[2] The story centers on morbidly obese lawyer Billy Halleck, who, driving carelessly, kills an old Romani woman while she is crossing the street.

Critical reception to Thinner was polarized; some reviewers disliked the authorship deception and pessimistic ending, while others held these same points as merits of the book.

With the help of Richie "The Hammer" Ginelli, a former client with ties to organized crime, and information provided by private detectives, a now-emaciated Billy tracks the Romani band north along the seacoast of New England to Maine.

The Romani inhabitants throw Billy out of their camp, though not before Lemke's great-granddaughter Gina shoots him through the hand with a ball bearing fired from a slingshot.

After finding Richie's severed hand in his car, Billy returns home intending to feed the pie to Heidi as he blames her for his predicament.

The doctor informed King that he was overweight at 236 pounds (107 kg) and his cholesterol levels were elevated, and recommended losing weight and quitting smoking.

King spent the next few days fuming over the doctor's perceived insolence, but upon calming down, he decided to lose weight and cut back on his smoking.

Koster knew that King was the real author of Thinner, but repressed the urge to reveal the writer's identity in respect to his privacy.

[7] The back of the novel features a photo of Richard Manuel, a friend of King's literary agent Kirby McCauley.

King and his publisher maintained denial in the face of inquiries from major talk shows such as Good Morning America and Entertainment Tonight.

In some interviews, King claimed to know Bachman informally, describing him as an unsociable chicken farmer who disdained publicity and telling reporters that "the poor guy was one ugly son of a bitch".

After reading an advance reading copy of Thinner, which came to his store a few months before its publication, he was "eighty percent convinced" that Bachman was King; he noted that their style was only differentiated by the downbeat endings of Bachman's books, which runs counter to King's general philosophy of ending his books in an uplifting manner (with Pet Sematary and Cujo being exceptions).

[9] George Beahm compared protagonist Billy Halleck to Johnny Smith in The Dead Zone, describing him as "a victim of the wheel of fate".

Smythe cited Halleck's decision to use his mafia connections to exact revenge instead of atoning for the old woman's death, as well as his belief that his wife is to blame for his own situation.

He determined that Halleck's final action in the story was not a selfless deed, but "penance through self-destruction" intended as a means of avoiding the guilt of his family's deaths.

Smythe remarked that while King had previously dabbled with the notion of unsympathetic protagonists (citing Carrie White, Jack Torrance, and Louis Creed as examples), he felt that "Halleck takes things a step further", observing that even his innocent daughter is punished for his selfish actions, and admitted to feeling satisfied by Halleck's suffering.