'Richard Bachman' - Rage

[dem bones]

Richard Bachman - Rage (NEL, 1983)

“I’ve written a lot of books about teenagers who are pushed to violent acts. But with Rage, it’s almost a blueprint in terms of saying, “This is how it could be done”. And when it started to happen … particularly, there was a shooting thing in Paducah, Kansas, where three kids were killed in a prayer group… and the kid who did it, that book was in his locker. And I said, that’s it for me; that book’s off the market. Not that they won’t find something else … I don’t think that any kid was driven to an act of violence by a Metallica record, or by a Mariliyn Manson CD, or by a Stephen King novel, but I do think those things can act as accelerants.”

- Stephen King on withdrawing his ‘Richard Bachman’ novel Rage from sale in the wake of the Columbine High School massacre, April 1999. (quoted in Stephen J. Spignesi, The Essential Stephen King, New Page, 2001)

In the current issue of Paperback Fanatic, Phil Harbottle passes on some tips that might help you identify the author behind the pseudonym, and i've no doubt he'd have figured who 'Richard Bachman' was long before the first "shit-eating grin" and no surprises King's hardcore fan base were onto the ruse from the off.

A sunny morning in May at Placerville High School and Charlie Decker, a pupil with a history of psychiatric problems, is facing expulsion after an assault on a classmate. After bad-mouthing and deliberately winding-up Principal Denver to the point where he could cheerfully flatten the boy, Charlie calmly cleans out his locker of any useful items (a pistol, bullets) sets the rest ablaze, strolls back to class and - always a good attention grabber - shoots a hole straight through the teacher, Mrs. Underwood's head. But for a dead faint from Pig Pen Dano and a scream from loser girl Irma Bates (cut short through embarrassment when no-one joins in), the pupils take it all remarkably calmly, even when porky Mr. Vance pokes his head around the door to notify them of a fire, only for Charlie to shoot him like a dog. Why is this kid so screwed up? Too early to say, but it seems to have something to do with his good ol' boy father dragging him along on a camping trip with his macho buddies when he was nine, Dad getting roaring drunk and boasting of what he'd do to his wife if he ever caught her with another man. Charlie is haunted by that image. Watching his old man blankly gut a deer the following day isn't one to forget either.

So far, pace brisk and disturbo-factor high, more than enough reason to keep going....

[dem bones]

No attacks by mutant lobsters, not a smidgen of the supernatural, but if i'd read Rage at fifteen, i'd have had no hesitation in proclaiming it the greatest novel ever written (to be fair, i'd not read Eat Them Alive!at that point), and even now it's a proper page-turner. King's achievement is to make Charlie Decker a believable, even likable character (certainly his classmates - with one exception - bear him no grudges for his actions), a bright, frustrated, emotionally messed up kid who's just been pushed too far. I still love Pet Sematary most, and Carrie and Salem's Lot have the traditional "and then the house burnt down" pulp endings, but for brevity and wobbly bits (the descent into mob rule being particularly clunky) Rage is arguably King's most NEL novel.