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LISEY'S STORY by Stephen King (Review)T here is a question that has dogged Stephen King’s every step, one that no interviewer, fan, or random passerby on the street can seem to avoid asking him. It is inane and pointless, and people seem to think that if they can just figure it out, then they too can be the most famous writer in America. That question is, “Where do you get your ideas”? Stephen King hates the question with a fiery passion, and has yet to answer the question to anyone’s satisfaction, at least until now. LISEY’S STORY is the answer to that question, in true Stephen King style. The frustrating thing is that after reading it, many will almost assuredly say to him, “That was great! Where do you get your ideas”? But besides this, LISEY’S STORY is also one of Stephen King’s greatest and most personal novels. It isn’t his scariest (that would be one of his earlier novels, like THE SHINING or PET SEMETARY) or his most epic (that honor belongs to THE STAND or THE DARK TOWER SERIES). But it is, without a doubt, his most lyrical, poignant, and best-written novel to date, and that is saying a lot. Not everyone is going to like it. In fact, those that proudly proclaim themselves to be King’s greatest fans are probably going to hate it. That is because LISEY’S STORY is, at its heart, a love story. Not a romance, by any stretch of the imagination; there are no ripping bodices or heaving bosoms, praise be. Instead it is about love as it actually is, long after the courting is done and there are few secrets to be found. And since this is Stephen King, it is about the ghosts of love, and how those we love can be summoned up out of the darkness and out of time, long after they are gone. As you may have guessed from the title, LISEY’S STORY is about Lisey Debusher Landon, the widow of world famous novelist Scott Landon. Let’s get one thing clear; Landon is not Stephen King, at least not in what he writes. Landon is a literary darling who has written only one horror novel (called “Empty Devils”) over his long and illustrious career. On the other hand, he IS like King in a few ways, such as the fact that he seems to have a rock-star-like celebrity status and fans rabid enough to be scary and dangerous at times (a theme that King has addressed in several works, most notably in his novel MISERY). So think of Scott Landon as a Hemmingway by way of Stephen King. Regardless, from the beginning of the book Scott is gone, lost to an unstoppable wasting illness that took him quite quickly two years before the book starts, leaving Lisey alone and somewhat lost. Lisey and Scott had shared a marriage that was deeply intimate, uncompromisingly loving, and sometimes a little terrifying. Like any longtime relationship, they shared a personal lexicon of self-referential words unique to them; a secret language of a life long lived together. For example, right off the bat you realize that Lisey uses the word “smuck” in place of a much-more-commonly used word that rhymes with it, and that she consistently admonishes herself to “strap it on”, which is her way of saying “suck it up” or “get with it”. These phrases and many other comes from a sort of shorthand language that two people who were incredibly close used in their everyday lives. Now Scott is dead, while Lisey is left not only with a big empty house full of her memory of him, but also with a life and even a language that was tied so intrinsically to her husband that even when she talks to herself, it feels like she is talking to him. At the novel’s outset she is tackling a task that she has long put off for fear of reopening wounds that will never really heal over entirely, despite Lisey’s undeniable strength. She is going through Scott’s old papers, sorting through unfinished short stories, personal correspondence, and drafts of old manuscripts, and all sorts of other incunabula. Recently she has been beset by all sorts of professors, collectors, anthologists, and other assorted literary treasure hunters all looking for the “lost works of Scott Landon”, and none of them really caring about Lisey’s loss. They are more interested in what they see as a loss to the literary world, and that Lisey is “hoarding” Scott’s work, which they see as his legacy to the world of literature. What they don’t realize and Lisey does is that Scott didn’t give a sweet smuck about the world of literature; she remembers him sitting at his typewriter with Hank Williams cranked up on the radio, making farting noises with his hands in the hollows of his armpits to amuse himself. That is how much Scott Landon suffered over his literary contributions (and though I don’t know him personally, one gets the sense that this is another way in which Mr. King and his creation are similar). But now it is two years since his death and she is finally getting around to sorting through his papers, figuring out what is “important” and what is dross. She finds a lot more than she expected, but not anything related to what the literary hounds are looking for. Though Lisey doesn’t realize it at first, one of the people after Scott’s last works is more than a literature nut; he’s just plain nuts. For though it seems like Jim Dooley is just another obsessed fan in the employ of an equally obsessed professor of literature, it soon becomes clear that Scott’s works are merely an excuse for him to exercise his inner crazy. What started out as an attempt to sort out her husband’s literary legacy soon becomes a fight for her life and sanity. Luckily Lisey isn’t alone, as she soon finds that Scott seems to have prepared for this eventuality, and has hidden clues amongst his works that will eventually lead Lisey to the things that she needs to not only stop Dooley, but to find the closure that will let her let go of Scott’s memory and start living her own life. As you may have guessed, Scott Landon was far from your run of the mill best selling author. His brilliance came from a place both magical and metaphorical, a place that only a handful of people can access, which Scott called Boo’ya Moon. This is a world perpetually twilit, both beautiful and dangerous. It is a world of paradoxes, where the water can magically heal all wounds, but where the fruit, if eaten after dark, can kill you. There you will find a mystifying pool, where some, like Scott, find the words and images to create works of wonder, but where others can become entranced and lost, going completely insane. And while Boo’ya Moon is a place of pristine natural beauty, there are also dangerous monsters there. Monsters like the laughers, who are only seen on the peripheral of vision, who sometimes lope on all fours like dogs, and other times walk upright like a man, but always let out a maddening laugh, like a hyena. Or like the enormous Lovecraftian behemoth that Scott calls his Longboy, who, once it has become aware of you, will infect your life forever, even in the real world, appearing half-seen in the corners of darkened mirrors or in the depths of water glasses after all the lights go out, always waiting for you to let your guard down. Lisey knows about Boo’ya Moon, and was even there briefly once long ago, when she and Scott were courting, but along with some of the other unbelievable and somewhat terrifying parts of her life with Scott, she has purposefully locked those memories away, visualizing them as being hidden behind a purple curtain in her mind, lest she never be able to live a normal life again. But now, with her life in danger, Lisey must remember those things, the things that are “behind the purple”, and find her way to Boo’ya Moon if she is to have any hope of surviving Dooley’s madness and finding a way to let go of the ghost of Scott’s memory. Some of this is far from original if you look at King’s past works. BAG OF BONES was about ghosts and memory of loves lost (though far more literally), while THE DARK TOWER SERIES, THE TALISMAN, BLACK HOUSE, and especially ROSE MADDER (and to a lesser extent, even FROM A BUICK 8) deal with alternate worlds that are linked to this one through special people, objects or places. Insane fans like Jim Dooley are dealt with in MISERY, and Dooley himself is cut from the same cloth as the antagonist in his novella SECRET WINDOW, SECRET GARDEN (and in fact, both are linked to the fictional town of Shooter’s Knob, Tennessee). The list goes on. What makes LISEY’S STORY stand apart, and even above these other works is the truth behind these characters and their love for one another. King uses elements from his familiar bag of tricks to frame a story that could only be told by a person who has lived and loved deeply and well, if not always rightly. Lisey is an amazing creation, a fifty-something-year-old female protagonist who is not only strong and capable, but fully formed and richly believable. Scott, though he is long gone by the time the story starts, is a three-dimensional and raucously tragic hero, beloved by us through our love of Lisey and Lisey’s love for him. His memory is the unseen and unrealized master of ceremonies, suffusing every moment of the novel through Lisey’s recollections, conspicuous by his absence. These are more than characters in a book; by the end they seem like real people, friends that you don’t want to say goodbye to. The other element that makes this book stand out amongst King’s other books is his deft use of symbolism and metaphor. The symbolism is overt, as certain items tied to Lisey’s life with Scott are used as talismans, objects that she has to find and utilize along the course of her trials and tribulations. These are objects of deep personal meaning carefully placed to be used along the path of the narrative. The metaphor, however, is a much more subtle affair. This being Stephen King, he is never going to beat you over the head with the message, screaming, “Hey, this is a metaphor, you damned fool! Ain’t I deep”? He once likened himself to the literary equivalent of a Big Mac and fries; it’ll fill you up but it isn’t filet mignon. He is allergic to pretension and archenemies with pomposity. But that doesn’t mean that the message isn’t there, buried for those who want to dig. As I said way back at the beginning of this review, underneath everything else it is the about where his ideas come from. It is about a pool of madness and magic that most people shun, afraid that they will lose themselves in its depths. But some people, those crazy, brilliant few, go there to dabble their toes, to splash around in the shallows and see what they can pull from its depths. In the end, this is not going to be King’s most popular novel, because a lot of the more “mainstream” horror audience (if there is such a thing) is going to be turned off by the fact that it is more character and emotion driven then the monster mayhem than King has written in the past. It is not his best horror novel, since the scares are incidental to the true story, not the focus of it. However, this is his truest, best, and most beautifully written book so far, and hopefully the one that will give him the literary critical acclaim that he so rightly deserves. This is possibly America’s greatest horror writer’s greatest masterpiece.
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Title: Lisey's Story