is say how much I've missed the great King-as-Bachman, with THE RUNNING MAN, ROADWORK, and so on. BLAZE reaches the best of King's work as Bachman, maybe even surpasses it in quality, and, I think, surpasses some of his more recent work written under his own name.

In this book, King (who in BLAZE had written as Richard Bachman for the last time) has created and breathed life into Clayton Blaisdel, Jr., (Blaze), a simpleton (through no fault of his own) and a criminal. Blaze talks to dead people, performs a kidnapping, even murders someone. You'll find that you want justice to be done, for things to be set right; but you'll also find yourself cheering for Blaze, for even with all his faults Blaze is a most sympathetic character.

This is a real page-turner of a book--another of those you'll read late into the night until you literally can't keep your eyes open any longer, then pick up and start reading again as soon as you awaken. It didn't last long (I finished it in a few hours), but man, what a ride. Read it and see...and maybe weep a little, too. Well done, Mr. Bachman, well done.

It comes as no surprise that 'Blaze' does not read like a Stephen King novel -- most of the Bachman books (with the exception of 'Thinner') are like that. When writing as Bachman, King adopts a different voice, harsher and more direct, and even the types of stories he tells are different. In this case, it would be hard to imagine a book that would surprise me more, coming from King's keyboard. Coming from Bachman, however, it sounds just about right.

'Blaze' is named for its lead character, whose full name is Clayton Blaisdell, Jr. but has gone by Blaze for most of his life. Blaze is a big guy, practically a monster of a man, complete with a nasty-looking indentation on his forehead and a rather slow intellect, both the result of an abusive father. Blaze is also a small-time criminal, but as the novel opens is looking to upgrade to the big time by kidnapping the newborn baby of a rich family. It was a plan cooked up by George Rackley, his former partner in crime. Problem is, George is dead, but Blaze still hears him (and talks to him) in his head.

The story begins just as Blaze is making his plans for the kidnapping alone. By jumping back and forth in the story, we learn of Blaze's colored history in and out of foster homes and orphanages, at the same time as he is committing his biggest crime ever, with the help of George's voice, always heard but never seen.

In this sense, 'Blaze' is King (Bachman?) at his most effective, telling stories in parallel, giving us glimpses and facets of this compelling character, but never all of it. He keeps us reading right to the end, enthralled by both the story and the characters he creates within it. Blaze himself stands out as one of King's most interesting people. He is not a writer or a teacher, he is about as far from an academic as you can get. He is a criminal, and not even an especially good one...but all the same, as the story progresses and you see how he got where he is, your heart will go out to him. Blaze is treated like a real person, never a cipher or a symbol, and therein lies the real strength of the novel as a whole.

Comparisons have been made to Steinbeck's 'Of Mice and Men' and even King himself admits that 'Blaze' is an homage to that novel. And while there are similarities, bear in mind that 'Blaze' is a story all its own as well. 'Of Mice and Men' is a great story, and I feel like 'Blaze' is a great story too...but what makes each story great is different.

In the telling of his tale, King found a unique voice, told a unique tale, and gave us a unique character to explore. Blaze is a big, clumsy guy, a criminal, not terribly bright, not very good-looking, not smooth or talented or skilled in any particular way. He is no James Bond or Kay Scarpetta or Anita Blake. And yet, by the time this novel is done, King makes you care about him, makes you want to help him, and even makes you cry for him a little.

Or at least, that's what he made me do.

On the fourth day in my new home, unpacking was going smoothly: I was busy placing my books in bookshelves--"their" new home--when I came across Blaze, a novel written by Stephen King under the pseudonym of Richard Bachman. This is the last book from Bachman's "early period"; King says Bachman died in 1985 from "pseudonym cancer." While Bachman was writing slow-selling novels, King was building his reputation writing and selling short horror stories. (As you probably know, after retiring Bachman, King's very first book under his real name was Carrie ... and the rest is history.)

Although King/Bachman wrote Blaze in 1973--King calls Bachman his "younger/smart-assier self"--it wasn't published until 2006 after one of King's assistants found the original typescript among his papers at the University of Maine's Fogler Library. This review is written from a 2007 hardcover edition with a foreword by King; this book and the one I'm posting it under are hard to find, except on the secondary market.

Although nothing Bachman wrote seemed to please King's more mature self, he started reading Blaze and thought it was better than most of Bachman's published novels. He decided to revise and publish it, donating proceeds to the Haven Foundation which supports freelance artists.

And am I glad King published this book! As he hoped readers would, I "came for a good story" and got much more than that. This is a gripping story; a sad tale that grabbed me by the lapels from the first page and never let go. In fact, in between unpacking and a multitude of "moving woes," I finished this exciting book in two days

I'm mesmerized by the main character, Clayton Blaisdell, Jr.--Blaze for short. He's a complex, sympathetic character for whom I rooted from the "get-go." After his mother dies when he's only three years old, poor little Blaze's father does something so horrendous to him that he ends up being a "slow thinker" and is made a ward of the state.

Blaze grows into a "Big Mother" whose appearance is intimidating, but he has a gentle soul, only harming those who mistreat small, defenseless people and his friends. He is loved by all who really know him, but once again suffers abuse by authorities in the boys' institution.

What happens to him in the institution that accelerates his rage, honing his hard edges? What happens to his best friend John? What does Blaze do to avenge John? How does he meet his new friend George who takes him under his wing and indoctrinates him into a life of petty crime? After George is killed, how does he help Blaze pull off the "big, final" crime they had always dreamed of? Why does he end up kidnapping a small, defenseless baby, son of a wealthy family? How could "the bull-simple dummy" do it alone? What happens when little Joe steals his heart? And why, with the cops closing in, is Blaze clutching the baby to his chest as he plunges deeper into the white hell of a powerful snowstorm in the Maine woods?

In Blaze, Bachman/King answers those questions in a series of clever twists and turns, skillfully maneuvering from present to past by masterful use of exciting flashbacks.

In response to King's foreword: Yes, Stephen, I "misted up" ... more than a little; there's nothing in this novel to make people laugh at you. You painted such an accurate portrait of Blaze's character and background that, although I could not condone what he did, I understand the reasoning behind his actions. My heart broke each time Blaze's did. This is a real tear-jerker, a psychological thriller that could be a blockbuster movie.

Knowing full well that you and Richard Bachman are the same person, dare I say I enjoyed this book as much as any you've written under your true name ... and better than some?

It seems that, like a rose, "a King by any other name is still a King." Stephen, you had "IT" then and failed to recognize it.

There are life lessons to be learned from this book ... a book that will linger in your mind long after the last page has been read. Highly recommended with great enthusiasm.

Reviewed by: Betty Dravis, 2008
Author of: Millennium Babe: The Prophecy

Clayton "Blaze" Blaisdell Jr isn't the sharpest tool in the shed, but what he lacks in brain, he makes up in brawn.

Blaze would be a good friend to have on your side, say, if you found yourself stuck in a tough foster home. And he'd make a great sidekick/bodyguard, say, if you were a widecrackin', con-jobbin' pipsqueak. But on his own, Blaze doesn't get a lot right, say, like...a kidnapping.

Blaze is vintage Stephen King. It's also classic King prose. The writing took me back to the late 70s/early 80s King style that either has lost some of its luster or has just become too familiar these days.

In the book's Forward, King explains Blaze as a recently "updated" version of one of his first writings (circa 1973) as Richard Bachman. I'm not sure what the purpose of the updates were. Why not just set the mood in 1973? In fact, I even noticed an update he missed: in one clearly updated sentence it was implied that this was the Reagan era (circa the 80s), but a few pages later it was implied that Barry Goldwater (circa the 60s) was in need of a nickname.

Anyway, Blaze was a fast, engaging read...like all of King's early novels. I'd highly recommend it as an enjoyable escape to pass some of your free time.