Bag of Bones
1998 • 660 pages
Ratings81
Average rating3.5
15
Ratings81
Average rating3.5
Bag of Bones is a 1998 horror novel by American writer Stephen King. It focuses on an author who suffers severe writer's block and delusions at an isolated lake house four years after the death of his wife. It won the 1999 Bram Stoker Award for Best Novel, the 1999 British Fantasy Award for Best Novel, and the 1999 Locus Award for Best Dark Fantasy/Horror Novel. The book re-uses many basic plot elements of Daphne du Maurier's Rebecca, which is directly referenced several times in the book's opening pages; however, the relation of these elements (including a wife who is dead as the book opens, her posthumous effect on future romance, a drowning, and house haunted by the memories of previous inhabitants) to the plot and characters is markedly different. When the paperback edition of Bag of Bones was published by Pocket Books on June 1, 1999 (ISBN 978-0671024239).
Reviews with the most likes.
This book has easily shot to the top of my favourites list. My heart hurts. I didn't want it to be over, but what a story.
This was a fairly enjoyable ghost story, but like a lot of stuff from King's middle period, it just feels bloated. You could probably have cut 200 pages worth of story out of this and still had a complete, enjoyable novel.
The story is about a 40ish writer who loses his wife and goes to their summer house to stay for a while. He meets a young woman and her child and gets involved in her fight to keep her child from her husband's father who is very rich. Along the way he deals with some ghosts but he is not sure who they are. Is it his wife, Sara or some other entity? I had a hard time stopping listening to this. It is read by Stephen King and he does a great job with it. Some authors cannot read their own work and do it justice but he can.
