There were red marks on her face. When I identified her I could see them clearly even on the video monitor. I started to ask the assistant medical examiner what they were, but then I knew. Late August, hot pavement, elementary, my dear Watson. My wife died getting a sunburn. Wyzer got up, saw that the ambulance had arrived, and ran toward it.
He pushed his way through the crowd and grabbed one of the attendants as he got out from behind the wheel. He tried to pull away, but Wyzer held on. The woman over there isn't. The woman over there was dead, and I'm pretty sure Joe Wyzer knew it Give him that. And he was convincing enough to get both paramedics moving away from the tangle of truck and Toyota, in spite of Esther Easterling's cries of pain and the rumbles of protest from the Greek chorus.
When they got to my wife, one of the paramedics was quick to confirm what Joe Wyzer had already suspected. But it wasn't her heart. The autopsy revealed a brain aneurysm which she might have been living with, all unknown, for as long as five years. As she sprinted across the parking lot toward the accident, that weak vessel in her cerebral cortex had blown like a tire, drowning her control-centers in blood and killing her.
Death had probably not been instantaneous, the assistant medical examiner told me, but it had still come swiftly enough Just one big black nova, all sensation and thought gone even before she hit the pavement. I'll answer them if I can. I told him what she'd purchased in the drugstore just before she died. Then I asked my question. The days leading up to the funeral and the funeral itself are dreamlike in my memory -- the clearest memory I have is of eating Jo's chocolate mouse and crying I had one other crying fit a few days after we buried her, and I will tell you about that one shortly.
I was glad for the arrival of Jo's family, and particularly for the arrival of her oldest brother, Frank. It was Frank Arlen -- fifty, red-cheeked, portly, and with a head of lush dark hair -- who organized the arrangements He hadn't broken down -- none of the Arlens broke down, at least not when I was with them -- but Frank had leaked steadily all day; he looked like a man suffering from severe conjunctivitis.
There had been six Arlen sibs in all, Jo the youngest and the only girl. She had been the pet of her big brothers. I suspect that if I'd had anything to do with her death, the five of them would have torn me apart with their bare hands. As it was, they formed a protective shield around me instead, and that was good. I suppose I might have muddled through without them, but I don't know how. I was thirty-six, remember.
You don't expect to have to bury your wife when you're thirty-six and she herself is two years younger. Death was the last thing on our minds. The Arlens had come from Massachusetts, and I could still hear Malden in Frank's voice -- caught was coowat, car was cah, call was caul. Greedy asshole, I fed him his lunch, didn't I? And then: "She was pregnant.
I struggled to keep my voice down. Six or seven weeks, according to the Did you know? Did she tell you? Christ, no! They check for that? As for checking, I don't know if they do it automatically or not. I asked. She also bought one of those home pregnancy-testing kits. He reached across the table and squeezed my shoulder. You know that, don't you? A refill on my sinus medicine and a piece of fish, she'd said. Looking like always. A woman off to run a couple of errands.
We had been trying to have a kid for eight years, but she had looked just like always. I know. It was the Arlens -- led by Frank -- who handled Johanna's sendoff. As the writer of the family, I was assigned the obituary.
My brother came up from Virginia with my mom and my aunt and was allowed to tend the guest-book at the viewings. My mother -- almost completely ga-ga at the age of sixty-six, although the doctors refused to call it Alzheimer's -- lived in Memphis with her sister, two years younger and only slightly less wonky.
They were in charge of cutting the cake and the pies at the funeral reception. Everything else was arranged by the Arlens, from the viewing hours to the components of the funeral ceremony. Frank and Victor, the second-youngest brother, spoke brief tributes. Jo's dad offered a prayer for his daughter's soul. And at the end, Pete Breedlove, the boy who cut our grass in the summer and raked our yard in the fall, brought everyone to tears by singing "Blessed Assurance," which Frank said had been Jo's favorite hymn as a girl.
How Frank found Pete and persuaded him to sing at the funeral is something I never found out. We got through it -- the afternoon and evening viewings on Tuesday, the funeral service on Wednesday morning, then the little pray-over at Fairlawn Cemetery. What I remember most was thinking how hot it was, how lost I felt without having Jo to talk to, and that I wished I had bought a new pair of shoes. Jo would have pestered me to death about the ones I was wearing, if she had been there.
Later on I talked to my brother, Sid, told him we had to do something about our mother and Aunt Francine before the two of them disappeared completely into the Twilight Zone. They were too young for a nursing home; what did Sid advise? He advised something, but I'll be damned if I know what it was. I agreed to it, I remember that, but not what it was.
Later that day, Siddy, our mom, and our aunt climbed back into Siddy's rental car for the drive to Boston, where they would spend the night and then grab the Southern Crescent the following day. My brother is happy enough to chaperone the old folks, but he doesn't fly, even if the tickets are on me. He claims there are no breakdown lanes in the sky if the engine quits. Most of the Arlens left the next day. Once more it was dog-hot, the sun glaring out of a white-haze sky and lying on everything like melted brass.
They stood in front of our house -- which had become solely my house by then -- with three taxis lined up at the curb behind them, big galoots hugging one another amid the litter of tote-bags and saying their goodbyes in those foggy Massachusetts accents.
Frank stayed another day. We picked a big bunch of flowers behind the house -- not those ghastly-smelling hothouse things whose aroma I always associate with death and organ-music but real flowers, the kind Jo liked best -- and stuck them in a couple of coffee cans I found in the back pantry.
We went out to Fairlawn and put them on the new grave. Then we just sat there for awhile under the beating sun. Us guys. No one messed with Jo, I'll tell you. Anyone tried, we'd feed em their lunch.
I know you were her favorite brother. She never called you, maybe just to say that she missed a period or was feeling whoopsy in the morning? You can tell me. I won't be pissed. Honest to God.
Was she whoopsy in the morning? I hadn't seen anything. Of course I'd been writing, and when I write I pretty much trance out. But she knew where I went in those trances. She could have found me and shaken me fully awake. Why hadn't she? Why would she hide good news? Not wanting to tell me until she was sure was plausible We'd had names picked out and waiting for most of our marriage.
A boy would have been Andrew. Our daughter would have been Kia. Kia Jane Noonan. Frank, divorced six years and on his own, had been staying with me. On our way back to the house he said, "I worry about you, Mikey. You haven't got much family to fall back on at a time like this, and what you do have is far away. Then it rings again, and keeps on going. The window bursts open and things fall over and out of cabinets while a woman screams.
Is that you? A door opens on Mike sleeping, and singing spills through. He finds the record player in the living room playing the lullaby and stops it.
But then the song begins playing again somewhere else outside. Mike follows the song to its source out at the lake. Sara rises from the lake, a flower in her hair and dress plastered to her skin. Talk about killing the mood, huh? Mike wakes up on a dock next to Jo and immediately begins kissing her, which is to be expected.
She then promises to help him, and he kisses her again. Sheesh, this guy cannot get a break. Then he wakes up a second time and finds Mattie in his bedroom and music playing. She says that he needs to do what Jo tells him, and then she climbs atop him and they kiss. As a result of this, Mike finds an enemy in Max Devore. Outside, Mattie hugs Mike and thanks him for helping her.
Mattie then shares a memory of Jo, where she saw the late Mrs. Noonan eating at a restaurant with a gentleman. As Mike is drawn into their struggle, as he falls in love with both of them, he is also drawn into the mystery of Sara Laughs, now the site of ghostly visitations, ever-escalating nightmares, and the sudden recovery of his writing ability.
What are the forces that have been unleashed here -- and what do they want of Mike Noonan? As vivid and enthralling as King's most enduring works, Bag of Bones resonates with what Amy Tan calls "the witty and obsessive voice of King's powerful imagination. In Bag of Bones -- described by Gloria Naylor as "a love story about the dark places within us all" -- he proves to be one of our most moving. On a very hot day in August of , my wife told me she was going down to the Derry Rite Aid to pick up a refill on her sinus medicine prescription -- this is stuff you can buy over the counter these days, I believe.
I'd finished my writing for the day and offered to pick it up for her. She said thanks, but she wanted to get a piece of fish at the supermarket next door anyway; two birds with one stone and all of that.
She blew a kiss at me off the palm of her hand and went out. The next time I saw her, she was on TV. That's how you identify the dead here in Derry -- no walking down a subterranean corridor with green tiles on the walls and long fluorescent bars overhead, no naked body rolling out of a chilly drawer on casters; you just go into an office marked PRIVATE and look at a TV screen and say yep or nope. The Rite Aid and the Shopwell are less than a mile from our house, in a little neighborhood strip mall which also supports a video store, a used-book Write your own review!
The Killing Lessons. About this book. More by this author. Sara Tidwell is inarguably a victim here. Mattie Devore, love interest of the protagonist, Mike Noonan, and girl in a fridge, is unquestionably victimized in the course of the story, first by Max Devore, who attempts to literally buy her daughter, then attempts to use the law to steal her daughter and finally, tries to kill her daughter.
Devore uses his money and influence to get the town to turn against Mattie, to get her fired from her job and, eventually, he pays to have her killed.
As a result, Mattie's daughter, Kyra, loses her only remaining parent; though only three years old, she is equally victimized by Devore. Reaching a little further, you could argue that the town mothers including Noonan's wife, Jo are victimized by the men who raped and murdered Sara Tidwell and murdered her son; Sara's revenge against them spans generations, culling the family lines of those men who wronged her—and robbing those women whose worst sin was marrying into those families of their children.
In Jo Noonan's case, there's an open question of whether Sara's interference even deprived her of her life. So there's a lot in the fabric of the story that could be said—about patriarchy, about misogyny, about abuses of power, and about race. And, to be fair, I do think that King attempt to address some of these things. But I don't think King's own collection of privileges puts him in the right place to truly or adequately address them and the fact that he lenses the entire story through the viewpoint of an avatar much like himself—a wealthy, white, middle-class man—means that the horrible abuses against all these women are second fiddle to that avatar's man pain and his quest to extricate himself from those same sins of the father or great-grand-uncle, as it were.
So, though Mike is a likeable enough character, his happy ending isn't as satisfying as it might otherwise be, coming, as it does, at the expense of all these wronged, victimized and otherwise unavenged women. Sara Tidwell is a supernatural monster whose bones and those of her son are destroyed by lye, denied both her revenge and a respectful or peaceful burial. The last scions of the families that did this to her escape. Mattie Devore has the momentary triumph of knowing her custody of Kyra is secured, but she dies frightened and in pain, half her face blown away simply because of a dead rich man's sour grapes; Devore has already killed himself is out of the picture before the hit against Mattie is even enacted.
Kyra is orphaned and traumatized by both the living and the dead. Though no specific number is called out, at least four other mothers lost children to the terrible revenge set in motion when Sara Tidwell was murdered as she was. So putting a smiling face on the relatively happy life that Mike will go on to live over these piles of bones is both a little macabre and an almost brilliant if unintentional illustration of why all these things still happen and still matter.
It could be better. I wish it were better. But it is just more bones than flesh. View all 5 comments. Oct 03, J. This is King's strongest novel of the new millennium.
In fact, it's excellent. Pacing, character, story, plot flow, and horror are all masterfully handled by the master himself. It isn't overly long and the editing is perfect. Highly recommended This is King's strongest novel of the new millennium. Highly recommended View all 6 comments. Some ghosts can be deadly Not long after his arrival, a c Some ghosts can be deadly I seem to like all of his books, including the ones others hate intensely or find boring!
I've had a copy of this one for a while - I was quite thrilled to find a hardcover edition in a charity shop some months ago. Stephen King excels at writing about grief, and this was no exception. Mike Noonan's wife dies suddenly.
He's a grief-stricken, middle-aged writer who can no longer write. The writers block that is more than writers block. And then there's his lakeside retreat, Sara Laughs -- he's dreaming about it, finds himself drawn back there, and is soon caught up in the lives of young widow Mattie Devore and her three-year-old daughter Kyra.
This references the book Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier frequently, a book I haven't read yet, but intend to soon. I'm sure once I have read it there will be many nods to that story that I will appreciate. Even without being familiar with it, I loved this book. Mike Noonan is a character that you can't help but feel compassion for. He's grieving for his wife, grieving for his inability to write and tries his best to help Mattie out when he realises she is facing an unfair custody battle that she is likely to lose as she has no financial resources to fight with.
Her father-in-law basically intends to buy her child, one way or another, and Mike is unwilling to sit by and let it happen.
Mike has less money, but enough that maybe he can help. He quickly became a favourite Stephen King character for me - I could have happily read hundreds of additional pages about him! I liked the ending. And Mattie's death!
It wasn't unexpected, but the way it happened was. Like Mike, I was too focused on the house and the ghosts, not the living people with guns. Of course I had wanted them to live happily ever after or something along those lines, both offered a second chance at love after being widowed so young, but I also knew that was unlikely as this didn't feel like that kind of book. View all 4 comments. Dec 29, Lyn rated it liked it. More than just a ghost story, the author fills his pastoral, suspenseful tale with generations of bad times coming down into a point on a lake, and a town that has some bad history and some secrets.
As King tells it, he is on the best seller lists that go to Enough success that he and his wife have a summer house on a lake near the New Hampshire border. When a tragedy tears his life apart, Mike Noonan travels to the isolated cabin to try and get his head on straight. Drawing inspiration from earlier novels The Shining and Pet Sematary , King draws Noonan into a web of old mysteries tied to present day conflict.
Well-crafted and told by a master, this was a page turning and entertaining book. View all 3 comments. Slow moving. I quit halfway through, switched to an action novel which cleared my head and allowed me to continue the laborious trudge. The best thing about this novel, aside from reaching the end pages… it could have been pared back to and I would have been happy , was its intricacy. Almost everything tied in to the end.
Of course, for a novelist like Stephen King, I would expect nothing less. Could Mike have figured ever Slow moving. Could Mike have figured everything out sooner and prevented much of the bloodshed?
Yes, they all turned out to have significance, but for a long while he ignored things that he really should have worked much harder to understand. Clues that he tried to find answers to, but then gave up. In fact, he accepts with little regret that the answers were so close at hand but he was distracted from searching for them. Admittedly, the distractions were significant, but there were still large gaps where Mike could have picked up the puzzle pieces and figured things out.
Another factor that detracted from my enjoyment was the almost apology that SK makes through Mike in the epilogue. It is said that a story tells something of the author, I wonder if this tells something of SK? Overall, it was too slow, the characters unique, but lacking emotional depth. This will be my last Stephen King novel for a while. I remember reading this when I was My dad bought me the hardcover for my birthday, and I remember reading it on a plane. That's about all that I remember about it, though, other than a vague recollection of liking it, hence my pre-Goodreads rating of 3 stars.
Now, 16 years later Please don't do the math. It will hurt me in my soul. I've picked this book up a few times over the past It just wasn't the rig I remember reading this when I was It just wasn't the right time. But I'm glad that I read this now, because I loved it. The quick and dirty summary, before we get started: Successful author Mike Noonan's wife, Jo, dies suddenly, and after Mike's suffered 4 years of lonely writer's block, he finds himself drawn to his summer home on Dark Score Lake, where things start to get weird.
Alrighty, let's get the nitpicks out of the way, shall we? First: I get it. That's quite clear enough from Noonan's own perspective, and from the conversations he has with his agent.
So it's pretty annoying to have nearly every male character that encounters Mike to have to comment on Mike's Successful Author Status, usually in the form of The Husband Of The Fan relaying his hallowed Favorite Author Status on behalf of said wife. And often in a sort of apologetic way, as though she should really be more discerning, but he writes the stuff, and they ARE women, so it's probably OK. In pages, ONE man is reported to have read one of Mike's books, and that man is his agent.
Even his publishers are women, Debra and Phyllis. I don't really know why this bothered me quite so much. I understand that a romantic aspect being a main component of a book will make that one that appeals to more women than men. But it just seemed to be overkill.
Everyone has to mention how much women love his books, even when said woman is not around. Possibly a rolling-pin to the noggin worthy offense. Second: The dialogue. There was really some awkward dialogue in this book.
I think that's been present in just about all of King's books, but as I get older, I notice it more. It's just little things, things that bother me and feel Yes, she's smart.
And yes, she's not the trailer-trash one would expect her to be. It sounds like it would be coming out of the mouth of a 45 year old WASP, calling on business.
This book was set in , not Finally: The repetition. This is something of a slow build of a book. Once it gets going, it goes, but Mike is a bit slow on the uptake with some things, and so it has to kind of be knocked into his head, which takes repetition. Not only for him to get it, but I presume for the reader to get it and understand the importance as well.
King often takes his time to make sure the scene is set and the symbolism and symmetry are in place before letting things get good and rockin'. I appreciate that, but I think Mike could have maybe picked up on a few things a bit faster. To me, they were pretty obvious Those are all of the negatives I can think of right now. I'm tired, though, and it's past my bedtime, so I'll get to the good stuff quickly. I loved the way that this story unfolded.
I love how all the little pieces of mystery eventually came together. The picture that they formed was horrible, and ugly, and hateful, and sad That seems like such a strange sentence to type, but I don't know how else to describe it.
The things that happened should not have and I cannot help but understand the rage and the pain and the sense of betrayal In a way, I was rooting for her to win. I just couldn't bring myself to call her evil My heart broke for her. One thing that King does exceptionally well is build a community, and in Bag of Bones, I think this is one of his best. Very close-knit, very proud and quiet and The way that this community exists is just as creepy and scary for their everydayness as the things that draws Mike to Sara Laughs and keeps him there.
The characters were great, and I loved the way that Mike kept his wife alive in his mind and heart. She died on the first page of the book, and yet she had such an active place in his life, and I loved her character.
I loved so much about this book. I enjoyed even the sections of nothing-much-happening, because even when nothing is happening at the moment, the reader is getting to know the characters or the community, or just taking a little walk down memory lane and getting a feel for the relationship that was so recently lost. This book was such an emotional roller-coaster, and I loved it. It had me in tears right off the bat, because one thing that King does amazingly well is writing characters that I can understand and relate to even if sometimes they talk funny.
And Jo's death right at the start of the book, and Mike's reaction to it, just got me in the feels. I understood his need to know why she had been keeping secrets, and I willingly went along with him to find out. I felt like, by the end, I'd been a silent observer of their lives. I loved this book, and despite my criticisms, I think it's right up there among King's best.
There are a lot of similarities in this book to 's Lisey's Story, only told from the other side of the page, if you will. In this, the writer's wife is the one to die, and in Lisey's Story, the writer himself dies. But both stories pick up from there with the coping and grieving, and the quest to understand WHY their loved one died There are also several tie-ins to other novels that King's written - Insomnia, for one, and Needful Things. It's kind of a bridge between the Derry novels and the Castle Rock novels.
It's not really set in either one, truly, though it passes through both. Anyway, it's now after am and if I don't stop typing, I might just ramble on until dawn. So I'll stop now and just say that I loved this book despite it's occasional awkwardness.
It's heartbreaking and beautiful and ruthless and eerie all at the same time. Good stuff. Definitely worth the read.
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