Review: Blaze

I have been going around with a ‘shit-eating grin’ on my face but an ache in my heart this week, and all because of finally getting my hands on a copy of Stephen King’s 1973 novel ‘Blaze’ which he is about to release under his pen-name Richard Bachman. Firstly the reason for the grin is that this book was completed on 15th of February 1973, around the period when he was writing ‘Salem’s Lot – the period that I first discovered King, and found his prose touching my mind and making me appreciate the written word with a fever.

‘Blaze’ is really a novella written in the same haunting style as the work from King’s collection Different Seasons which featured The Breathing Method, Apt Pupil, The Body, Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption, in fact Shawshank Penitentiary gets a few mentions in this very moving and engaging story. I consider the four stories in Different Seasons amongst his best and ‘Blaze’ easily matches the quality of those works. To find that King released a ‘lost’ work from that period just literally put a huge smile on my face, or what perhaps King would call a ‘shit- eating grin’ that lasted all week. The ache in my heart however was because that as King explains in his newly written introduction, this would be the last work from Bachman.

King’s introduction to ‘Blaze’ is very interesting as he talks about the novel in context to rest of his work. He explains how much he enjoyed penning ‘The Colorado Kid’ for Hardcase Crime, but felt that ‘Blaze’ was more of a melodrama and therefore not suited to that publishing house, so he decided to release it as a Bachman book, after updating it.

The story is a heart-wrenching melodrama featuring the misadventures of Claiborne Blaisdell, Jr, [aka ‘Blaze’] a young boy brought up by an alcoholic and abusive father and his rites of passage. As a boy ‘Blaze’ is harmed in a dreadful incident that causes brain damage [with a dent on his forehead] and results in Blaze becoming slow-witted. Blaze however is a big lad, a giant if you will but a gentle giant perplexed at the terrible things that haunt our world and the cruelty inflicted upon him. We see Blaze sent to an orphanage where he is mistreated, but survives by his good nature, and how he befriends a more intelligent but weaker boy John Cheltzman, and together they survive the rigors of the orphanage by helping each other out. In all this terrible cruelty comes moments of magic, like when the Orphans pick blueberries in the summer for the kind and fair-minded Harry Bluenote. In terms of structure and theme it shares a chord or two with Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption, about how friendship and hope can get you through the cruelty that life can throw at you. One aspect however is that you can see that the tale will end in tragedy because the naive Blaze befriends a criminal George Rockley, a man who works out the perfect scam, the kidnapping of a baby from a wealthy Maine family to hold for a multimillion dollar ransom. The gentle giant Blaze however has not the intelligence to pull this scam off and his love for the child will be his undoing.

Coated in pathos and melodrama this little story pulls at the heartstrings, but also allows the reader to travel to another era; another time and see that the world is full of dangers for those who don’t understand the machinations of human beings. For me, this story is a gem and I am so glad King found it and issued it because for the few hours it took to unravel, I sat mesmerized - hands glued to the covers of this little treat. However when I put the book down a great sadness lay heavily on my heart, not only because of the bittersweet ending, but also that perhaps this is the last of King’s early work that I will read, as opposed to re- reading – Ali Karim

Reprinted with permission. Do Not repost without permission from the author, Ali Karim - RAM

Book Review: Blaze