From international bestseller Stephen King, a tale of grief, of love’s enduring bonds, and the haunting secrets of the past–the inspiration for the A&E miniseries. Stephen King’s most gripping and unforgettable novel, Bag of Bones, is 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. Set … terrible crossfire.
Set in the Maine territory King has made mythic, Bag of Bones recounts the plight of forty-year-old bestselling novelist Mike Noonan, who is unable to stop grieving even four years after the sudden death of his wife, Jo, and who can no longer bear to face the blank screen of his word processor.
Now his nights are plagued by vivid nightmares of the house by the lake. Despite these dreams, or perhaps because of them, Mike finally returns to Sara Laughs, the Noonans’ isolated summer home.
He finds his beloved Yankee town familiar on its surface, but much changed underneath–held in the grip of a powerful millionaire, Max Devore, who twists the very fabric of the community to his purpose: to take his three-year-old granddaughter away from her widowed young mother.
As Mike is drawn into their struggle as he falls in love with both of them, he is also drawn into the mystery of Sara Laughs, now the site of ghostly visitations, ever-escalating nightmares, and the sudden recovery of his writing ability. What are the forces that have been unleashed here–and what do they want of Mike Noonan?
As vivid and enthralling as King’s most enduring works, Bag of Bones resonates with what Amy Tan calls “the witty and obsessive voice of King’s powerful imagination.” It’s no secret that King is our most mesmerizing storyteller. In Bag of Bones–described by Gloria Naylor as “a love story about the dark places within us all”–he proves to be one of our most moving.more
My friend and fellow author Jeremy Finley has taken it upon himself to educate me in the ways of the King, and this was my first foray back to his world since THE SHINING scared my pants off. Since I enjoy King’s accent and inflections, I chose to listen to the book. At 18+ hours, it was a commitment, but the writing is gorgeous, and the story so intriguing—it’s a mystery, and a love story, with a ghostly backdrop. I don’t know how much scarier I can go with King, but I thoroughly enjoyed this one.
Incredibly chilling. Thought-provoking, in such a way that it makes you think about it days and even weeks after you’ve read it. Good read!!!
Another excellent novel from Stephen King! This is a long book, but it will keep you interested the whole way. Haunting, supernatural and of course scary!
If you’re looking for a perfect ghost story for reading at Halloween, this one is a good place to start. Author Mike Noonan’s wife dies tragically, and he only finds out after her death that she was pregnant with their long-awaited first child. Hit with the world’s worst case of writer’s block afterward, he retreats to their vacation home, Sara Laughs, on Dark Score Lake in rural Maine. There he meets single mom Mattie and her daughter, Kyra. He’s draw to both of them, and as he finds himself falling not only for Mattie but Kyra, too, he starts to unravel the history of Sara Laughs, as well. It’s a creepy, thrilling story that will keep you turning pages long past your bedtime. One of my favorites.
I’ve been on a “re-reading Stephen King” path lately, but this was a new one for me. I truly enjoyed the story, although it was difficult content to read from time to time. Gritty and raw, I recommend this to supernatural thriller fans.
Read it a few years ago. Great story telling and character builds. At times heartbreaking.
Besides Kings 11-22-63…my favorite King novel
What happens when you fulfill one of your bucket list items?
Do you feel a sense of achievement? Satisfied? Surprised? Disappointed?
Well, I can write that after reading Bag of Bones, I felt all of those feelings except disappointed.
As you know, Stephen King was on my reading bucket list and Bag of Bones was the choice of my readers for the next novel that I would read and review. I got a double whammy and a 2-for-1 special with this book.
Bag of Bones is the story of Mike Noonan, a bestselling novelist with a great life until his wife dies in an accident near their Western Maine summer home. From that accident, Mike’s life is turned upside down and inside out.
Because of that event, Mike gets writers block, discovers their summer home is haunted and has a connection to the town’s lurid past, and is caught in the middle of a family custody battle with a woman half his age that has a beautiful three year old daughter and realizes that he deeply loves both of them.
This is a moody, atmospheric story and it felt like I was reading a John Irving or Richard Ford novel with a huge paint splattering of Stephen King over the top. Bag of Bones qualifies for the first literary ghost love story I’ve ever read.
One of the things, I really enjoyed in this novel was King’s ability to show the pressures of a writer trying to produce the next bestselling book:
“Readers have a loyalty that cannot be matched anywhere else in the creative arts, which explains why so many writers who have run out of gas can keep coasting anyway, propelled onto the bestselller lists by the magic words AUTHOR OF on the covers of their books.
What the publisher wants in return, especially from an author who can be counted on to sell 500,000 or so copies of each novel in hardcover and a million more in paperback, is perfectly simple: a book a year.
Less than a book a year and you’re screwing up the publisher’s investment in you, hampering your business manager’s ability to continue floating all of your credit cards, and jeopardizing your agent’s ability to pay his shrink on time. Also, there’s always some fan attrition when you take too long.”
That section and the conversation with his agent was the most honest parts of the novel. It felt like King wanted his readers to understand some of the burden he has being one of America’s bestselling novelists.
Moreover, I felt King wanted to show in this story the power of wealth and how it can control an entire small town. The good ol’ boy network and hate can make you do something that you will regret for the rest of your life and affect succeeding generations.
After reading Bag of Bones, I’ve learned that King is a gifted storyteller and I can see why he became one of our greatest bestselling novelists. I know he is a polarizing author, but I believe he is a true talent and should be recognized as such.
I would recommend this novel an introduction to Stephen King’s work and also a good story to add to your reading bucket list.
One of my top 3 King books!
One of my favorite stories by the King.
The last few King books that I’ve read haven’t really been my favorite, Bag of Bones included. I hope to pick one up that can lite that spark for the love of all things King again soon! When I read the blurb for Bag of Bones I was certain that I’d enjoy it… I mean, a writer being haunted by his wife at a like house that they shared… what’s not to love? Sadly, more than I expected.
Mike lost his wife in an accident and hasn’t quite been himself since. He’s a loner, with no desire to do much aside from crossword puzzles and be alone. He’s even struggled to write which is his bread earning passion after all. He begins having strange dreams, very strange, and decides to spend time at his lake side cabin for a while to see if the lingering energy of his late wife might help him get his ambition and creativity back. It doesn’t take long after his arrival for the odd goings on to really kick it up a notch. You see, his wife isn’t the only spirit around. There’s also the spirit of Sarah, a singer/performer from a very very long time ago. Mike is fixated on her, so when he comes across a struggling young mother with some physical similarities to Sarah it’s no surprise that he gets a bit hung up on her.
Mattie is her name. She’s a lot younger than him, which isn’t a big deal to me, but the way it’s written makes it seem like Mike really dwells on the age difference. He feels it’s wrong in a way because she’s barely legal and he’s (I don’t remember exactly how old 40s or 50s) but a lot older anyway. He points it it out non-stop. To the point that it feels off, and a bit on the creepy side in my opinion. Anyway, Mattie also lost her spouse. They’d only been together a short time before he passed, but it was long enough to have a baby. Her late husband’s father is a multi-billionaire and he wants custody of his only grandchild. Because Mike has taken a liking to Mattie, he pays for a lawyer and helps her fight the battle.
In the meantime, his hauntings get more and more extreme. His dreams are stranger and more threatening. Jo, his wife, and Sarah are really giving it to him hard -yes, pun intended lol. Ultimately, there’s a twist that solves Mattie’s trouble with the father in law, yet other threats come to play that you never see coming and they’re even worse than a custody battle. Mike’s battle with his inner demons along with the spirits around him all come to a head and the ending is one big confusing whammy. I walked away cringing and scratching my head. 3 stars for me.
one of Kings better stories!!!
Easily my favorite Stephen King book. I’ve read a lot of them over the years, and they are hit or miss for me. This one’s definitely a hit.
It’s a Stephen King book, and I try to read all of his books. This one wasn’t my favorite though…I read it to completion but I was a little disappointed.
An entertaining horror novel, but it’s also very sad.
One of Stephen King’s books that really scared me
I think this is just about the best a white man can do writing about a black woman’s pain. That said, he really clearly and explicitly writes empathy and understanding for almost all of the white men who rape a woman and murder her _and_ her child, because they were succumbing to peer pressure to be rape and murder (God forbid they put up with teasing), while also explicitly saying that there can be no empathy for said murdered woman for wanting and getting revenge for herself and her child. So for me, this showed the painful, stark limitation of white imagination for justice for black women. The clear implication is that the black woman should have forgiven all for the murder of her child (incidentally, that’s all she gets revenge for, not her own suffering), despite those white men doing _nothing_ to repent or make amends.
That’s not balance. In the world of horror, where horrific imbalance is met with horrific methods of restoring balance, it’s simply lying to act as if not wanting to be teased is enough to get out of the consequences of murdering a child. It’s lying to ignore the karma of the men covering up their murderous past yet repeatedly acting it out through descendants. This is unusually dishonest for King, who has no problem writing white women handing out bloody just desserts to their abusers.
For all that, this is still one of King’s most solid works. Usually, his endings and reveals are weaker than his setups. This ends very solidly. That said, it is very telling that his stories about abuse of white women are told from the perspectives of those women, but this story is very much told from the perspective of the abusers and inheritors of the abuse.
Scared the snot out of me and I loved it. Couldn’t put it down.
This is back to King’s original style. Really good characters and story.
Not exactly what I have come to think of as a “Stephen King” novel, still it may well be one of his best.
Should have been titled Bag of Plotholes