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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
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
User reviews
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.
I think that this is quite possibly the creepiest full-length novel of King's that I've read so far. More
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. ;)
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.
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.