Thinner

“You can’t do anything...It’s gone too far. You understand, Halleck? Too...far.” Attorney Billy Halleck seriously enjoys living his life of upper-class excess. He’s got it all­—an expensive home in Connecticut, a loving family...and fifty extra pounds that his doctor repeatedly warns will be the death of him. Then, in a moment of carelessness, Halleck commits vehicular manslaughter when he strikes a jaywalking old woman crossing the street. But Halleck has some powerful local connections, and gets off with a slap on the wrist...much to the fury of the woman’s mysterious and ancient father, who exacts revenge with a single word: “Thinner.” Now a terrified Halleck finds the weight once so difficult to shed dropping effortlessly—and rapidly—by the week. Soon there will be nothing left of Billy Halleck...unless he can somehow locate the source of his living nightmare and reverse what’s happened to him before he utterly wastes away... Thinner is a horror novel by American author Stephen King, published in 1984 by NAL under King's pseudonym Richard Bachman. The story centers on lawyer Billy Halleck, who kills a crossing Romani woman in a road accident and escapes legal punishment because of his connections. However, the woman's father places a curse on Halleck, which causes him to lose weight uncontrollably. Billy Halleck has a great life until he accidentally hits an old gypsy women as she crosses a street in their quiet little town. Though a judge finds him blameless, Billy soon finds himself under the ancient gypsy's curse "Thinner," the old Gypsy man with the rotting nose whispers to William Halleck as Halleck and his wife, Heidi, come out of the court-house.