The Dark Glory Of The Bachman Books

The Dark Glory Of The Bachman Books

Warning:  This is a long one.  Please use the restroom, and  get yourself a tasty beverage and possibly a snack before reading.  Though please try and resist the impulse to spill said tasty beverage on yourself.

Stephen King is quite possibly my favorite modern author.  He’s got a way with words that I can only dream to someday wield, and his imagination is second to none.  He’s crafted some of the most memorable stories, characters, and commentary in modern times, and his books have inspired countless movies, comic books, and writers everywhere.

Richard Bachman was another writer who had an exceptional way of expressing himself in words.  He also crafted memorable stories, amazing characters, and had a dark, slightly evil imagination.  His books were enjoyable stories about rebellion against the status quo, though in the end, the novels are rather bleak, slightly depressing, and ultimately leave you feeling defeated.

Both are also the same guy.

Bachman is King, or rather, King was Bachman.  It’s a bit of a long story, but to sum it up, from King’s own explanation, King created the Richard Bachman identity in order to publish more of his work, in particular work which the public would not have associated with Stephen King.  It seems to have become a bit of a social experiment, as while King’s books were released to massive fanfare, Bachman’s books were under the radar, but did manage to develop a cult following it seems, before King was outed around the publication of the book Thinner, originally published under Bachman’s name.  King has since written about his experience of being Bachman, and has even resurrected the pseudonym in two subsequent publications, The Regulators and Blaze.  But this article will focus on what is essentially considered the core The Bachman books, which were collected for a time under the title of the same name.

It must be mentioned at this time that these are quite different from what King himself would publish.  All three books feature dark and troubled protagonists, and while King’s work does have the silken white thread of hope interwoven throughout the narrative, Bachman’s have the midnight colored ribbon of impending doom and despair woven into its work.  To be a protagonist in a King novel means that you have a greater purpose in store for you, one in which you may ultimately survive and be changed for the better because of it.  To be a protagonist in a Bachman novel means that you are ultimately fucked from the start.
So on that note, onto the books, after the jump.

Rage

Published In 1977, Now Out of Print

The first novel of the Bachman books, it’s also the most controversial, for the obvious reasons that will be revealed shortly.  It follows the story of Charlie Decker, a troubled high school senior that guns down two teachers and takes his Algebra class hostage.  What transpires in a look into Decker’s own troubled childhood, including his conflicts with his abusive father, as well as his own banter with the different authority figures that come onto the loud speaker to try and reason with him.  Decker comes to realize that his classmates aren’t all that different, as the crisis devolves into a sort of group therapy session, in which the students begin to express their own issues, secrets and distaste with their respective authority figures in their lives, as they slip into what psychologists would call Stockholm Syndrome.  Indeed, Decker himself at the end of the book wonders if he’s keeping them hostage, or if they are keeping him.  By this time, only one student is really has failed to come to the side of the mob, Ted Jones, who eventually is assaulted by the class and mentally broken when he attempts to escape.  The story ends with Decker being shot by police, but survives and is committed to a mental institution, presumably for life.  It ends with a personal note to the reader from Decker, who closes the narrative by saying “Good night.”

I’m not going to lie, like all the Bachman books, this is a grim book.  For obvious reasons, the book is no longer being published due to numerous high school shooting incidents that have occurred since the mid to late 1990’s, in which some the perpetrators had the book in their possession.  For this reason, King has chosen to let Rage go out of print, which he has stated is a good thing as recently as 2007 in Blaze.  However, you can still find copies of the Bachman books that include Rage on eBay, as well as rare copies of Rage itself.  I obtained my copy of the Bachman books for a grand total of $2.00, minus the shipping that was more expensive than the book.

That being said, this is an exceptional book, as it does do an honest look into teenage angst, and the different feelings and emotions that one tends to experience.  Decker doesn’t explain why he snaps, and understands what will likely happen to him at the end of the story, but does use the exercise as an attempt to explain what has happened to him and what has shaped him.  The real joy in the story is the realization that many of the students aren’t that much different than him, and the resulting secrets revealed amongst the class are rather insightful.  Indeed, the two main figures of the classroom, Decker and Jones, stand apart as the totems of what the students have a choice of choosing to be. Decker is presented as flawed, but realistic and ultimately accepting of who he is while Jones is presented as what society chooses for them to be.  It’s the former that the class chooses to accept, while the later is torn down in a beating that is chaotic and brutal.

All in all, Rage, while controversial, is still a rather magnificent piece of literature to read.  It’s raw, slightly bitter, but ultimately satisfying to read.  It should be noted that of the Bachman protagonists, Decker’s fate is the only one of the four that is confirmed to be alive by the end of the tale.  Let that set the tone for the final three.

The Long Walk (1979) 

Published In 1979, Available Everywhere

The second of the Bachman books takes place in an alternate dystopian United States governed by a military dictatorship that censors the rights and freedoms of their populace.  Every year, one hundred teenage boys participate in an annual walking contest called The Long Walk.  The Walkers must maintain a set speed, otherwise after their third warning, they are promptly shot and killed, though they can erase their warnings by maintaining their designated speed.  The Walkers compete against each other, and must walk through all manner of weather, without sleep, until one is left.  The prize:  anything they want for the rest of their lives.  This book is the original Hunger Games, the original Battle Royale, though unlike the latter two books, participation is voluntary.

The book follows the journey of Ray Garraty, who along with several other boys, competes against each other.  A group of the boys, calling themselves the Mustketeers, hold themselves up against the trials, boredom, and the stresses and mental fatigue that comes from the knowledge that all of them are probably doomed.  One by one, the Walkers go down, due to physical stress, mental collapse, by ironic twists of cruel fate, or by a willingness to die with dignity.  Eventually, the race goes down to just Garraty and the main antagonist, Stebbins, until Garraty eventually outlasts him.  The novel ends with Garraty, having decided to give up, goes to Stebbins only to have his competitor die in front of him.  Though Garraty’s final fate is unknown, the book leaves it open that he either passes out due to exhaustion, dies, or descends into madness.

Of the four books, this one is my clear favorite, simply because of the characters.  Of all the Bachman books, The Long Walk has the best cast, as each of the boys has a fully fleshed out personality, quirks, and storylines.  Their interactions with one another as their conversations go from good natured, friendly banter to grim conversations about their own impending doom and the pointlessness of the race as the grueling pace and assault on their sanities slowly erode away at their bodies and minds.  The friendship between Garraty and Peter McVries, one of the boys who have volunteered to participate, is one of the highlights of the book.  The two prop each other up, keep each other going, and when Garraty suffers a charley horse and is nearly killed, it’s McVries that comes to his rescue and keeps him alive.  When McVries ultimately decides to give up and die, the final moments between him and Garraty are heart wrenching and powerful.  Indeed, all of the boys’ deaths are detailed, and you feel an earnest sense of loss as the numbers of competitors inevitably begin to decline.

Of all the Bachman books, this is probably the one that would be the easiest to read if you are going to give one of these to someone as a gift or to try them out on this particular subsection of the King library.

Roadwork

Published in 1981, Available Everywhere

Roadwork, the third Bachman book, is the one that I’ve read the least, having only done it twice.  Thus, while I can give you a sense of the book, and what its about, it’s detail and analysis is going to pale in comparison to the other three.

The protagonist of the book, Bart Dawes, is an angry man.  Dawes lost his son Charlie to brain cancer several years before the beginning of the book, and everything that is stable in his life, such as his home and his job, are being threatened by the construction of a highway extension project.  Over the course of the novel, Dawes makes preparations for something chaotic, something daring as the countdown for his house to be demolished via emminent domain approaches.  He loses his job, his wife, and eventually buys a high caliber pistol and rifle, plus explosives from a local used car dealership owner with mob ties.  Eventually, Dawes engages the police in a shootout as he is to be evicted from his home.  After granting an interview with a reporter, with whom Dawes had been interviewed by at the beginning of the novel, Dawes detonates the explosives, killing himself and leveling the house.  In an ironic twist, it's revealed that while the highway extension was completed, it was never really necessary, as the city was simply trying to burn off a surplus in a budget.


Of the four Bachman books, this is King’s favorite from the aspect that it is an earnest look and tribute to human pain from, start to finish.  Unlike the other Bachman books, this one doesn't quite have the same sense of slow, unrelenting doom that was featured in Garraty’s walk, Decker’s rebelliousness, and Richard’s flight.  Roadwork's sense of doom comes from the slow and unrelenting fact that Dawes' pain and resistance to let go of what his memories are bound to will gradually escalate the situation to one in which the only available outcome is death.

That being said, Dawes himself is a sympathetic character, despite his actions and resistance to the highway project that is inevitably going to destroy his home.  Whether you agree with his motives is one thing, but you do have a sense of pity in the end.  How he chose his end is tragic, sad, and but ultimately unfulfilling.  To find out at the book’s epilogue that it was unnecessarily is another thing.

The Running Man

Published in 1982, Also Available Everywhere

The Running Man is Bachman’s final opus, and the only one made into a motion picture (Thinner not counting).  In the movie version, Arnold Schwarzenegger plays Ben Richards, a good cop who was framed for the massacre of civilian protestors who is subsequently captured and placed on The Running Man, a American Gladiators type of program in which Richards fights against the different Hunters for the entertainment of the masses.  Richards eventually links up with the resistance, reveals the true evil of the show, and through the miracle of mass media, frees the masses from their subject of control and pacisifism.  It’s so over the top and so cheesy, it’s just awesome.  It’s also completely not like the book aside from the name of the show and the names of a couple of characters.

In this book, whose chapters are laid out in a counting down setting, the setting is a dystopian future, the world is essentially divided up into a super rich elite that live in high, towering structures, while the majority live in abject poverty, with only dangerous, low paying jobs and the non-stop broadcast of various violent game shows over the Free-Vee network.  People can volunteer for these shows in exchange for cash prizes, but usually are killed or maimed in the process.

The most popular and lucrative of the shows is The Running Man, which in the book, is actually more America’s Most Wanted meets American Idol.  Two contestants at a time are sent out into the outside world, each spotted a head start, some walking around cash, and a video recorder with which they must submit two video clips per day, for the nights show.  During this time, the contestants are declared to be fugitives will be hunted by the local police, as well as the show’s own bounty hunters, lead by Evan McCone.  Contestants accumulate cash prizes for every hour they remain free, as well as for any law enforcement they eliminate.  The video clips are key, as not only do they allow the hunters to figure out where the contestant is, but the failure to send in the appropriate clips result in forfeiture of their cash prizes, while the contestant still stays on the run.  The ultimate prize is One Billion Dollars, provided that a runner survives 30 days.

It’s in this environment that Ben Richards, an out of work factory worker who has been blackballed due to a confrontation with a supervisor, exists.  He enters the game to support a wife who supports the family by prostitution, and a gravely ill infant daughter.  Due to his combination of physical fitness and mental cunning, Richards makes the Running Man, and promptly begins his journey.  He begins in New York City, where he engages in his first confrontation with authorities in a YMCA.  He escapes by causing an explosion in a sewer, and soon receives asylum from young gang member Bradley Thockmorton.  It’s with Bradley that Richards is educated about the realities of the current regime, in which the masses are kept deliberately poor and subjected to poor environmental standards that kill thousands.  The Free-Vee and it’s Network programming are merely a way of pacifying the masses into submission.  Richards attempts to pass on some of this in his daily recordings, only to discover that he is censored on the broadcast.

Bradley is able to smuggle Richards to Boston, where he stays under cover as a visiting priest.  However, shortly after witnessing the broadcast in which his fellow contestant is captured and killed, Richards flees the city after a nightmare in which he imagines that Bradley betrays his location under torture.  Richards makes his way to Maine to see one of Bradley’s friends to assist in his escape, but are promptly betrayed by the friend’s mother.  Richards eventually takes a woman named Amelia’s car, and using a bluff that he is carrying high powered explosives, makes his way to an airport, where eventually meets McCone.  An agreement is made to allow Richards the use of a private plane, and Amelia and McCone are taken along as hostages.  It is on the plane where Richards speaks to Dan Killian, the head of Network Programming, who reveals that not only is he the longest surviving runner of the show, but also offers Richards McCone’s job as Chief Hunter.  When Richards is about to decline on the basis of his family, he is sadly informed that his wife and child were murdered before he even began his flight, likely by a client.

Richards accepts the job shortly after grieving, but changes his mind shortly afterward.  He kills the crew, security, and McCone on the plane, but is mortally wounded by a knife wound.  Richards has Amelia parachute to safety, and using the last of his strength, crashes the plane into the Games Building, killing himself, Killian, and for the first time, disrupting Free-Vee communications.

The Running Man is a gritty novel from start to finish, and Richards is a dark, but sympathetic figure.  You know why he has chosen the path he does, and find yourself actively rooting for him as he makes his way across New England.  While you express some disappointment when, for a moment, you feel he has broken the sort of moral ideal that he’s established himself throughout the book and his personal memories, only to cheer in approval as he takes his final, deadly action to deal a blow against the Games Network as he only sees fit.  Of all of the Bachman protagonists, only Richards is able to successfully defy and strike back against the status quo of the novel, though at a heavy cost.  The writing is brilliant, and very descriptive.  You can almost visualize the bleakness of the environment, see the people for their different exteriors, be it arrogant luxury, dirty, gritty dignity, or vapid sexuality.  You also get several insights into Richards’ sarcastic, caustic view of life, and several of his observations are hilarious to behold.  All in all, it’s a solid book, especially when you consider the fact that King wrote it over a weekend.

In the end, all of these books are a compelling read.  They offer a glimpse into early King, and are all quite enjoyable, and can probably found in your local mega or used book store.  Happy reading, peeps!