Lisey's Story, by Stephen King

Even in 'retirement,' master storyteller's talent blooms with tale of courage

Mark Graham, Special to the News

Published October 19, 2006 at midnight

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Most frequently asked question of impending retirees: "So what are you going to do after you retire?"

Most frequent answer to most frequently asked question: "I don't know; maybe I'll write a book."

Hey, it works for Stephen King. In 2002, the prolific wordsmith announced that he'd be hanging it up after the Dark Tower series was completed. But since the last of those books came out in 2004, horror's reigning monarch has churned out The Colorado Kid, a noir mystery; Cell, a gruesome tome - not about prison cells, but starring a more insidious evil, cell phones; and now a lengthy pseudo-autobiographical ghost story, Lisey's Story (her name rhymes with fleecy), not to mention an audio novella, the Marvel graphic novel versions of Dark Tower, a couple of story collections and a TV mini-series or two.

At least he's staying busy.

King's powerful new novel comes out Tuesday. A love story and supernatural suspense tale rolled into one gripping read, it expands on "Lisey and the Madman," a story that appeared in Michael Chabon's 2004 anthology, McSweeney's Chamber of Astonishing Stories. The original novella, which plays a small part in Lisey's Story, is told from the point of view of the wife of Scott Landon, a famous author. At a speaking engagement for the groundbreaking of a university library, a lunatic shoots and nearly kills the author, and Lisey decks the shooter with a shovel.

Lisey's Story begins a decade later, two years after the author has died, this time of natural causes. Lisey is finally sorting Scott's files. During their 25 years of marriage, Lisey had always appeared in the background, as she is reminded when poring over hundreds of magazine photographs where she is frequently not mentioned and even, on one occasion, referred to as Scott's "gal pal."

In actuality, Lisey was the firm ground that kept Scott from descending into the genetic insanity that caused the deaths of everyone else in his family. Insanity is one of the underlying themes of the book. Indeed, one of Lisey's sisters has mental problems of her own.

About half of the novel takes place in the present, as Lisey copes with her sister's manic depression and her own adjustment to her husband's death. King adds to that an unscrupulous professor, who will do anything to get his hands on Scott's papers, and the professor's violent henchman, who thinks torture might be the best idea for getting Lisey to cooperate.

But despite these troubles in the here and now, much of the tale recounts the past. In one of a series of flashbacks, Lisey recalls the circumstances around the assassination attempt on Scott. Then she goes further back to detail the bizarre courtship she shared with him.

Highlights include the time Scott was several hours late for a date and lacerated his arm on a greenhouse window to show his love. He conveys how sorry he was, and King details Lisey's shock as the wounds healed almost overnight with no scars. This was the first of Scott's "bools" (surprises or practical jokes). Lisey will learn that there are good bools and bad bools, but to always expect the unexpected from the man she loves.

Later, Lisey remembers the night Scott gave her an opportunity to back out of marrying him, because there could be no children from the union. The madness that runs in his family takes on different guises, he told her, but it is always there.

That was the same night Scott first took her to Boo'ya Moon, the place where Scott frequents to get ideas for his best-selling novels, as well as the place he goes to heal. Boo'ya Moon is his alternate universe - by day, a land of peace, and by night, a land of terror: Sometimes death was the only answer to the insanity that ran in the Landon family, and after his father killed his brother, Scott lovingly buried him under a tree in Boo'ya Moon. (When Scott was forced to put an end to his abusive father, he found a more appropriate place to dispose of the body.)

But, as the title suggests, this is really Lisey's story. It is, first of all, a love story, but also a tale of courage and of power unleashed. The last few chapters of the novel are the most powerful of all as Lisey decides she has stood in the background long enough: Breaking the madman's face with a shovel was just the beginning. Before Lisey's Story comes to an end, she will have to face a psychopathic killer, her sister's madness, the evils that lurk at night in Boo'ya Moon and her own inner demons.

Since his first novel, when Carrie White wiped out most of the senior class in 1974, King has examined a woman's strength and the tendency to underestimate it. From little Charlie McGee, who torched evil government agents in Firestarter, to Stella Flanders in Do the Dead Sing?, who danced with ghosts in her 96th year, strong women of all ages have starred in his stories. But Lisey Landon is the strongest of all.

This is King at his best. Retired or not, he's at the top of his form. And Lisey's Story proves once again that, as a storyteller, a fantasist and a chronicler of the human condition, he has no match.

Lisey's Story

• By Stephen King. Scribner, $28.

• Grade: A

Mark Graham is a former high school English teacher and the News' horror/supernatural critic. He lives in Arvada.

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