Lisey Debusher Landon lost her husband, Scott, two years ago, after a twenty-five-year marriage of the most profound and sometimes frightening intimacy. Scott was an award-winning, bestselling novelist and a very complicated man. Early in their relationship, before they married, Lisey had to learn from him about books and blood and bools. Later, she understood that there was a place Scott went -- a place that both terrified and healed him, that could eat him alive or give him the ideas he needed in order to live. Now it's Lisey's turn to face Scott's demons, Lisey's turn to go to Boo'ya Moon. What begins as a widow's effort to sort through the papers of her celebrated husband becomes a nearly fatal journey into the darkness he inhabited. Perhaps King's most personal and powerful novel, Lisey's Story is about the wellsprings of creativity, the temptations of madness, and the secret language of love.
Lisey's Story: A Novel
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Amazon.com Review
Since his first novel was published in 1974, Stephen King has stretched the boundaries of the written word, not only bringing horror to new heights, but trying his hand at nearly every possible genre, including children's books, graphic novels, serial novels, literary fiction, nonfiction, westerns, fantasy, and even e-books (remember The Plant?). With Lisey's Story, once again King is trying something different. Lisey's Story is as much a romance as it is a supernatural thriller--but don't let us convince you. Who better to tell readers if King has written a romantic thriller than Nora Roberts? We asked Nora to read Lisey's Story and give us her take. Check out her review below. --Daphne Durham
Guest Reviewer: Nora Roberts
Nora Roberts, who also writes under the pseudonym J.D. Robb, is the author of way too many bestselling books to name here (over 150!), but some of our favorites include: Angels Fall, Born in Death, Blue Smoke, and The Reef.
Stephen King hooked me about three decades ago with that sharply faceted, blood-stained jewel, The Shining. Through the years he's bumped my gooses with kiddie vampires, tingled my spine with beloved pets gone rabid, justified my personal fear of clowns and made me think twice about my cell phone. I've always considered The Stand--a long-time favorite--a towering tour de force, and have owed its author a debt as this was the first novel I could convince my older son to read from cover to cover.
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Guest Reviewer: Nora Roberts
Nora Roberts, who also writes under the pseudonym J.D. Robb, is the author of way too many bestselling books to name here (over 150!), but some of our favorites include: Angels Fall, Born in Death, Blue Smoke, and The Reef. Stephen King hooked me about three decades ago with that sharply faceted, blood-stained jewel, The Shining. Through the years he's bumped my gooses with kiddie vampires, tingled my spine with beloved pets gone rabid, justified my personal fear of clowns and made me think twice about my cell phone. I've always considered The Stand--a long-time favorite--a towering tour de force, and have owed its author a debt as this was the first novel I could convince my older son to read from cover to cover.
But with Lisey's Story, King has accomplished one more feat. He broke my heart.
Lisey's Story is, at its core, a love story--heart-wrenching, passionate, terrifying and tender. It is the multi-layered and expertly crafted tale of a twenty-five year marriage, and a widow's journey through grief, through discovery and--this is King, after all--through a nightmare scape of the ordinary and extraordinary. Through Lisey's mind and heart, the reader is pulled into the intimacies of her marriage to bestselling novelist Scott Landon, and through her we come to know this complicated, troubled and heroic man.
Two years after his death, Lisey sorts through her husband's papers and her own shrouded memories. Following the clues Scott left her and her own instincts, she embarks on a journey that risks both her life and her sanity. She will face Scott's demons as well as her own, traveling into the past and into Boo'ya Moon, the seductive and terrifying world he'd shown her. There lives the power to heal, and the power to destroy.
Lisey Landon is a richly wrought character of charm and complexity, of realized inner strength and redoubtable humor. As the central figure she drives the story, and the story is so vividly textured, the reader will draw in the perfumed air of Boo'ya Moon, will see the sunlight flood through the windows of the Scott's studio--or the night press against them. Her voice will be clear in your ear as you experience the fear and the wonder. If your heart doesn't hitch at the demons she faces in this world and the other, if it doesn't thrill at her courage and endurance, you're going to need to check with a cardiologist, first chance.
Lisey's Story is bright and brilliant. It's dark and desperate. While I'll always consider The Shining, my first ride on King's wild Tilt-A-Whirl, a gorgeous, bloody jewel, I found, on this latest ride, a treasure box heaped with dazzling gems.
A few of them have sharp, hungry teeth. --Nora Roberts
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
From Publishers Weekly
King's latest bid for literary respectability is read by acclaimed actress Winningham, best known for her Oscar-nominated performance in Georgia. Winningham glazes King's novel in multiple coats of Southern honey, her voice shimmering with an old-fashioned glow for the tale of Lisey Landon, wife of acclaimed novelist Scott Landon, and her effort to discover the source of her husband's inspiration after his death. Winningham is a good fit for King in a less terror-filled mood, capturing the book's blend of the sentimental and the comic. The narrative is ushered in and out by the strains of Ryan Adams's "When the Stars Go Blue," and King reads his own afterword, where he details the sources of his own inspiration, carefully distancing himself and his loved ones from the characters in his book while making it clear that, like Scott Landon, he must dive deep into his subconscious and into the pool of literary history, to find inspiration.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to the Audio CD edition.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to the Audio CD edition.
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More About the Author
Stephen King is the author of more than fifty books, all of them worldwide bestsellers. Among his most recent are the Dark Tower novels, Cell, From a Buick 8, Everything's Eventual, Hearts in Atlantis, The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon, and Bag of Bones. His acclaimed nonfiction book, On Writing, was also a bestseller. He is the recipient of the 2003 National Book Foundation Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters. He lives in Bangor, Maine, with his wife, novelist Tabitha King.
Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
127 of 137 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
I'm a big King fan, and -- unless I'm dead broke or just plain dead -- will always read his new novels as soon as they come out, but all in all, I'd have to say "Lisey's Story" is not one of my favorites. It's not bad, exactly; there are way too many beautifully written passages to even consider calling the book bad.
However, I think that the book was badly in need of some editorial intervention at some point. I'm not referring to the book's length (though it IS too long, probably by about 300 pages), but rather to (1) an incredibly excessive use of silly language and (2) too many different threads of plot that don't manage to fully connect.
In terms of the silly language . . . well, "silly" is patently the wrong word for me to use. Here's the deal. The two main characters, one of whom exists only in recollection by the other, are a (formerly) married couple who have a sort of private language consisting of certain phrases ("Strap On Whenever It Seems Appropriate," for example) and words (replacing "afghan," meaning the sawhl. with "african," and so on). This is nothing revolutionary; it's the same thing as an inside joke, and everyone I know, in each significant relationship, has a few of tthose that get tossed around until they do in fact become a sort of private language. But here's the problem with that in a novel: it kept me at a distance the entire time. I think it was designed to bring me into the interior lives of these two people, but it had the exact opposite effect on me, and at a certain point in time I began to get actively annoyed every time this sort of thing appeared. And it's used A LOT. Less so toward the end of the novel, but it's incessant in the first 200 pages.... Read more ›
However, I think that the book was badly in need of some editorial intervention at some point. I'm not referring to the book's length (though it IS too long, probably by about 300 pages), but rather to (1) an incredibly excessive use of silly language and (2) too many different threads of plot that don't manage to fully connect.
In terms of the silly language . . . well, "silly" is patently the wrong word for me to use. Here's the deal. The two main characters, one of whom exists only in recollection by the other, are a (formerly) married couple who have a sort of private language consisting of certain phrases ("Strap On Whenever It Seems Appropriate," for example) and words (replacing "afghan," meaning the sawhl. with "african," and so on). This is nothing revolutionary; it's the same thing as an inside joke, and everyone I know, in each significant relationship, has a few of tthose that get tossed around until they do in fact become a sort of private language. But here's the problem with that in a novel: it kept me at a distance the entire time. I think it was designed to bring me into the interior lives of these two people, but it had the exact opposite effect on me, and at a certain point in time I began to get actively annoyed every time this sort of thing appeared. And it's used A LOT. Less so toward the end of the novel, but it's incessant in the first 200 pages.... Read more ›
188 of 217 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
Lisey Landon, widow of best-selling horror author Scott Landon, is finally getting around to cleaning out her late husband's possessions. While going through his writings and memorabilia, she is assailed with a flood of memories of her love for, and life with, her tortured genius husband. At the same time, Lisey's sister has a mental breakdown and a crazed madman threatens Lisey's life if she doesn't turn all of Scott's memorabilia over to him.
King is back in top form as a horror writer. This story is about as horrific, creepy, and gruesome as they come. Scott had a nasty childhood and a special power he called upon when things got tough. However, mixed in with the horror is a reflection on the wellspring of creation that a writer draws upon and a story of a strong love that outlasts even death. The title notwithstanding, this is really Scott's story rather than Lisey's. It reminded me a bit of the book "Rebecca," because it's Scott's strong presence that prevails throughout the book rather than Lisey's, and it's often Scott's words that issue from Lisey's lips.
Although King has deftly woven together a story that balances both horror and love and includes some heart-pounding scenes, I had to knock a star off the rating because of King's continual use of invented words and pretentious phrases that were part of the Landon family language. For the first quarter of the book, I found the constant presence of such coined words as "blood-bool," SOWISA," "Boo'ya Moon," and "long boy" so confusing that I wished I had a secret decoder ring to turn them into more intelligible phrases. And Lisey's constant quoting of family phrases such as "puffickly huh-yooge" and "keep your string a-drawing" became irritating after a while.... Read more ›
King is back in top form as a horror writer. This story is about as horrific, creepy, and gruesome as they come. Scott had a nasty childhood and a special power he called upon when things got tough. However, mixed in with the horror is a reflection on the wellspring of creation that a writer draws upon and a story of a strong love that outlasts even death. The title notwithstanding, this is really Scott's story rather than Lisey's. It reminded me a bit of the book "Rebecca," because it's Scott's strong presence that prevails throughout the book rather than Lisey's, and it's often Scott's words that issue from Lisey's lips.
Although King has deftly woven together a story that balances both horror and love and includes some heart-pounding scenes, I had to knock a star off the rating because of King's continual use of invented words and pretentious phrases that were part of the Landon family language. For the first quarter of the book, I found the constant presence of such coined words as "blood-bool," SOWISA," "Boo'ya Moon," and "long boy" so confusing that I wished I had a secret decoder ring to turn them into more intelligible phrases. And Lisey's constant quoting of family phrases such as "puffickly huh-yooge" and "keep your string a-drawing" became irritating after a while.... Read more ›
30 of 31 people found the following review helpful
By Bookreporter
Format:Hardcover
At first blush, LISEY'S STORY is not your daddy's Stephen King. To be sure, there are initial hints of things that go bump, but it's not like THE SHINING, SALEM'S LOT, or even CELL. If, as King has said, MISERY was his love letter to fans, LISEY'S STORY is a love letter to his wife, written from the perspective of his death. This is not an easy concept to get your head around at first. But if you're willing to invest time and attention to what King seems to consider his penultimate work, then at the very least you will encounter a beautifully told tale that is worth your time, energy and money.
There was a point very early on when it looked to me as if LISEY'S STORY was going to be King's major attempt at non-genre fiction, and I almost stopped reading. There are two protagonists herein: Lisey Debusher Landon and her husband of a quarter-century, Scott. In the "now" of LISEY'S STORY, Scott, an award-winning author, has been deceased for two years, and Lisey has multiple balls in the air: her relationship with each of her somewhat batty sisters, pressure from a pushy academic type to gain access to Scott's trove of papers, and her own grief. As I started to set aside this weighty tome, I thought, "More John Irving than John Saul, aha!" There's nothing wrong with books of domestic matters, of course; they're just not my cup of tea.
But I didn't give up, and as the novel progressed, I discovered that there is much more to LISEY'S STORY than domestic drama. A great deal of this tale consists of flashbacks concerning the long course of the Landons' courtship and marriage, and we ultimately come to know Scott, who is much more than a wonderful husband and wordsmith. Scott has secrets, not the least important of which is his ability to "heal quick," his "books" and his love for Lisey.... Read more ›
There was a point very early on when it looked to me as if LISEY'S STORY was going to be King's major attempt at non-genre fiction, and I almost stopped reading. There are two protagonists herein: Lisey Debusher Landon and her husband of a quarter-century, Scott. In the "now" of LISEY'S STORY, Scott, an award-winning author, has been deceased for two years, and Lisey has multiple balls in the air: her relationship with each of her somewhat batty sisters, pressure from a pushy academic type to gain access to Scott's trove of papers, and her own grief. As I started to set aside this weighty tome, I thought, "More John Irving than John Saul, aha!" There's nothing wrong with books of domestic matters, of course; they're just not my cup of tea.
But I didn't give up, and as the novel progressed, I discovered that there is much more to LISEY'S STORY than domestic drama. A great deal of this tale consists of flashbacks concerning the long course of the Landons' courtship and marriage, and we ultimately come to know Scott, who is much more than a wonderful husband and wordsmith. Scott has secrets, not the least important of which is his ability to "heal quick," his "books" and his love for Lisey.... Read more ›
Most Recent Customer Reviews
5.0 out of 5 stars
Stephen King rocks as usual
Stephen King rocks as usual another awesome book. I haven't found one I didn't like yet. Can't wait to read another one
Published 1 month ago by honeybadger60
1.0 out of 5 stars
Audiobook vs. Novel
Ok, if you thought reading the novel was bad, listening to it out loud has to be a thousand times worse!!!! Read more
Published 1 month ago by April in CT
2.0 out of 5 stars
The premise was very good but it turned out to be very different from...
MAY CONTAIN SPOILERS ***
Very shallow Lisey - the women had no life of her own, what spoiled the story. Read more
Very shallow Lisey - the women had no life of her own, what spoiled the story. Read more
Published 1 month ago by Andreia1974Brazil
4.0 out of 5 stars
A Stephen King love story - much better than it sounds
Oftentimes when a writer attempts to make the leap from one genre to another, they stumble or even crash and burn. Read more
Published 1 month ago by Kenya Starflight
5.0 out of 5 stars
Lisey's Story
Loved it!! I am wondering why I had not read it sooner!!! It is interesting, and keeps suspense up, how is Lisey going to save herself!!??
Published 1 month ago by Lucy
5.0 out of 5 stars
Lisey's Story
I loved it. Couldn't wait to read it at the end of my workday. Well written,I could visualize the scenes as I read the pages. Read more
Published 2 months ago by anita kenney
5.0 out of 5 stars
Stephen King hits again
A great read, moves the reader along, and takes the Stephen King road less traveled. Highly recommended to any fan of King, or of a great story
Published 2 months ago by Rjp
5.0 out of 5 stars
Experience the inside of a marriage... King-sized.
I am currently rereading this book. I love this book. I am quite sure Mr. King's near death and subsequent rehab time with his wife Tabitha gave them a lot of time to talk about... Read more
Published 2 months ago by C. Hammell
5.0 out of 5 stars
Excellent Condition
arrived in a timely manner and has quickly become one of my all time favorite king books. his beast since the failure of the DT series
Published 3 months ago by amy griffin
5.0 out of 5 stars
Kings Best
Before i read this novel the Stand was my all time favorite.. This is by far Stephen Kings best masterpiece.. An excellent read..
Published 3 months ago by Paul
