Lisey’s Story
by Stephen King
If you’ve hung around this site long enough, you might have caught on to the fact that I’m a big fan of Stephen King’s work. More his early stuff than his late stuff, but that’s just my opinion. Lisey’s (prounounced lee-cee, pet name derived from lisa) story is a novel about a woman who was married to a prolific writer. He died and now she’s struggling with some secrets that they both kept that may end up destroying her in the end. Add to that the fact that there are a few unsavory fellows that want her late husbands remaining work and you’ve got a recipe for a pretty mundane novel. Then Stephen goes to work.
Lisey finds herself reliving old memories in a “bool hunt” left by her husband. A bool hunt is a little like a treasure hunt, except twisted as only King can do. This hunt takes her to “Booya Moon”, a secret world that her husband frequently went for inspiration and nearly didn’t come back a time or two. Now Lisey must go there to save her sister and in the end, herself. And of course, there’s something dark waiting on Booya Moon for her and it may never let her go.
The reason that I like Stephen King’s earlier works more than his later works is because his later works are soft. The plot’s don’t vary all that much and the only real change is the way that King tortures his characters and brings them through it. His later works have also become much less violent macabre and more of a psychological mind f-ck kinda writing. He’s also done a little too much with characters that are aging prolific writers. Can you say soul searching?
I miss the books like IT, the Stand, and Christine. Meaty novels that are dark and twisting. Now I get novels like Lisey’s Story that, while still twisting, are near love stories. In fact, the jacket blurbs on the back even call it that.
But I digress. The book is well written as are all Stephen King novels. It has a meaty and twisting plot that is often obscured from the minds eye. It doesn’t compare to his early works, and is about middle of the pack in his more recent works. It’s an average King novel. Of course, that still means it’s better than about 75% of the fiction novels on the market.
Stephen, if you’re listing. This constant reader wants some more of the old Stephen’s work. Hell, if you don’t think you can write it anymore, maybe Richard Bachman could give it a stab.
If you want to read Lisey’s Story, you can buy it at Amazon and on eBay. You can also read more of my book reviews at my recommended reading page.
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About Shane Ede
I had a hard time with this book. I found it’s pace to be…plodding and the plot to be muddled.
I’m a King fan, but this wasn’t one of his better works I don’t think. Just my two cents.
No, certainly not one of the better King novels.
I’m a fan of Stephen King’s works as well. I love the nitty gritty details that he add in his novels. He has a lot of spectacular book-turned-to-movie works as well that I watch over and over again.
“Stephen, if you’re listing. This constant reader wants some more of the old Stephen’s work. Hell, if you don’t think you can write it anymore, maybe Richard Bachman could give it a stab.” – I wonder why Stephen King’s work deteriorated as time passes by. I actually expected to read better novels from him for the past few years. Anyway, I’ve read Lisey’s Story the other day, and I must agree that it’s just an average novel… Let’s keep our fingers crossed that Stephen will write great novels as before for the following years.
Ok, so many people fail to understand what a bool is although SK tries to make it clear. He calls it a blood bool signifying a blood clot. This is a metaphor. Exactly how a blood clot obstructs the normal flow of blood in similar way repressed memories tend to obstruct one’s vision of life. So he talks about blood clots to make an analogy to repressed memories. So it is not a treasure hunt per say. Her husband leaves her clues to remove those clots in her life, to remembered the repressed memories so that she can move on. More than that she needs to remember those memories if she wants to survive because a crazy fan of her husband’s is trying to kill her. A Booya Moon is what is called a blood moon. In certain circumstances the moon appears reddish. I find it so strange that people cannot understand simple stuff like this!