469. Bag of Bones
Rating: ☆☆☆☆
Recommended by:
Author: Stephen King
Genre: Fiction, Thriller, Mystery, Fantasy, Suspense, Horror
529 pages, published September 22, 1998
Reading Format: Audiobook on Overdrive
Summary
Bag of Bones is the story of novelist Mike Noonan and the grief he suffers after the sudden death of his pregnant wife Jo. Mike develops writer’s block which is temporarily relieved when he returns to Sara Laughs, their remote vacation home on a lake in Maine. There he meets the beautiful young widow Maddie and her toddler daughter Kyra. Much stands in the way of Mike and Maddie’s growing attraction for each other: her vengeful ex father in law who wants custody of Kyra, Mike’s reluctance to be with someone so much younger and the ghosts that increasingly insert themselves into the lives of Mike and those around him.
Quotes
“Compared to the dullest human being actually walking about on the face of the earth and casting his shadow there,” Hardy supposedly said, “the most brilliantly drawn character in a novel is but a bag of bones.” I understood because that was what I felt like in those interminable, dissembling days: a bag of bones.”
“Humor is almost always anger with its make-up on.”
“This is how we go on: one day at a time, one meal at a time, one pain at a time, one breath at a time. Dentists go on one root-canal at a time; boat-builders go on one hull at a time. If you write books, you go on one page at a time. We turn from all we know and all we fear. We study catalogues, watch football games, choose Sprint over AT&T. We count the birds in the sky and will not turn from the window when we hear the footsteps behind us as something comes up the hall; we say yes, I agree that clouds often look like other things – fish and unicorns and men on horseback – but they are really only clouds. Even when the lightening flashes inside them we say they are only clouds and turn our attention to the next meal, the next pain, the next breath, the next page. This is how we go on.”
“For men, I think, love is a thing formed of equal parts lust and astonishment. The astonishment part women understand. The lust part they only think they understand.”
“I felt lonely and content at the same time. I believe that is a rare kind of happiness.”
“Grief is like a drunken house guest, always coming back for one more goodbye hug.”
“I was being paid to do what I loved, and there’s no gig on earth better than that; it’s like a license to steal.”
“I see things, that’s all. Write enough stories and every shadow on the floor looks like a footprint; every line in the dirt like a secret message.”
“A person can go along quite awhile if they get a good day every once and again.”
“I think reality is thin, you know, thin as lake ice after a thaw, and we fill our lives with noise and light and motion to hide that thinness from ourselves.”
“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 on to the bestseller lists by the magic words AUTHOR OF on the covers of their books.”
“Fear is actually an acronym for Fuck Everything And Run.”
“And perhaps the greatest blessing was that we never knew how short the time was.”
“Murder is the worst kind of pornography, murder is let me do what I want taken to its final extreme.”
My Take
I have always enjoyed reading Stephen King and Bag of Bones was no exception. In fact, it is now one of my favorite Stephen King books. Improving the reading experience was Stephen King narrating the audio version himself. The main character novelist Mike Noonan is a stand in for King and hearing King tell this story adds extra resonance. I especially enjoyed the touching relationship between Mike and toddler Kyra that is tenderly drawn. I highly recommend this book.