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Subscribe to receive some of our best reviews, "beyond the book" articles, book club info and giveaways by email. Bag of Bones by Stephen King. Write a Review. About this Book Summary Excerpt. Book Summary A story of grief and a lost love's enduring bonds, of a new love haunted by the secrets of the past, of an innocent child caught in a terrible crossfire.
Chapter 1 On a very hot day in August of , my wife told me she was going down to the Derry Rite Aid to pick up a refill on her sinus medicine prescription -- this is stuff you can buy over the counter these days, I believe. Read Full Excerpt. Because his work is so amazingly varied, then and today, it continues to be the well spring for interesting ideas and marketing innovations.
I am as much in awe of his talent, genius, and grit today as I ever was. He continues to grow as an artist and as a cornerstone for American culture and entertainment. Its power to enchant shines brighter every day. And he does it by not shying away from the ugly moments we all experience inside our own heads. The fact that widower Mike Noonan lusts after a young woman is painful for Mike to acknowledge and we, the Constant Readers, can feel how Mike is torn between that lust and guilt, and all the tangled feelings of betrayal and loss that go along with that.
Even though he's widowed, he feels these emotions and we can feel them too. In our hearts, we know what Mike is feeling is true, because that's how WE would feel. Not only does King draw great good characters, he draws great bad ones, as well. His bad guys, not just Mr. Devore from this book, but ALL of them, have layers and a realness to them that brings them alive.
They're not just men dressed in black, Randall Flagg, I'm looking at you , they're complicated, Trashcan Man , they have depth to them, and we I? LOVE to hate them. In this book, Mr. Devore is a rich, frail, elderly man in a wheelchair, yet he still comes at Mike with a menace that is horrible to witness. Our emotions are pulled every which way, how could we HATE an old man in a wheelchair? But there is no question that we DO hate him, and there again, the King has manipulated our emotions and has his Constant Readers, and all other readers, in the palms of his skilled, talented hands.
I loved this book. I love Stephen King. That doesn't mean that I've loved every book he's written, but I usually do love his characters and creations, Wolf, Billy Bumblers , and they still live within my memory. For me, no other author has created so many memorable characters and place settings. The words Derry, Jerusalem's Lot and Pennywise- they all cause an instant picture to appear in my brain. I say let him plant a picture in your brain too: of Sarah Laughs, of the T.
Devoe, Mattie and Kyra. I'm pretty sure you'll thank me later. I highly recommend this book to everyone. Just hold on tight, because your emotions are going to get knocked around a bit by the King, but hey, there's no one better qualified to do so. You'll be getting knocked around by one of the best authors living today.
This review is for that project, which I have thoroughly enjoyed reading. View all 29 comments. But more than anything this is a story of a man missing his dead wife and a writer struggling with the loss of his ability to create stories. And King is excellent at that - human emotions and human nature and the pain of loneliness. I had no idea who had done the carrying, but that was all right—it was a question that could wait for another day. The overwhelming numbing pain Mike feels, with all the anger and despair and loneliness, rings so true and is so profoundly moving.
The love and understanding between partners, in this case literally transcending death, is fascinating. King writes about this with such feeling that it stops me in my tracks, makes me catch my breath and nod in recognition and terror about eventually having to go through something like that. A tight-knit closed-lipped insular community where stubborn pride and sincere generosity, seeming good-naturedness and almost claustrophobic distrust of strangers are all intertwined. A seemingly folksy place full of skeletons - or rather bags of bones - hidden in metaphorical closets, buried under lake waters, closely guarded.
The place that can shield one of its own behind a shoulder-to-shoulder wall — but you are not going to enjoy being on the other side of that wall. The muses are ghosts, and sometimes they come uninvited. It was a sense that reality was thin. I think it is thin, you know, thin as lake ice after a thaw, and we fill our lives with noise and light and motion to hide that thinness from ourselves. And his language is particularly strong here; King stated before that he emphasizes the story over the literary form, but this one slants literary nevertheless — all while keeping his ear for dialogue and his razor-sharp observations and damn good storytelling.
In a house, especially an old one, the past is closer. You know how the air feels before a thunderstorm, how everything gets still and colors seem to stand out with the brilliance of things seen during a high fever? The true dread comes from unexpected places — like that bizarre and almost surreal rock-throwing scene, for instance, where seemingly mundane becomes truly creepy.
And yet those faults are minor, and what stayed with me ever since I first read it at 16 and what is still there now is the haunting gut-wrenching atmosphere and the weight of learning to survive your grief and loss. And yes, it did hit me much harder now than back when I was a teen, yet to have things to lose.
Plus it has a 30 min interview with King in the end, and that was quite interesting. View all 10 comments. Following her death, Mike suffers from writer's block and begins to have nightmares concerning their lakeside house, Sara Laughs. Mike decides he must go back to their lakeside house in order to confront his fears. Upon his arrival, he meets a beautiful single mother and her daughter, only to find out that "Grief is like a drunken house guest, always coming back for one more goodbye hug.
Upon his arrival, he meets a beautiful single mother and her daughter, only to find out that a crazy millionaire wants to obtain custody of the young girl, who is his granddaughter. Mike decides he must help the young mother and daughter, but other sinister forces are also at work I truly believe that no one can depict grief like King can.
Between this and Lisey's Story, King seems to have a unique talent for describing those feelings of loss and the process of grief itself.
And that is part of the reason why I love King so much, it just feels like he gets you and he is able to connect with his reader so easily. Bag of Bones opens with Mike Noonan trying to cope following the unexpected death of his wife Johanna to a brain aneurysm, and these opening scenes are just heartbreaking to read. Mike's grief is so prominent and it's very easy to empathise with this character. The reality of Johanna's death really hits Mike when he realises that she will never move past page in her current read this really struck a cord with me.
Shortly after her death, the nightmares surrounding their lakeside house begins This book did actually unsettle me at times. There's just something about creepy happenings occurring in your house. It's those kind of storylines that freak me out the most - the ones that quite literally hit close to home.
It's kinda why movies like Paranormal Activity are so effective. Some of the scenes King described left me with the hairs on the back of my neck standing up. Serves me right for reading alone in bed late at night The characters themselves are pretty special. Mike Noonan is just a damn good man.
He is caring, generous, thoughtful, and that somehow makes it more difficult to watch him suffering through the loss of his wife. Although Johanna is strictly not a "live" character, she is very much present in this novel, and again, she is a genuinely good person.
So her death is even more tragic. Upon meeting Mattie after his arrival at the lakehouse, you find yourself willing Mike to move on, almost like you want to tell him that it's okay. She's barely cold in her grave! How many times do I need to emphasise that King is literally the BEST at developing characters and their relationships. People who say King is all about horror and scares, need to read books like these in order to truly understand what King is really all about.
Yes, this book could be considered "horror" in a way, but it's not your usual haunted house storyline at all. It's so much more than that. As for the "baddies" in this book - they were horrible, vile characters, particularly the character Max Devore.
The twists and turns and unfolding of events in this novel was very impressive. I was constantly wondering what was coming next, how everything was linked, and I'm very happy to say that it all paid off. One minor complaint is regarding some of the scenes towards the end that made me feel slightly uncomfortable. I felt like perhaps it was maybe a bit too much So maybe it did work then?
Anyway, all in all, a great book. I'm on a run of great King books! Update: listened to audiobook in September Still a really great book but more boring parts than I remembered Just very uncomfortable. View all 7 comments. Had you asked me a month ago what I thought of Bag of Bones I might have chuckled and shook my head. I might have told you it is one of the worst Stephen King books there is, that it is easily in my bottom five King reads, down there with such piles of Kingly excrement as Dreamcatcher , Wizard and Glass , The Eyes of the Dragon , and From a Buick 8 , the latter being the pinnacle of Uncle Stevie's fecal production.
In other words, friends and neighbors, I hated this book. But that was then and this i Had you asked me a month ago what I thought of Bag of Bones I might have chuckled and shook my head. But that was then and this is now. What happened over the course of 17 years, the timespan between my first read and this one? Well, I stopped doing Class-A narcotics for entertainment purposes, became a husband and a father of two, grew up a little, and all-around dug my head out of my ass.
My change of heart could have something to do with one of those things or all of them. I don't know. But this is a gorgeous book. A little heavy in the rear, but absolutely beautiful. My only complaint this time around is how long the book goes on after the denouement. It's not annoyingly long, but I feel a few questions could have been edited out in the beginning half of the book so that we didn't have to sit around for twenty pages reading about two men chatting over whiskey about what happened in the past pages.
I only say this editing could have been done because it is one of the things the made-for-tv movie gets right. One of the toughest topics this book tackles is the subject of male lust, how immediate and destructive a force it can be.
It took a heavy sack on King's part to speak honestly about something every man deals with yet most cannot explain. King does not condone or make excuses here. He explains. This is how it is, and there are men that find their own thoughts reprehensible. Yes, we all lust. Yes, we all imagine how wonderful it would be for our partners to say "Do what you want", but not all of us prefer that over love and tenderness.
Okay, here's where you take responsibility. By clicking on "view spoiler" you agree that you've read King's entire catalogue and will not hold me responsible for things being ruined because you're too damn inquisitive. Trust me, the shit hidden here is only interesting if you have read all of King's books. He's mentioned as having had a divorce in Needful Things , but this is where we learn of his death. William Big Bill Denbrough is too.
It Ralph Roberts Insomnia has a pretty big role for a walk-on character from another book. Usually we're only given mentions of people, but here, Ralph sits down to coffee with Mike and chats for a while. Alan and Polly are only mentioned, but Norris has a walk-on role as the sheriff of Castle County. Nehemiah Bannerman is obviously the gradfather of the ill-fated sheriff George Bannerman, who makes his first appearance in The Dead Zone only to meet his end in Cujo.
The storm of the century in you guessed it Storm of the Century is briefly mentioned as the stawm of the century. Noonan's vacation home is Sara Laughs. And yeah, the recurrence of the number 19 in this book is kinda obnoxious. It's fucking everywhere. What is sad is that I never would have reread this one had I not taken on this massive challenge. I feel that this entire journey has been worth it if only because I have a new favorite King book.
Bag of Bones is a powerful novel that doesn't get the credit it deserves from King fans. I cannot recommend a first read, but I highly recommend a reread. Final Judgment: Sometimes it's the reader and not the book.
View all 23 comments. That was better than I thought it would be. View 2 comments. Shelves: cuz-mah-fah-says-so , buddy-reads , scary-sh-t. When people talk about the great Stephen King books, Bag of Bones is almost never part of the conversation. When I agreed to do a buddy read it was because of its connection to Moon and the Sixpence and the recommendation of my favorite and greatest of all Mah Fahs, Stepheny.
I can honestly say I was happily disappointed. The skinny: Mike Noonan, a writer, tragically loses his wif When people talk about the great Stephen King books, Bag of Bones is almost never part of the conversation. The skinny: Mike Noonan, a writer, tragically loses his wife at a young age and subsequently develops writers block.
He finds a connection with a year old widow and her 3-year old daughter. Plus, the summer house is haunted — brimming to the rafters with ghosts. What works here are the characterizations and the palpable love story between Mike and his long dead wife, it rises off the page and grabs you on a visceral level. The story itself works well up until crunch time, then King gets overwhelmed by some semi-important plot devices that lose focus and get muddled as the pages turn.
King once again provides a classic example of the difficulty he has in dealing with a protagonist. Where the hell did that come from? View all 19 comments.
I had read Bag of Bones before, when it was first published, but all I really remembered about it was that I found it an enjoyable enough story, but not one that was excellent enough to be particularly memorable. And, indeed, I found myself remembering very little of the story while rereading it this time around. Which, on the one hand, the kind of thing I hope for with a reread so that it, again and hopefully has the power to surprise me again.
There are good things about Bag of Bones. Crisp and unread. In mylar. Hardcover and dust jacket. Good binding and cover. Clean, unmarked pages. Published by Scribner's, NY, Used - Hardcover Condition: F. Condition: F. First edition with the full number line present. A fine copy in a near fine, price-clipped dust jacket.
Published by New English Library, Used - Softcover. When Mike Noonan's wife dies unexpectedly, the bestselling author suffers from desperate writer's block. Until he is drawn to their summer home, Sara Laughs,. Published by Scribner, nd , c,, Used - Hardcover. King's most gripping and unforgettable novel'. Dust Jacket Condition: Good. Scribner, Hard Cover. No marks. Published by NY Scribner DJ clipped. Dust Jacket Condition: Very Good. Clean and tight. DJ not price clipped, some wear on edges.
Used - Hardcover Condition: Fine. Condition: Fine. A page story of grief and love set in King's Maine territory. Dust jacket is enclosed in a clear mylar cover.
New and unread. New - Hardcover Condition: New. Condition: New. First edition, 1st printing. Fine binding and cover.
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