Blaze, originally published two or three years back and now available on Kindle for $7.99, is a good little story from Stephen King's dark vault of early, previously unpublished writings. There's quite a bit of balance, nuance, and sophistication for an almost four decades-old story that Mr. King waited until much later in his career to publish. For instance, the tribulations of Blaze's early life create sympathy for the title character, but not to the point where we want to excuse or forgive Blaze's later criminal career. In other words, I felt bad for the guy but still wanted him to get caught by the F.B.I. once he crossed over into child kidnapping.
I also liked how, in the story's earlier going, we saw that Blaze's friend George was good for him in many ways, but things got mucked up because George was a career criminal and encouraged Blaze to refine and deepen his own clunky (and, until then, mostly harmless) criminal endeavors.
Complex, ironic situations like these deepened this engaging story, making it more than a simple crime-laced morality tale.
I also enjoyed Stephen King's lengthy introduction to Blaze. In it he talks not only about the history of the book, but the many things that were going on in his professional and personal life around the time of the book's writing. He also discusses the "Richard Bachman" alter ego he used for many years, and uses for old time's sake on the cover of Blaze, too. Anyway, the introduction is a fun and interesting piece in itself.
Like I said, good little book, and worth a click of your Kindle's "buy" button.
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