Richard Bachman - Identification

Identification

King dedicated Bachman's early books — Rage (1977), The Long Walk (1979), Roadwork (1981), and The Running Man (1982) — to people close to him, and worked in obscure references to his own identity. These clues, not to mention the similarity between the two authors' literary styles, aroused the suspicions of horror fans and retailers.

King steadfastly denied any connection to Bachman and, to throw fans off the trail, dedicated Bachman's 1984 novel Thinner to "Claudia Inez Bachman," who was, supposedly, Bachman's wife. There was also a phony author photo of Bachman on the dust jacket, credited to Claudia. He also has one of the characters describe how the strange happenings are like a "Stephen King" novel in the book.

The link between King and his shadow writer was exposed after a Washington D.C. 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. This led to a press release heralding Bachman's "death" — supposedly from "cancer of the pseudonym," and an article written by Brown in the Washington Post. At the time of the announcement in 1985, King was working on Misery, which he had planned to release as a Bachman book.