Stephen King has a cursed book. But this is neither a possessed book nor a book covered in human skin. It’s a book he wrote in 1977, and reality shifted him to the right, causing him to disappear from stores and never return. The result was a piece that was very valuable on the second-hand market and that I found by chance. This is the story of ‘Anger’.

A second personality book. ‘Rage’ was written by King in 1977, but he signed it under the name Richard Bachman; he used this name for several years so that he could continue publishing at his then-current pace of nearly one book per year. King revealed his true identity in 1985 after being discovered by a fan, but by then he had released ‘Rage’, ‘The Long March’, ‘Hunted’, ‘Cursed Highway’ and ‘Hex’. After coming out of the literary closet, King published several more under the pseudonym “Possession” and “Blaze” as Bachman’s “found material”.

The first on the forehead. ‘Rage’ was the first of Bachman’s books in which he sought to reveal the harsher, meaner side of King’s personality (as well as proving to himself whether his success was a matter of luck or talent). He undoubtedly achieved this with ‘Rage’, a crude, hyper-violent book with a non-fantasy theme that was originally to be published as ‘Getting Started’.

What is ‘anger’ about? Our hero, Charlie, is a confrontational high school student who, after being scolded by the principal for attacking a teacher, goes to his locker and pulls out his gun without further ado. From there he unleashes a spiral of violence: He kills his teacher and detains his classmates in the classroom for several tense hours; Uncertain of what to do, Charlie gives no hope to his classmates.

Jump into reality. The problematic aspect of this fiction is that after the publication of the book, a series of murders inevitably occurred, reminiscent of those described in ‘Rage’. At San Gabriel (1988), one student retained 60 students and claimed inspiration from King’s book; In McKee (1989), another detained his class for nine hours and included a copy of ‘Rage’ among his belongings; The same thing happened in Rapid City (1991), although there were no deaths; In Grayson (1993), a boy shot his teacher and failed the grade after the teacher gave him a bad grade for an essay on ‘Anger’.

The king explodes. Finally, in December 1997, a boy killed three classmates in West Paducah. He had a Bachman compilation that included ‘Rage’ in his high school locker, and this was the final straw: King decided to “let the book die” and that it would not be reprinted once it was out of print. . Future reprints of ‘The Backman Books’ omnibus will also not include it. King is against censorship, but as he himself would later admit, “I am aware of the impact certain cultural products can have on impressionable people, especially troubled youth.”

A collector’s book. Of course, it didn’t take long for the book to gain value. A quick look allows us to see how it is currently priced: We don’t need to go for this first edition, signed by King and costing more than 14,000 euros. First editions (beautiful cover, by the way) cost around 6,000 euros. Spanish editions (there were only two: Martínez Roca’s first and the later, which I have from RBA, plus a few later pocket editions) range from 60 to 120 euros.

The only time I got lucky. Did I pay this much? Not even remotely: I was lucky enough to find it at Wallapop for five euros, thanks to a salesman who clearly didn’t know what he had. Second-hand Stephen King books are sold very cheaply because their printing is not very luxurious and their circulation is very high, so it is very easy to find any of them for between 5 and 10 euros. However, this seller didn’t think to do research before putting a price on it. This is a small victory for the humble fan, and it won’t make me poor either. And so on everything.

Title | Photo: John Tones

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