The Lake [Hardcover]

Richard Laymon (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 2004

Leigh is young, rebellious and beautiful -- and she yearns for a summer of excitement by the lake. Maybe she'll find it in the arms of the handsome boy who rows her out to the abandoned beach house. Or maybe she'll stumble into a legacy of terror which will shatter her life...Eighteen years on, Deana has no knowledge of her mother's troubled past and not that much interest. She just wants to make out somewhere cool with her boyfriend -- to let her hair down and live a little. If only living were that simple. But that summer at the lake casts a long shadow. And when the horrors of the past meet the perils of the present, both mother and daughter are plunged into a nightmare of blood and terror from which there is no escape.

--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

When Laymon (Island, etc.) died in 2001, he left behind numerous unpublished novels that Leisure has been issuing. This one is good but not great, combining the savagery of his earlier work (Beast House, etc.) with the spooky wonder of his later books (The Traveling Vampire Show, etc.). As the story begins, we see Candyman, a serial killer, at work, then observe teen Deana West watch in horror as her boyfriend is mowed down by a car—driven by Candyman? The narrative then flashes back 20 years to a summer Deana's mother, Leigh, spent in rural Wisconsin; this, the strongest section, details eerie, erotic nighttime forays by Leigh and her lover, a weird local boy, that result in the boy's accidental death. Back in the present, Leigh gets involved with a cop who's a wolf in sheep's clothing, and she and Deana, who's taken to nighttime jogging and who herself gets involved with a mysterious neighbor and his odd, psychic sister, are menaced by the driver of the car that killed Deana's boyfriend. The plot is too complicated, although Laymon does tie all the strands up in a messy knot; but what counts here, as usual for Laymon, is the white-hot pacing, the rivers of blood (which will dismay mainstream readers) and, above all, the memorable evocation of the fathomless mystery of the moonlit hours.
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Review

 “White-hot pacing (with) rivers of blood… memorable evocation of the fathomless mystery of the moonlit hours.” —Publishers Weekly on The Lake

“If you’ve missed Laymon, you’ve missed a treat!”  —Stephen King

“No one writes like Laymon.” —Dean Koontz

“The master of stomach-churning violence.” —Kirkus

“Laymon is, was, and always will be king of the hill.” —Horror World

--This text refers to the Paperback edition.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 374 pages
• Publisher: Leisure Books; First Edition edition (September 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0843954507
• ISBN-13: 978-0843954500
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 5.9 x 1.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 2.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (22 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #865,966 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

14 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Not representative of the author's work, but still suspenseful, November 21, 2005

By 

DanD - See all my reviews
(TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: The Lake (Mass Market Paperback)

Leigh is a beautiful woman with a dark past; her 18-year-old daughter, Deana, is equally as beautiful. Deana has a boyfriend...until he is murdered by a psychotic killer in a chef's hat. Suddenly, mother and daughter are thrust into a living nightmare, that will wind up where it began: 18 years ago...

"The Lake" is the first Laymon novel that I did not enjoy reading. Yes, it had its moments--Laymon is a great horror author, and creates suspenseful situations better than anyone else. However, there is a reason this book was not published during his life: it's not finished. Reading the last couple hundred pages, you can tell where Laymon intended--if he were to publish the book--to go back and rewrite things. Some of the writing is actually horrible (and Laymon normally has a good sense of word usage). The plot isn't fleshed out; in fact, it's glued together in some spots...well, probably more like duct-taped. There are times when Leigh and Deana seem like real people, but those instances are few and far between. If Laymon had gone back to this novel, and had finished it, it could've been great; as it is, it was a mistake to publish this. If you have never read a Laymon novel before, do not start here, I beg you. Richard Laymon was one of horror's greatest authors; "The Lake" is probably his worst book. Read "The Traveling Vampire Show," "Island," "Bite," or one of the many other Leisure re-issues. Not this one; it is definitely not representative of Laymon's work.

9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars If you can handle it you will love it!, August 20, 2006

By 

- Kasia S. (New York City) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)   

This review is from: The Lake (Hardcover)

Call me crazy but I loved this book! I walked by it three times, on three separate occasions and hesitated based on the lukewarm and bad reviews it got here but I'm happy I finally got the guts to trust my own instinct and I got it anyway. I don't see how this was bad nor boring, are we reading the same book here?? What's going on is what I asked myself, because I was waiting for those bad parts to happen but instead the book pulled me into the insane story and I literally could not put it down.

Laymon writes some pretty gory, intense and horrific scenes and this book started with one of them. If you don't like that kind of a book, then stick to gentler Dean Koontz, whom I also like and who suits more people's palates. In a nutshell this story is about Leigh, the mother who has some past secrets that connect her to the lake and its inhabitants. Her past comes to haunt her later as her own child ends up a target, perhaps by a random madman or someone that Leigh has wronged in the past. The story follows the past and the future and delivers a dynamite suspense and plenty of steamy lustful scenes.

The Lake is a vortex of sorts, a place where teenage Leigh went to when her parents send her away in order to calm down and relax, instead her hormones got in the way and she ended up meeting Charlie. I have never in my life read a book where the female characters were this horny, but I got over it and it made the story tighter. I was fascinated reading about Lake Wahconda where one hot summer she had a lusty affair that ended up in a tragedy that would haunt her for longer than she knew. The descriptions of the warm days, the kayaking, the fishing, food and happiness she felt at the beginning were wonderful to read, I could see the glassy black surface of the lake as she rested on the pier. Happy days were interrupted after a love affair gone badly. Her daughter Deana was born nine months after that tragic day, as you can imagine what Leigh did with Charlie. Unknowns to Leigh and her Daughter, eighteen years later another tragedy strikes, as Deana and her boyfriend Allan are caught in a nightmare, where he ends up dead and Deana is chased by a man who took his life. She manages to get away but things are never the same again for her and her mother, as they are targets for as long as they are alive.

Both the mother and daughter try to move on and begin to get involved with men, who act questionably and who do not get too much trust form the reader. Laymon's writing made everyone a suspect, as bodies kept piling up and strange behaviors in the West house kept occurring on hourly basis. The story is not hard to follow but can be spoiled easy, as many men and women in it are entangled in Leigh's past, and who pose a secret threat to her and her daughter. Eventually one of them gets in a big mess and a kidnapping and the story takes on a wilder turn as the clues come together. I thought that the characters were fleshed out enough, as Laymon wrote many pages where their thought rambled on, making it realistic, as I know I think things through a lot when I'm in a jam.

Overall I rally enjoyed this tale, of Leigh's past and present, mixed up with creepy characters and her daughter getting involved with boyfriends of her own who were not to be trusted. Many perils awaited them and I loved solving the clues and puzzles as to who was the bad guy in sheep's clothes, which would put up a fight against two women who did not want to give up.

9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Not one of Laymon's best., September 28, 2004

By 

james (El Centro, CA, United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Lake (Hardcover)

I'm a huge Richard Laymon fan. After spending hundreds of dollars on his domestic and import titles, I have read pretty much everything he has written. Needless to say, I was excited when I got my hands on "The Lake", but my excitement has been reduced to a general feeling of... "eh." The story held up for two thirds of the book, but by the end, I was just in awe of the ridiculous turns the plot had taken. Silly twists aside, the editing flaws alone are enough to put a person off. Did anyone proofread this before it was published? Look, if you want to read a good Laymon book, please try "Bite", "Body Rides", "Darkness, Tell Us", or, my personal favorite "Funland" (though for that one, you'll have to spring for a UK edition for now). They are all so much better than this particular book. Richard Laymon is one of my favorite writers, but this book just didn't do it for me.