“Lisey’s Story” by Stephen King

"Lisey’s Story" by Stephen King

2006, Pocket Books
ISBN: 978-1-4165-2335-2

I’ve said it before, I’ll say it again: Stephen King is one of my favorite writers. “Lisey’s Story” fulfilled every expectation I had. It’s a love story. It’s a peek into what one writer’s writing life is like. It’s a horror story. It’s a story about living through unrelieved terror and desperation and how a person can be hammered and shaped into somebody who can live a good life. It’s a story of courage.

“Lisey’s Story” is about Lisey and Scott Landon. Scott is a writer who survived a horrific childhood, who has very real demons he wrestles with constantly and who because of the love Lisey has for him is able to translate the horror he has in his life into happy. Sort of happy. Relatively happy. Happy with bumps in the road that he deals with. But, isn’t that what we all do anyway?

He dies and Lisey is left to put away his writing life, to sort through all the writing he has left behind. But, there are things he never told her while they were married. She had seen glimpses into what his world was like when he went to the secret pool to drink, but mostly she tried to ignore what she knew, to forget even as she became aware of the horror. And, the rest she didn’t know. But, with his death it all came to a head and she was forced to make further inroads on the grieving she had for Scott, to remember what he had told her of the horror of his life, to deal with a madman who tries to kill her, and to finally, in the end, come out braver than she’d been when she went into it.

I love Stephen King stories because the good guys always win. Always. And, love always conquers all. It’s a twisted route to get there, but in the end there is always a happy ending. There may be blood and guts hanging off of the light fixtures, but the good guys always win.