Lisey's Story

By: Stephen King

Narrated by: Mare Winningham

Length: 19 hrs and 21 mins

Publisher's summary

Now an Apple TV+ limited series starring Julianne Moore and Clive Owen

The “haunting...tender, intimate book that makes an epic interior journey” (The New York Times), Lisey’s Story is a literary masterpiece - an extraordinarily moving and haunting portrait of a marriage and its aftermath.

Lisey lost her husband, Scott, two years ago, after a 25-year marriage of profound and sometimes frightening intimacy. Scott was an award-winning, best-selling novelist and a very complicated man. Early in their relationship, before they married, Lisey knew there was a place Scott went - a place that both terrified and healed him, could eat him alive or give him the ideas he needed in order to live. Now it’s Lisey’s turn to face Scott’s demons, to go to that terrifying place known as Boo’ya Moon. What begins as a widow’s effort to sort through the papers of her celebrated husband becomes a nearly fatal journey into the darkness he inhabited.

“Intricate...exhilarating” (The New Yorker), perhaps Stephen King’s most personal and powerful novel ever, Lisey’s Story is about the wellsprings of creativity, the temptations of madness, and the secret language of love. It is a beautiful, “rich portrait of a marriage, and the complicated affection that outlives death” (The Washington Post).

Don't miss more from Stephen King.

©2006 Stephen King (P)2006 Simon and Schuster Audio

Critic reviews

"As much about the facets of longtime marriage as it is about the characters themselves, Lisey's Story offers a poignant glimpse at abiding love and the tides of grief, and the internal language of relationships of all kinds." (Atlantic Monthly)

"In Lisey's Story, Stephen King makes bold, brilliant use of his satanic storytelling gift, his angelic ear for language, and above all his incomparable ability to find the epic in the ordinary." (Michael Chabon)

"Lisey's Story is bright and brilliant. It's dark and desperate. While I'll always consider The Shining, my first ride on King's wild Tilt-A-Whirl, a gorgeous, bloody jewel, I found, on this latest ride, a treasure box heaped with dazzling gems. A few of them have sharp, hungry teeth." (Nora Roberts)

Masterful

Masterful writing. Masterful storytelling. Masterful narration.
King is the best at making a terrifying monster story into a beautiful love story.

interesting

Great narrator, felt very real. I would find myself lost in the story. The story was very interesting. I liked it. It was sad. In the beginning everything went slowly, but later it got very interesting and I didn't want to stop listening. It's a great book to listen to and the narrator does a great job. The story is nothing like I have heard before, different and interesting.

Slow start

I guess you always take a walk on the wild side with a King novel. The portrait of a dysfunctional family was disturbing.

I always wish there were better book reviews with the Amazon and audible books such as one would find for movies.
This book contains adult language, sexual situations and sexual abuse and portrayals of violence and murder. If this were a movie, it would be rated R

dive into the Pool of Words...imagination

As so many other reviewers have noted, Lisey’s Story is Stephen King at his best. It blends in the supernatural, dark places of the imagination and the murky depths of insane horror with an engaging love story, rich beauty and characters that come alive. Like many of King’s works it is a long tale but I like King’s stories to be long because once I enter into his world I have little desire to leave. King expands our perception of reality with this book and allows us to enter into his imagination along with Lisey, the wife of King’s alter ego, who does so literally. He also ties up all the loose ends of the story, so that in the end you have a neat literary package that makes sense in its own strange way.

This story works at many levels. Not only is it an engaging story but it challenges your brain as well. There are many allusions and references to other works and authors, which adds to the richness of the story.

The narrator, Mare Winningham, does a superb job of translating the written word into an audio performance that brings the story alive. Each of the characters was vocally unique and believable, even when she was voicing the part of children.

This is a story that I enjoyed very much and recommend to anyone who has a taste for a tale by Stephen King.

Stephen King at his worst... Don't bother

Long, slow paced, not scary, very "Lovecraftian".
Made me wonder, did he really write it, or did his wife, and he slapped his name on it?
Mare Winningham's narration saves it.

One of, if not THE, best offerings from King

One of Stephen King's most poetically and elegantly written books, superbly read. Tells a great story in a way that asks for a very special kind of connection to the characters and brings them to life.

amazing as always!

King always finds a way to make me feel like I'm sitting right in front of his stories, watching them for myself. bravo again! the narrator was wonderful, absolutely thrilled with this book.

Mostly a love story, wonderful narration

What does Mare Winningham bring to the story that you wouldn’t experience if you just read the book?

She really nails the emotional arcs of all the characters and brings each to life. Much of the dialog (especially the annoying use of "smucking") would have been grating indeed without her nuance. And when she does Lisey, she brings to life the loss and grief of losing your husband.

Any additional comments?

This book took me a while to truly get into (and some of the sayings used by the characters got grating, especially "smucking"), but I'm so glad that I stuck it out. It ended up being a wonderful blend of the horror King is known for (though in a subtler and more psychologically flavored variety) and the intense character study that he does so well. It is really one part psychological horror, one part contemplation of creativity, and three parts love story. The story follows the widow (the titular Lisey) of a famous author (Scott Landon) as she copes with his death and begins to allow herself to remember the darkness that her husband had to wrestle with as a child and into adulthood. The story toggles from present day to Lisey's life with Scott to Scott's childhood, and the characters shift from our world to another world where Scott has gone throughout his life for respite and for healing. While there is certainly plenty of the fantastic in Lisey's Story, the horror comes not only from the dark things that lurk in the other world, but also from all too mundane earthly horrors (in the form of a mentally ill father in Scott's early life, an unhinged fan during Scott and Lisey's marriage, and a final stalker who demands things of Lisey that she cannot give). Exploring mental health, sisterhood and brotherhood, love, and creativity, King has crafted a lovely book where the scariest thing of all might be having to say goodbye to the love of your life.

One of my favorites!

We have come to believe that Stephen King is solely a horror writer, an artist who steeps himself in the darkest, most twisted places of the mind. Lisey's Story is a love story, and King does a marvelous job of explaining a very complicated relationship. It was not syrupy or maudlin. Just true. Whether it was autobiographical or not is unimportant. To strip these characters of all pretense was. He does a masterful job of portraying a very real love story. I was mesmerized and moved by the characters. Kudos to King.

Beautiful and terrefying

I'm well on my way of devouring all his novels. And however gruesome or spellbinding they have been. None of them has scared me this much. There's something about little Scott Landon that gets at you. Nor has any of his books been so heartfelt and down right beautiful. (The love story in 22/11/63, included.)

Also, the narrator is out of this world, down right awesome. She nails the dialogs.

Do yourself a favor, and listen closely to this book.

//Vibeke Specht, Malmö, Sweden.