Lisey's Story [Audiobook, Unabridged] [Audio Cassette]

Stephen King (Author), Mare Winningham (Reader)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 24, 2006

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, 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 story ever, Lisey's Story is about the wellsprings of creativity, the temptations of madness, and the secret language of love.

Editorial Reviews

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

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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

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

From Publishers Weekly

Starred Review. Following King's triumphant return to the world of gory horror in Cell, the bestselling author proves he's still the master of supernatural suspense in this minimally bloody but disturbing and sorrowful love story set in rural Maine. Lisey's husband, Pulitzer Prize–winning author Scott Landon, has been dead for two years at the book's start, but his presence is felt on every page. Lisey hears him so often in her head that when her catatonic sister, Amanda, begins speaking to her with Scott's voice, she finds it not so much unbelievable as inevitable. Soon she's following a trail of clues that lead her to Scott's horrifying childhood and the eerie world called Boo'ya Moon, all while trying to help Amanda and avoid a murderous stalker. Both a metaphor for coming to terms with grief and a self-referencing parable of the writer's craft, this novel answers the question King posed 25 years ago in his tale "The Reach": yes, the dead do love. (Oct.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Audio Cassette
• Publisher: Simon & Schuster Audio; Unabridged edition (October 24, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0743555996
• ISBN-13: 978-0743555999
• Product Dimensions: 6.9 x 4.2 x 2.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (530 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,291,923 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #35 in Books > Books on Cassette > Authors, A-Z > ( K ) > King, Stephen
  • #93 in Books > Books on Cassette > Horror

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

106 of 114 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars not one of my faves by King, November 3, 2006

By 

Bryant Burnette "Bryant Burnette" (Tuscaloosa, AL) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Lisey's Story (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.

My second major problem is that there's just too much going on, and some of it I can't quite manage to care about.

One plot is about Lisey taking care of her mentally ill sister Amanda, and this storyline, while well told, just doesn't come together. Amanda's story has no resolution; she's only there so that she can back Lisey up in another element of the story, which she fails to do with any weight -- so, in a sense, she's a pointless character.

Another plot deals with Lisey's attempts to clean out her husband's many papers, which leads to an increasingly dangerous series of encounters with a stalker who could have walked straight out of King's "Secret Window, Secret Garden" (King even acknowledges this, in a way I'm sure will be lost on all but the most ardent King fans). This part of the plot allows Lisey to be an active character (in other words, it serves to actually give her something to do), but I don't buy it for a second. It seems incredibly forced, and not at all relevant.

The third major plot element involves Lisey remembering -- through clues Scott left her before his death -- certain things about her husband's life (and their life together) that she has sort of been repressing. This element of the novel works almost entirely, and if the rest had been jettisoned, it would rank as one of King's finest achievements. This part of the story is a beautifully told love story with additional touches of divine fantasy and brutal horror, and it's pretty much sublime. The problem is, it's told haltingly, with many interruptions from the other parts of the plot. It's a shame, because the svelte form of a classic dark fantasy have been rendered into corpulence by material that ought to have been exluded.

Ultimately, it's a novel that's well worth reading (it's about one-third brilliant), but I personally can only classify it as a big-time missed opportunity. Still, mediocre King is better than most writers when they're on top of their game.

181 of 209 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Blend of horror and love, October 24, 2006

By 

Eileen Rieback (Coral Springs, FL USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Lisey's Story (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. In spite of this flaw, "Lisey's Story" is a riveting book that the author has obviously poured his heart and soul into. Stephen King fans won't want to miss this journey into the darkness and back!

Eileen Rieback

20 of 21 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Not your daddy's Stephen King, November 3, 2006

By 

Bookreporter (New York, New York) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Lisey's Story (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. Maybe the latter isn't much of a secret at all, because Scott --- even before his untimely death --- saw things coming for Lisey and set about providing for her.

What did he see coming? Well, it's not a clown under a bridge or a pyrokinetic teenager or even a nasty disease transmitted over a cell phone. No, it's something much worse: a living, breathing nightmare made of flesh that is out there right now, a walking waste of skin looking for a victim even as I type. And it is after Lisey. But Lisey has help, and not just from her deceased husband. She will have to go to some immeasurable lengths in order to obtain it.

LISEY'S STORY is perhaps allegorical in some ways and deeply personal in others. Scott bears no small resemblance to King's template, and there are no doubt some other real-world comparisons to be made between this fine work's characters and people in King's life. I will leave the deep analysis of this to others more informed than myself on such matters. As for LISEY'S STORY, I am glad I kept reading. What higher praise is there than that? While it is not my favorite King novel --- that remains MISERY, for personal reasons --- it is probably his best written.

--- Reviewed by Joe Hartlaub