Stephen King's Lisey's Story

I just got done reading Stephen King's new hardback - Lisey's Story. Having read Cell earlier in the year I was not expecting much from Lisey's Story. Cell was a good story (not great) with a horrible ending which seems to happen a little more than not with Mr. King. For every Shining there is a Needful Things. For every Salem's Lot there is a Dark Half. For every Misery there is...well... a Cell. It seems sometimes, he gets into a story and just doesn't know how to end it. This is the mindset I had going into Lisey's Story. I will have to say that Stephen King has written a great novel with this one and the ending is very good.

Lisey's Story is very long book - 512 pages - so be ready for spending a long time with this one. The first half is very well written but is not the normal King page turner that most fans are use to. The first half is very much the set up for the last half in which he really notches up his terror style of writing. None of this will scare you but you must know what will happen next and you can't believe the horrible things that do happen.

Mr. King tells the story of a woman, Lisey, morning loss of her dead husband. She is haunted by his memories that will not let her go. The story starts out with Lisey cleaning her husband's, Scott, barnyard study two years after his death. During this cleaning she relives many of the moments in their life together. King tells the story of how they met, what made Lisey fall in love with Scott and how success affected them. He gives you many glimpses into the love Lisey and Scott have for one another. In what may be a self examination, King makes the husband, Scott, a very successful writer who loved his wife very much but had many demons destroying him. Lisey must also deal with a mentally deteriorating sister and a "space cowboy" trying to solidifying Scott's legacy. She must get through many trials, "bools" as King calls them, before being able to let go of Scott.

King is at his best in this because he makes the insane, sane; the unbelievable, believable. This book reminds me a lot of the Shining if it had been written from the wife's perspective after Jack had died. At points this book does get creepy but never leaves the realms of possibility, at least for me. I hope this becomes one of his more highly regarded novels. And if you get the hardback, check out the artist rendition of Boo'ya Moon (when you read the story you will understand)

I suggest making a pot of coffee and curling up to this one dark and stormy night.