PDF Running Man By Richard Bachman

PDF Running Man By Richard Bachman Stephen King pseudonymAt the beginning of Stephen King's career the general view among publishers was that an author was limited to one book per year since publishing would be unacceptable to the public King therefore wanted to write under another name in order to increase his publication without over saturating the market for the King brand He convinced his publisher Signet Books to print these novels under a pseudonymIn his introduction to The Bachman Books King states that adopting the nom de plume Bachman was also an attempt to make sense out of his career and try to answer the uestion of whether his success was due to talent or luck He says he deliberately released the Bachman novels with as little marketing presence as possible and did his best to load the dice against Bachman King concludes that he has yet to find an answer to the talent versus luck uestion as he felt he was outed as Bachman too early to know The Bachman book Thinner 1984 sold 28000 copies during its initial run—and then ten times as many when it was revealed that Bachman was in fact KingThe pseudonym King originally selected Gus Pillsbury is King's maternal grandfather's name but at the last moment King changed it to Richard Bachman Richard is a tribute to crime author Donald E Westlake's long running pseudonym Richard Stark The surname Stark was later used in King's novel The Dark Half in which an author's malevolent pseudonym George Stark comes to life Bachman was inspired by Bachman–Turner Overdrive a rock and roll band King was listening to at the time his publisher asked him to choose a pseudonym on the spotKing provided biographical details for Bachman initially in the about the author blurbs in the early novels Known facts about Bachman were that he was born in New York served a four year stint in the Coast Guard which he then followed with ten years in the merchant marine Bachman finally settled down in rural central New Hampshire where he ran a medium sized dairy farm writing at night His fifth novel was dedicated to his wife Claudia Inez Bachman who also received credit for the bogus author photo on the book jacket Other facts about the author were revealed in publicity dispatches from Bachman's publishers the Bachmans had one child a boy who died in an unfortunate Stephen King ish type accident at the age of six when he fell through a well and drowned In 1982 a brain tumour was discovered near the base of Bachman's brain; tricky surgery removed it After Bachman's true identity was revealed later publicity dispatches and about the author blurbs revealed that Bachman died suddenly in late 1985 of cancer of the pseudonym a rare form of schizonomiaKing dedicated Bachman's early books— Rage 1977 The Long Walk 1979 Roadwork 1981 and The Running Man 1982—to people close to him The link between King and his shadow writer was exposed after a Washington DC bookstore clerk Steve Brown noted similarities between the writing styles of King and Bachman Brown located publisher's records at the Library of Congress which included a document naming King as the author of one of Bachman's novels Brown wrote to King's publishers with a copy of the documents he had uncovered and asked them what to do Two weeks later King telephoned Brown personally and suggested he write an article about how he discovered the truth allowing himself to be interviewed King has taken full ownership of the Bachman name on numerous occasions as with the republication of the first four Bachman titles as The Bachman Books Four Early Novels by Stephen King in 1985 The introduction titled Why I Was Bachman details the whole BachmanKing storySource