Bag of Bones

Every year around this time, I find myself rereading a Stephen King novel.  My go to books are usually The Stand or It, old favorites.  This year, however, I picked up Bag of Bones, one I've read five or six times before.  I am generally drawn to the books of his that feature writers as main characters.

Bag of Bones is set mostly on Dark Score Lake in Maine, and tells the story of Mike Noonan, who is still mourning his wife after four years and suffering from a wicked case of writer's block.  He begins to dream of Sara Laughs, their lake house on Dark Score.  Eventually, he takes himself north for the summer with plans to possibly stay longer.

Almost immediately, he meets Mattie and Kyra Devore and becomes embroiled in Mattie's custody battle against her father-in-law.  Add to that an angry spirit, a crying ghost boy, and occasionally his dead wife's ghost, and you have one of my favorite's of Stephen King's books.

The thing about rereading a book like this is that it is familiar.  The characters are like old friends.  And as events unfold, I can say to myself, "Oh, yeah, that's right," or occasionally, "Oh my God, I forgot about that."  Every time I read a book I notice something new.  For some reason, on this read, one line jumped out at me, part of a description of the court-appointed guardian ad litem in the custody case: "Durgin chuckled fatly."  I don't know why it struck me funny, but it did.  I had a little giggle in the waiting area of Ally's dance class where I was reading.

I've been staying up far too late reading all week, as I always do when a Stephen King novel is involved.  Once I get sucked in, it's all I want to do to the exclusion of all else.  I am anxiously awaiting my copy of Finders Keepers, which came out earlier this week.