Ron Charles - The Washington Post With Lisey's Story, King has crashed the exclusive party of literary fiction, and he'll be no easier to ignore than Carrie at the prom. His new novel is an audacious meditation on the creative process and a remarkable intersection of the different strains of his talent: the sensitivity of his autobiographical essays, the insight of his critical commentary, the suspense of his short stories and the psychological terror of his novels. (And yes, a few hairy monsters.) They're all evoked here in this moving story about the widow of a famous writer trying to lay her grief to rest.
Janet Maslin - The New York Times
Here is a tender, intimate book that makes an epic interior journey without covering much physical terrain. It can move great distances while traveling no further than from a house (home to lonely Lisey Landon, the widow of a Writer á la King) to its neighboring barn (the late writer’s "mostly benign one-boy clubhouse"). The scope sounds modest, yet this book is haunting even by Mr. King’s standards. And he knows a thing or two about haunting.
The New Yorker
In his intricate new novel, King explores two hidden worlds—the private life of a recently deceased best-selling writer, as seen from the perspective of his widow, and the imaginative landscape that formed the foundation of his work. As the novel opens, Lisey, Scott Landon’s widow, is a sardonic observer of toadying academics, dangerously obsessive fans, and fame-struck bystanders. As she sorts through papers that Landon has left behind, she also becomes a traveller in a fantastical parallel world called Boo’ya Moon, to which he retreated during a horrific childhood and on which he drew throughout his creative life. It takes some time for these narrative strands to converge, but when they do Lisey moves between worlds at an exhilarating pace. Along the way, King also reveals, with subtle precision, the profound strangeness of widowhood, when someone who was present for so much of a shared life is gone.
Kirkus Reviews
The widow of a bestselling novelist reveals that the wellspring for his ideas is a very dark place, indeed. First and last, this is a powerful love story-and love causes people to do strange and remarkable things. It has been two years since legendary novelist Scott Landon died. His widow, Lisey, has finally summoned the strength to begin clearing and cataloguing his workspace. It is a significant metaphor that Scott and Lisey never had children. Instead, their coupling allowed him to produce numerous novels that thrilled readers. His bestselling works are filled with raw emotion. Academic vultures circle the widow, desperate for access to Scott's massive archive of unpublished works, notes and secrets. And some of those secrets are worth killing for. Only Lisey knows the source of Scott's magic, the place where imagination runs wild, the place called Boo'Ya Moon. Scott and Lisey shared a life full of passion, but his death has left a void in her life. She is adrift, confused and stalked by supernatural forces. Incunks prowl, while Lisey chases bools and ducks blood-bools. Sometimes it is unclear where her reality stops and her imagination takes over. Battling against Scott's legacy, Lisey also comes face to face with her own demons at the edge of Boo'Ya Moon. King is surprisingly introspective and mature here. He showcases the agony and the ecstasy of the writing process. Where Misery (1987) looked at the relationship between writer and fan, this time it is that of the writer and his one true love. There seems to be much of King in the character of Scott (although Scott is both a Pulitzer- and National Book Award-winner). Pain and suffering are Scott'sliterary trademarks. The Buddha taught that the end of suffering is supreme happiness. When King finally reveals Lisey's fate, we all reach the same destination in Boo'Ya Moon. One of King's finest works.
Publishers Weekly
King's latest bid for literary respectability is read by acclaimed actress Winningham, best known for her Oscar-nominated performance in Georgia. Winningham glazes King's novel in multiple coats of Southern honey, her voice shimmering with an old-fashioned glow for the tale of Lisey Landon, wife of acclaimed novelist Scott Landon, and her effort to discover the source of her husband's inspiration after his death. Winningham is a good fit for King in a less terror-filled mood, capturing the book's blend of the sentimental and the comic. The narrative is ushered in and out by the strains of Ryan Adams's "When the Stars Go Blue," and King reads his own afterword, where he details the sources of his own inspiration, carefully distancing himself and his loved ones from the characters in his book while making it clear that, like Scott Landon, he must dive deep into his subconscious and into the pool of literary history, to find inspiration. |
