Publisher's Weekly Summary:
...It opens quietly as narrator Mike Noonan, 40, bestselling author of romantic suspense potboilers (and latest in a line of King novelist-heroes, cf. Misery and The Dark Half) describes the death of his wife four years back and his consequent grief and writer's block. Mike has kept the block hidden from the publishing world by annually pulling one of his own, unpublished mss. from a safe-deposit box. Now that he's out of old novels to submit, he resolves to work through his troubles at Sara Laughs, his country house in backwoods Maine.
Arriving there, Mike nearly drives over a three-year-old girl. She is Kyra, granddaughter by way of beautiful young widow Mattie of mad computer mogul Max Devore, who is hellbent on snatching the girl from her mother. Taking up Kyra's cause, falling in love with Mattie, Mike gears up for a custody battle. Invigorated, he breaks through his writer's block; but great danger, psychological and physical, awaits, from Max Devore but especially from the spirits, mostly malevolent, that haunt Sara Laughs due to hideous crimes committed by Devore's ancestor a century earlier.
Violence, natural and supernatural, ensues as past and present mix, culminating in a torrent of climaxes that bind and illuminate the novel's many mysteries. From his mint-fresh etching of spooky rural Maine to his masterful pacing and deft handling of numerous themes, particularly of the fragility of our constructs about reality and of love's ability to mend rifts in those constructs, this is one of King's most accomplished novels. It is his most personal as well, revealing through Mike's broodings the intimacies of the creative writing process: a passionate gift from a veteran author to all who care about the art and craft of storytelling...
First Impressions
Bag of Bones is a fine example of ghost story. Mike Noonan, a successful novelist, finds himself losing the war against writer's block in the years following the traumatic loss of his wife. In order to satisfy his agent's lust for new material, Noonan submits an unread manuscript each year. But once the unpublished works run dry, Mike finds himself questioning whether he still has what it takes to produce anything of merit, or whether he should just retire once and for all.
Unfortunately, writer's block is not the only thing afflicting him. Mike is also the victim of recurring nightmares, all of which feature his summer home--Sara Laughs--that he and his deceased wife used to frequent. In an effort to purge himself of this fear, Mike resolves to return to the summer house and confront whatever it is that is holding him back: regrets, suspicions, and the nausea he feels whenever he attempts to face the blank page.
Since this is a ghost story, it is unsurprising that the summer home is teeming with the supernatural. Some spirits lash out in Mike's dreams as hellish nightmares, others try to warn him of impending danger, and some write messages on his typewriter or rearrange the magnetic alphabet letters that Mike has cleverly placed on the fridge in order to communicate with them.
The main character, as in many of King's books, is a novelist. As an aspiring author, I found this served as an added benefit, as there were numerous sprinkles of literary wisdom in the early chapters that I found to be quite insightful.
Furthermore, I commend King on his main antagonist, Max Devore. Max is proof that you can create an intimidating figure that isn't physically imposing. Hell, Max isn't even ambulatory! But dammit, he's rich, and he has a bitchin' wheelchair, and that seems to suffice. Somehow Stephen manages to make this old man a threat to anyone who gets in his way--kudos for that, Mr. King.
Apart from the haunting, the plot also details a rather ruthless battle over the custody of a child (not Mike's) that quickly escalates into violence. The horror Max Devore creates easily matches the horror of the supernatural in this novel, and, as Max presents a human face for the horror, it is both believable and frightening.
On a side note, Bag of Bones also features a lawyer that is not a soulless agent of satan. Said benevolent lawyer was the only thing that caused me to question the reality of King's world. Haha.
Final Thoughts
King weaves a tale that is horific, inspiring, and heartfelt. His characters (both human and supernatural) are presented in a convincing manner.
Like many other fans of Stephen King, I had somehow missed this novel until recently. It is my hope that this review will encourage at least a few of you to pick up this book and judge it for yourself. I think you'll find it to be quite engaging--a King classic, if you will.
If you've missed this buried gem all these years, it's time to unearth it.
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