Bachman's baaack...

Poor Richard Bachman. Twenty-two years after Stephen King killed him off with "cancer of the pseudonym," this fictional alter ego will not stay dead. In June, Scribner will publish "Blaze" (276 pp., $24), the sixth Bachman novel, and the first since 1996's "The Regulators." In a foreword, King calls the book "a trunk novel" — the kind that's been stashed away for many years. Originally written in the early 1970s, it is the work of a very young writer, a piece of gothic crime fiction that wears its influences (Horace McCoy, Edward Anderson, James M. Cain) on its sleeve.

Were King a less iconic figure, "Blaze" would probably have remained in its trunk. Yet, there's an undeniably charming quality to this youthful attempt to inhabit the soul of a dimwitted kidnapper, who is in over his head in a set of circumstances from which no good can come. The same is true of the decision to assume the Bachman pseudonym again, which comes off as the kind of nudge-nudge, wink-wink posture of a writer enjoying himself. This has been a hallmark of King's career, the notion that writing can, and should, be fun.

Of course, the author takes the illusion just so far; on the cover of "Blaze," the name Stephen King is in the biggest type. Indeed, the book concludes with the short story "Memory," which, an editorial note informs us, is the basis of King's next full-length novel, "Duma Key," due out in early 2008.

— David L. Ulin 5/04/07