‘Blaze’ Is a Slight But Satisfying Stephen King Curio [The Losers’ Club Podcast]

Forgive the creaking hinges and fluttering moths, Constant Listeners. The Losers just cracked open Stephen King’s fabled TRUNK, the one where he keeps all the inked-up pages he’s not yet ready to unleash upon the world.

It’s here where Blaze moldered for decades. Written in late 1972 and early 1973 on his wife’s Olivetti typewriter before he struck gold with Carrie, Blaze was published in 2007 under his alias, Richard Bachman. For now, it’s the last thing he’s published under the Bachman name. It’s also a book he thought “was great while I was writing it, and crap when I read it over.” Years later, though, its story of a slow-witted, small-time criminal’s ill-fated kidnapping plot felt salvageable to King, so he toned down the twentysomething schmaltz and used it as a means to raise money for the Haven Foundation.

Join Losers Randall Colburn, Jenn Adams, Dan Caffrey, and Dan Pfleegor as they chat about this curio in the King oeuvre. Together, they debate the peculiarities of its history, its place in the King crime canon, and what it tells us about King as a young, struggling artist. Fear not, there are several references to season 2 of Burning Love.

If you’re curious about King’s alter ego, we’ve got an exhaustive primer episode on ‘ol Dicky that offers an A-to-Z account of the fictional (and deceased) author. You can only get it in The Barrens (Patreon).

Stream the episode below and return next week when the Losers rank every book in the Bachman Books canon — from Rage to Blaze. For further adventures, join the Club over long days and pleasant nights via Apple Podcasts, Spotify, RadioPublic, Acast, Google Podcasts, and RSS. Once more, you can also unlock hundreds of hours of content in The Barrens (Patreon).

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The post ‘Blaze’ Is a Slight But Satisfying Stephen King Curio [The Losers’ Club Podcast] appeared first on Bloody Disgusting!.