From the man who gave you horror (“Salem’s Lot,” “Desperation”), science fiction (“The Dead Zone,” “Dreamcatcher”), Western-fantasy (The Dark Tower series), thrillers (“Cujo,” “Misery”) and even crime fiction (“The Colorado Kid”), comes Stephen King’s take on romance: “Lisey’s Story.”
Actually, though his new novel has many romantic moments, it is more of an in-depth examination of marriage and the kind of love it takes to make such a union last 10, 15, 20 years or more.
One of four Maine sisters – born and bred – Lisey is also the wife of world-renowned novelist Scott Landon, a genius who has won the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award. For years (25, to be exact) she and Scott eschewed the idea of children, instead concentrating on cultivating Scott’s imagination, which gives birth to best-selling novels, the literary equivalent of children.
Lisey’s story begins two years after her husband’s death and finds her trying to sort out boxes of old manuscripts and notes and the detritus he has left behind. While doing so, Lisey receives two life-changing phone calls, one from her older sister, Darla, who has called to ask for help with Amanda. It seems sister Amanda has always walked a fine line of sanity, often resorting to self-mutilation.
Darla informs Lisey that “Manda” may have gone around the bend this time, so Lisey promises to hop in a car and come help sort things out. Before she can do so, though, she gets a second phone call, this one from a mysterious stranger (using the fake moniker Zack McCool) who seems to threaten Lisey with harm if she doesn’t turn over Scott’s literary archive to Zack and a cohort.
Dissecting the past
As she begins to deal with her mentally ailing sister Amanda, Lisey learns that Zack, her stalker, is a certified – and dangerous – nut job. And as she continues to explore her dead husband’s archives, she also continues to remember their quarter-of-a-century-long marriage.
There was the time Scott revealed, during a sort of a breakdown early in their relationship, just before they were officially hitched, that his past family life, with his now dead father and older brother, might have been traumatic. As Lisey dissects her husband’s past, she also learns there was more to her husband’s imaginative world then she first thought – a place he called “Boo ‘ya Moon,” a place he claimed to go when writing novels.
And among the many reams of paper she reads, Lisey will discover some dark secrets about her husband, as well as in the afterlife and this life, too.
Familiar themes emerge
“Lisey’s Story” revisits many of the themes with which King has been obsessed during his career: grief, dealt with especially well in “Pet Sematary” and “Bag of Bones,”; marriage, in “Cujo”; the afterlife, in “Bag of Bones” and his short story “The Reach”; and, finally, writing. The last topic has been addressed from many angles, including writers and fans (“Misery”), writers and their own demons (“The Dark Half” and the novella, “Secret Window, Secret Garden”).
Appropriately, “Lisey’s Story” examines the writer’s life as it relates to his lover and wife. But because this is a Stephen King story, the novelist’s gaze doesn’t flinch when catching the couple during dark times or happy times. As King so succinctly puts it early in the novel, “Each marriage has two hearts, one light and one dark.”
Sprinkled with lots of cutesy phrases and made-up words – the kind 99.9 percent of couples share – “Lisey’s Story” is first and foremost a love story, the story of how two people can become so close that their very life-forces seem intertwined.
A strong woman
It’s a passionate tale about the power of love, imagination, the nature of grief and the possibility of other realms, and the fine line between reality and fantasy. And Lisey Landon is a dynamic fictional creation. King probably hasn’t gotten enough credit for it, but he has cobbled up some very strong female characters, from Carrie to Dolores Claiborne. And, as Lisey Landon proves, not all of the strong women in his oeuvre are crazed or insane.
It may seem too soon for such a declaration, but “Lisey’s Story,” along with “The Dead Zone,” “Different Seasons,” “Misery” and “The Green Mile,” is one of King’s best. It is the sort of solid writing and storytelling that should stand the test of time.
Dorman T. Shindler is a freelance writer from Kansas City.
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Lisey’s Story
By Stephen King
Scribners, 528 Pages, $28
