Bag of Bones

by Stephen King

1999

Status

Checked out

Publication

Pocket Books (1999), 752 pages

Description

Fiction. Literature. Suspense. Thriller. HTML:Set in the fictional town of Castle Rock, Maine From #1 New York Times bestselling author Stephen King, a powerful tale of grief, of love's enduring bonds, and the haunting secrets of the past. Set in the Maine territory King has made mythic, Bag of Bones recounts the plight of forty-year-old bestselling novelist Mike Noonan, who is unable to stop grieving following the sudden death of his wife Jo, and who can no longer bear to face the blank screen of his computer. Now his nights are plagued by vivid nightmares, all set at the Maine summerhouse he calls Sara Laughs. Despite these dreams, or perhaps because of them, Mike returns to the lakeside getaway. There he finds his beloved Yankee town held in the grip of a powerful millionaire, Max Devore, who will do anything to take his three-year-old granddaughter away from her widowed young mother. As Mike is drawn into their struggle, as he falls in love with both mother and child, he is also drawn into the mystery of Sara Laughs, now the site of ghostly visitations, ever-escalating nightmares, and the sudden recovery of his writing ability. What are the forces that have been unleashed hereâ??and what do they want of Mike Noonan? First published in 1998, Bag of Bones was an instant #1 New York Times bestseller. It was lauded at its publication as "hands down, Stephen King's most narratively subversive fiction" (Entertainment Weekly) and his "most ambitious novel" (The Atlanta Journal-Constitution… (more)

Media reviews

Violence, natural and supernatural, ensues as past and present mix, culminating in a torrent of climaxes that bind and illuminate the novel's many mysteries. From his mint-fresh etching of spooky rural Maine to his masterful pacing and deft handling of numerous themes, particularly of the fragility
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of our constructs about reality and of love's ability to mend rifts in those constructs, this is one of King's most accomplished novels.
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Kirkus Reviews
From Kirkus Reviews
Leaving Viking for the storied literary patina of Scribner, current or not, King seemingly strives on the page for a less vulgar gloss. And he eases from horror into romantic suspense, while adding dollops of the supernatural. The probable model: structural echoes of Daphne du
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Maurier's Rebecca do sound forth, although King never writes one paragraph herein to match du Maurier's opening moonscapes of Manderley. What comes through nevertheless is a strong pull to upgrade his style and storytelling in this his 50th year. Yes, he actually does write better if with less energy and power than in Desperation (1996). In fact, attacking the race problem in lily-white Maine, he even assumes an almost Dreiserian seriousness in his final paragraphs. Well, the story: romantic-suspense novelist Michael Noonan, who summers in Castle Rock on Dark Score Lake, falls into a four-year writer's block when his wife Johanna dies of a brain blowout. Now 40 and childless, Mike has salted away four extra novel manuscripts in his safe-deposit box, one of them 11 years old (shades of Richard Bachman!), and keeps up a pretense of productivity by publishing a ``new'' novel each year. Meanwhile, he finds himself falling for Mattie Devore, a widowed mother half his age. Mattie's late husband is the son of still-thriving half-billionaire computer king Max Devore, 85 years old and monstrous, who plans to gain possession of Mattie's three-year-old daughter, the banally drawn Kyra. Mike's first big question: Did Johanna cuckold him during his long hours writing? If so, will her character reverse our understanding of her, as does Rebecca de Winter's? And how can he help Mattie fight off Max and keep Kyra? The supernatural elements, largely reserved for the interracial climax, are Standard King but fairly mild.
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User reviews

LibraryThing member tnt-tek
A decent supernatural mystery with a few off-putting moments. I liked the protagonists voice. Sometimes it's hard to maintain interest in a long book written in the first person but the tension is kept up through most of the novel. The spooky parts are well implemented, though I felt like the
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reader was more scared than the character most of the time.

Mattie was a very 1 dimensional character for me. She seemed like she was only there as a vehicle for a bunch of older men to save. I didn't get the impression (despite her constant protests) that she was self sufficient in a way that would've made her more sympathetic.

The epilogue held the most cringe worthy moments (I guess that's the best place for them) as King breaks the fourth wall for some meta analysis that seems hokey. And while I'm at it, why have such a blatant info dump and not let us know the fate of two characters whose escape from peril was in doubt?

Despite my misgivings, I enjoyed reading this. It had been a very long time since I'd read any Stephen King and hope to tackle one of his better received efforts very soon.
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LibraryThing member GwenGuin
I read until my eyes were gritty, splashed some Visine in them and devoured another 2 or 3 chapters befoer sleep overtook me.
LibraryThing member hafowler
I have to say, I was pleasantly surprised by BAG OF BONES. Other than his book ON WRITING, I gave up on King years ago. Around IT I started finding his style tedious, and I was sort of burnt out on horror. But I'm going through this phase where I'm trying to read everything in my house and my
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parents' house before I buy anymore books, and so I ended up grabbing this from my mom on a whim.WOW. I literally stayed up all night two nights in a row to finish this baby. I couldn't put it down. It was sweet, touching, scary, heart-pounding, romantic. I fell in love with the characters, I was creeped out by the ghost plot and the eerie town. It made me cry more than once, and perch on the edge of my seat in suspense just as often. I love this book, and plan to add it to my own keeper collection. Off the beaten path of King's other horror, but has a lot more to offer, as well.
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LibraryThing member andeben
I really wanted to enjoy Bag of Bones. I watched the mini-series on A&E and was looking forward to reading the novel. I was very disappointed. The heart of the story is excellent. The background, the history were all great. However, the climax of the novel, after four hundred plus pages of set up
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simply did not satisfy me.
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LibraryThing member madam_razz
I know that King often gets criticism for his longer stories, his large novels, because they're so darn long. But, for me, those are some of my favorite stories and Bag of Bones is no exception.

I think that this is quite possibly the creepiest full-length novel of King's that I've read so far. More
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than once the hairs on the back of my neck stood up and the fine hairs along my arms followed right along. I kept telling myself I'd stop reading it at night, but I never adhered to that promise. The man knows how to write a ghost story and I think even if I'd read it in broad daylight next to a sun-facing window I would've been just as creeped out at some parts. And the chills start pretty close to the beginning of the book and then sneak up on you afterward.

The characters are compelling and I found myself invested in all of them, including the ones who barely got any page-time.

I will definitely say that there are parts in this book that are not for the faint of heart. There are a lot of things that happened in this book which I was not expecting and which were quite disturbing. That's not a complaint, but I don't think it'll ruin the book or the experience of it to give that bit of caution.

I also find this to be maybe the most satisfying book that I've read from King so far, as odd as that may be to say about a story like this one.

While there were some parts that were a little bit slow, they didn't last long and nothing actually felt like it dragged. I think this is definitely a book that I'll always save from the donate bin and take down from the shelf again from time-to-time.

Heck, who knows. Maybe I'll even be buried with it one day. ;)
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LibraryThing member Stahl-Ricco
Very slow start. It takes 77 pages for Mr. Noonan to go to the house King so obviously wants him to go. 77 loooong pages! And until Max Devore calls on page 115, I came dangerously close to quitting reading this! But the call happens, the story ramps up, and I thoroughly enjoyed the 400 plus pages
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that followed! Like the back of the slip cover reads, this is "A Haunted Love Story". Centered around Sara Laughs (the lake house) and a horrible deed done in the past, the decedents of the TR have a bucketful of reckoning to do, and something, or someone, is game to see that they pay! The characters in this novel may be nothing more than a "bag of bones", but I really came to care about them and what happened to them, and that, for me, makes this a very good read! (minus, of course, the first hundred pages or so...)
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LibraryThing member dickmanikowski
Geez, Stephen King can tell a story. In its own way, this one is right up there with THE SHINING.
LibraryThing member jjaylynny
One of Stephen King's subtler, and best books. Love the historic setting and the very slow buildup to an excruciating climax.
LibraryThing member hrstokes
I freely admit that I've never been a fan of Stephen King's work in the sense that I own or have read many of his books. It wasn't until recently that I bothered to give him a chance. That being said, I found 'Bag of Bones' to be a very difficult book to get through. Not because it was so "scary"
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but because it was, in my opinion, long winded in a way that many of his other books are.

Mr. King has a way of using a hundred words when only twenty are necessary and while many fans appreciate this, I find myself getting bored with his work and losing the 'feel' of the novel. Maybe one day I'll read more of his other books aside from the Dark Tower series, but I doubt that will be for a long, long time.
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LibraryThing member daizylee
One of King's better works. More about characters and suspense than scariness.
LibraryThing member davidabrams
There are two Stephen Kings: the scary and the sensitive. When he’s at his best as a Frightener ("Desperation" and everything before "Pet Semetary"), he grabs you by the arm and twists until you cry "Uncle!" In the Cuddler mode ("Insomnia" and the abominable "Rose Madder"), he’s less sure of
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his mark. Most of the Cuddler novels come off as sign-waving social activism.

Now along comes "Bag of Bones," which falls somewhere between the two Kings. Call it the Warm, Fuzzy Terror. There’s chills a-plenty, but the Cuddler is also hard at work.

"Bag of Bones" opens with a heart-wrenching event. Mike Noonan’s wife dies while crossing a shopping mall parking lot. For Noonan, a best-selling novelist, the grief is overwhelming and draining. He can't focus on his work. He stumbles on that little obstacle called Writer’s Block (something to which the prolific King seems to be immune). Not to worry, he’s got plenty of novels, written in the salad days of his youth, tucked away in a bank vault. He’ll just keep bringing them out one by one until his Muse returns.

Nothing doing, buddy. You’re living in King’s Kingdom (just down the road from the Twilight Zone).

Uninspired and adrift in a sea of grief, Noonan retreats to Sara Laughs, a summer house he and his wife bought years ago but rarely visited. Or, at least, Noonan thinks it had been little used by his wife. Once he shows up at the lake, he discovers she had a secret life he never knew about. Noonan probes into the mystery of Sara Laughs, uncovering secrets that, like a pebble thrown into the lake, grow ever-widening rings.

There’s a subplot involving Mattie Devore, a widowed mother who’s fighting a custody battle with her dead husband’s father. Mattie’s story is less compelling than the haunting mystery of Sara Laughs. However, while it distracts from the hair-prickling ghost story, it does build to a poignant turn of events.

This is not blood-and-guts King, this is a classic ghost story, complete with whispery voices and things that go bump in the night (oooo, those refrigerator magnets!).

Read it for the Fright, but enjoy some of the Cuddling along the way.
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LibraryThing member bellalibrarian
This is my favorite book by Stephen King. He terrified me with Bag of Bones. For anyone who would like a good ghost story; try this one.
LibraryThing member LeHack
My favorite King book. I didn't want to go down into my own basement after reading this book. But it is much more than a horror novel. This is his best.
LibraryThing member McGrewc
I was caught up in this one earlier on than most S.Kings. In fact I was totally enraptured right up until the end. A few pages to go and I was saying, "Wow, Stephie, this is the old you. You scared my pants off, you tied it all together, and now you left me feeling good." Then he decided he needed
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to do something dramatic. I won't be reading this one again the way I have the Stand.
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LibraryThing member stephanielynn
My favorite Stephen King book. I love a good ghost story, and I absolutely love this book.
LibraryThing member andyray
This loooong novel is well put together, but I'm surely glad I don't write stories this long. I'll admit, though, each vision became part of the story -- there weren't any loose ends, except maybe Bill Dean, but that's a matter of opinion, not fact.
LibraryThing member april241
Haunting tale. I have reread several times.
LibraryThing member klarsenmd
Another great one by Stephen King. A mesmerizing tale that drug me in.
LibraryThing member zohar
It took a long time to get into it, but once I was 200 pages in, I was hooked. It's sort of the alternate setting of Lisey's story. An author's wife dies, and he attempts to find out what she was up to the last year of her life.
LibraryThing member angee240
This was a pretty good book! I like Stephen King's style of writing and I found the characters realistic, as well as the story line. If you like a good ghost story, this book is for you. Spooky without being frightening.
LibraryThing member SunnieB
I think this is a good rather old-fashioned ghost story and over-looked by many King fans. It may not be a "typical " King novel, but then what IS - "The Shining", "Green Mile" or "The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon"? See what I mean?
LibraryThing member arouse77
fairly typical Stephen King fare here. ghost story, eerie happenings, many many pages of potentially unnecessary exposition. for all that, tripe, in a decent sort of way.
LibraryThing member Blazingice0608
Just finished this book, what a wonderful tale! King steps a little bit out of his usual box on this one and it turned out wonderfully. It does start out a little bit slow for the first 100 pages or so, but after that i couldnt put it down. It has multiple stories going on that in the end all
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connect and come together beautifully, another one of my favorates from King.
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LibraryThing member glamrockskisuit
I do quite like this book. I remember thinking at the beginning, "Just go to the house!" but I understand why he hesitated. I suppose I'm the kind of impatient person which I suppose made me read and read and read. I loved the end though which I usually do with Stephen King's books. I didn't see it
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coming! Love it!
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LibraryThing member valerieowens
One of my favorite King books. Very spooky!

Awards

Audie Award (Finalist — 1999)
Locus Award (Finalist — 1999)
Bram Stoker Award (Nominee — Novel — 1998)
British Fantasy Award (Winner — August Derleth Fantasy Award — 1999)

Language

Original language

English

Original publication date

1998-09-22

Physical description

752 p.; 4.19 inches

ISBN

067102423X / 9780671024239

Barcode

1601327
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