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Lisey's Story
Lisey's Story
Lisey's Story
Audiobook19 hours

Lisey's Story

Written by Stephen King

Narrated by Mare Winningham

Rating: 4 out of 5 stars

4/5

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About this audiobook

*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 twenty-five year marriage of profound and sometimes frightening intimacy. Scott was an award-winning, bestselling 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).
LanguageEnglish
Release dateOct 24, 2006
ISBN9780743561945
Lisey's Story
Author

Stephen King

Stephen King is the author of more than sixty books, all of them worldwide bestsellers. His recent work includes the short story collection You Like It Darker, Holly, Fairy Tale, Billy Summers, If It Bleeds, The Institute, Elevation, The Outsider, Sleeping Beauties (cowritten with his son Owen King), and the Bill Hodges trilogy: End of Watch, Finders Keepers, and Mr. Mercedes (an Edgar Award winner for Best Novel and a television series streaming on Peacock). His novel 11/22/63 was named a top ten book of 2011 by The New York Times Book Review and won the Los Angeles Times Book Prize for Mystery/Thriller. His epic works The Dark Tower, It, Pet Sematary, Doctor Sleep, and Firestarter are the basis for major motion pictures, with It now the highest-grossing horror film of all time. He is the recipient of the 2020 Audio Publishers Association Lifetime Achievement Award, the 2018 PEN America Literary Service Award, the 2014 National Medal of Arts, and the 2003 National Book Foundation Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters. He lives in Bangor, Maine, with his wife, novelist Tabitha King. 

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Reviews for Lisey's Story

Rating: 4.173913043478261 out of 5 stars
4/5

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  • Rating: 1 out of 5 stars
    1/5
    I know it's a bit late; but I must make a New Year's resolution to avoid any Stephen King book involving a writer. I have thought for some time that King needs a tough editor to stop him over-writing, but in this case it could have avoided gross self-indulgence. As always there are some good bits but it is almost unreadable (if I did not have a fixation about finishing everything I start, this would have gone to the charity shop some days ago.

    2 people found this helpful

  • Rating: 1 out of 5 stars
    1/5
    This seems to be an abruptly abridged version?? The audiobook should be 19 hours, but this is only 2. No wonder it was so disjointed!

    2 people found this helpful

  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Dynamite narration and an excellent book. Be warned, it’s going to take you on some weird turns, which may incline you to shut it off or move on, and all I’ll say is that it’s worthwhile to keep on to the end.

    2 people found this helpful

  • Rating: 1 out of 5 stars
    1/5
    Useless version - this version of the audio book has only two of the originally 19 hours which makes it basically impossible to understand the story at all. Why one would do such a thing is beyond me.
    But for the interview at the end this is a complete waste of time, don't listen to this version

    2 people found this helpful

  • Rating: 2 out of 5 stars
    2/5
    This book was a long time in the reading(listening). It was fairly depressing from beginning to end, with the only bright spots being the descriptions of daytime Boo'ya Moon and the Pool. Otherwise, the lives of Scott, Lisey, her sisters, and his family were just gloom on top of gloom. It was very much a story about how to cope with gloom and darkness in our lives, and I'm okay with that, I'm just going to need to move on to something much more cheery.

    At some point in the middle of the story, Dustin commented that there's really "no editor in the world who can tell Steven King what to do, anymore, is there?" and I agreed with him. Stretches of the story seemed to drag on and on, full of needless or repetitive detail. This became funny when, in the author's note, King soulfully protests against this accusation, nearly word-for-word. So if his first draft got as much editing as he claims, I'm profoundly grateful to his editor and hope she keeps up the good work. :p

    PS: My 2 stars truly do mean "it was okay." I feel very "meh" about it in the end.

    1 person found this helpful

  • Rating: 2 out of 5 stars
    2/5
    Probably the only Stephen King book that was not part of a series that I didn't like. I found it hard to stay with the story and it had long descriptions that didn't seem to have anything to do with the story.

    1 person found this helpful

  • Rating: 1 out of 5 stars
    1/5
    An overused Stephen King formula - a been there done that story. The best part is a sk interview at the end about an Apple made for TV movie of this book. Sk sounds like Donald Trump describing how spectacular his TV movie is.

    1 person found this helpful

  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    One of the best audiobooks I’ve listened to so far. Mare Winninghamn does an excellent job of breathing life into all the characters and making each unique. You know when Lisey is speaking and when Amanda is speaking—they don’t sound alike. Winninghamn brings all her gifts as an actress to this monumental task, filling it with honest emotions. Particularly poignant is her interpretation of Scott Landon as a boy. Your heart breaks and you feel terrified for him. Excellent job.

    1 person found this helpful

  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    I’m not going to lie, the ending had me crying. Not many King books make me emotional.

    1 person found this helpful

  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Holy crap... the voice-actress was utterly AMAZING! If nothing else, listen to this audio book for that. The story was also good. In true Stephen King fashion, human drama wrapped around a bit of the supernatural. The damn thing made me tear up a few times. Never in a "this is so sad I want to cut my wrist", but in a way that loss and longing for what was lost only can do. And then, finally letting go. I think that's all I dare say without risking ruining anything. Again, the voice-actress was AMAZING! She's probably ruined me on future audio books now lol... -Joey M.

    1 person found this helpful

  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Beautiful story beautifully narrated. Mr. King knows how to write relationships and this story epitomises love in its many forms.

    1 person found this helpful

  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    A nice reminder of why I still read King: excellent main character, compelling story that manages to be both magical and creepy as hell, and a pace that never lets up. Up there with some of King's best.

    1 person found this helpful

  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    In response to the Author's Note at the end of the audiobook, yes Steve, I really did enjoy your book. It was a slow starter for me, and I eventually switched from a massive hardcover to the audio version that I also just happened to have on hand because I did not feel comfy reading it in bed. I have enough things keeping me awake already! I think I'm starting to sound like a broken record here, but I continue to be amazed at how he does it. There are people and places that pop up and make you feel like you are in a familiar place, but I swear the microcosm he creates does not smack of the same old ground. I enjoyed what another reviewer described as a 'kinder, gentler' King with less profanity and graphic violence. Looking forward to reading Sleeping Beauties after a break.

    1 person found this helpful

  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Stephen king always writes excellent books love his books thank you for having it ib scribd

    1 person found this helpful

  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Favorite Stephen King book . Traveling to BooYa Moon and it’s magical pool of wonder and two small boys living rough with a mean old man, I didn’t want this novel to end...Seems fantastically plausible.

    1 person found this helpful

  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    I loved this book!

    1 person found this helpful

  • Rating: 2 out of 5 stars
    2/5
    This book has a lot of 'king-er-isms:" Parenthesized italic sentences in the(read between the line things)middle of paragraphs, quotes in the front of sections that sort of but not exactly hint what is to come, extreme wordiness that usually annoys me but doesn't with King, and some scary moments. However, I never became interested in the plot or characters. For me, that usually doesn't happen with King's books.

    1 person found this helpful

  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Scott Landon was an award-winning, best-selling novelist and he and his wife Lisey Debusher Landon had been happily married for twenty-five years until his untimely death. Their relationship may have been filled with the typical ups and downs that every couple experiences, but overall, Lisey believed that their marriage was extraordinarily and profoundly intimate - sometimes frighteningly intimate. Scott Landon had recently passed away two years ago, and Lisey is only now coming to terms with what a complicated man her husband truly was.Lisey had always suspected that her husband had sometimes lived in a world of his own - a world of dark secrets that threatened to consume him utterly. As a matter of fact, Scott himself had taught Lisey about the different sides of his personality - sides that she sometimes found endearingly charming, yet sometimes disturbingly eccentric. Yet, she also believed that their enduring love for each other would always be the key that was strong enough to protect Scott from himself.Starting early on in their relationship, even before their marriage, Lisey learned about many things from Scott. As a matter of fact, she had to learn about these things in order to better understand the man who would soon become her husband. She had to learn about the importance of books and blood and bools - indeed, there were certain times during their life together, when Lisey believed that Scott was actually trying to teach her a completely different language - a whole new perspective on life that was entirely their own.It was only later when Lisey began to realize - no, to truly understand - that there was actually a special place where Scott went to be alone. It was a place within his own mind that both terrified and healed him, a place that could alternately eat him alive or give him the ideas he needed in order to live. It was a place of sunlight and shadow, genius and creativity - a world entirely of his own creation, known as 'Boo'ya Moon'. Now it's Lisey's turn to face Scott's demons; her turn to make her own journey to 'Boo'ya Moon'.What begins as a grieving widow's effort to sort through her esteemed husband's personal papers, becomes a nearly fatal journey into the darkness that had enveloped Scott Landon's mind and soul. So now it falls to Lisey, to make her own pilgrimage to honor her husband's memory. She must find her own way to journey to Scott's special place - the place where his wealth of creativity and imagination existed; and dwelt alongside his increasing fear of his encroaching insanity.I've recently discovered that Stephen King considers this book to be his favorite one of all his works. Indeed, Lisey's Story: A Novel is definitely Stephen King's most personal novel that he has written, as the genesis of his ideas for the story came about during his convalescence from the near-fatal car accident that he suffered in June of 1999. In my opinion, my own favorite book by Stephen King is Pet Sematary - which was written in 1983.Actually, I must say that I thoroughly enjoyed reading this book. Perhaps it wasn't my absolute favorite, but I still found it to be extremely well-developed and highly intriguing. The plot of Lisey's Story: A Novel by Stephen King was extraordinarily imaginative and descriptive. Overall, I enjoyed the story very much, although I found certain parts of the story to be almost overwhelmingly descriptive.I must admit that while these particular scenes were certainly very well-written; I generally tried to avoid them - as they tended to give me what Mareena calls 'the cringing skin crawls'. I would also like to mention that in my own opinion, this book probably could have benefitted from being approximately one hundred pages shorter. Having said that, I would still give this book a strong A!

    1 person found this helpful

  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    Very enjoyable read about Lisey coping with the loss of her partner and some of the fantasy elements that were just part of her life.

    1 person found this helpful

  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Lisey's Story by Stephen King is a story about Lisey and the love she has for her husband.I adore King's work, and this book was no exception. To me, this is a love story only the way King can do it, and of course there is imagination running amok. All I can say is that I loved it, but I'm bias when it comes to King which is why I usually don't review his books. But I figured I'd write a few words about it since it's included in my book challenge.

    1 person found this helpful

  • Rating: 2 out of 5 stars
    2/5
    I couldn't finish it, again... started the book when it came out couldn't finish it. Borrowed the audiobook and same story, I got bored and I decided to stop listening.

    1 person found this helpful

  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    A great book. Stephen King creates another of his interesting beyond-the-looking-glass worlds for this one, as he's done so well in The Talisman, and the Dark Tower series. It's a satisfying blend of fantasy, supernatural mystery, bad childhood overcome, and especially, a love story. And as usual, with a Stephen King novel, the character is so well voiced that I found myself with bits and pieces of her worldview knocking around in my head for several days afterward. One of the things I like best about a good King novel is that, while you know it's completely fictional, and obviously farfetched, it seems somehow plausible. Perhaps because he never breaks character, or because he includes just enough details from the non-fictional world we all live in to tie it together, or because, if only things in it WERE true, they would explain the unexplainable in some way (where DO you go, if you are in a coma, for instance?). Although I think part of it is - someone ought to coin a new phrase for this - but some novels just have a way of getting it right, of seeming like a dream you might have had yourself. Tapping into the collective unconscious? I'm going to lose people here, with my half-formed theories, but you don't have to examine why a book works to know that it does. Highly recommended.

    1 person found this helpful

  • Rating: 2 out of 5 stars
    2/5
    I've never read any Stephen King before, but I received this as an advance and decided now was as good a time as any to give him a try. Many friends and fellow readers whose opinions I think very highly of are huge Stephen King fans, so I consider the lack of King's book in my arsenal to be rather shameful. However, I'm not sure Lisey's Story was the place to start.Frankly, I can say very little about this book because I read very little of this book. I tried -- really and truly tried -- to hang on and to complete my first King novel, but it failed to capture my interest rather spectacularly. I found myself staring out of windows at absolutely nothing in order to avoid reading this book. I actually made it about 100 or so pages in, but felt like I still knew next to nothing about Lisey, a character whose head I had been inside since I began reading the novel. Her grief for her husband, while trying to come off as deep and profound, simply felt a little flat. More like the idea of grief than anything resembling actual grief. I don't think it helped that as a native (and lifelong) Nashvillian, some major portions of what I read took place in what was supposed to be Nashville, but bore little to no resemblance to the actual city. I suppose readers who live in cities that feature more often in fictional works handle this better. For me it is just startling and takes me out of the narrative. However, I suppose that isn't a complaint that would matter much to anyone who doesn't live in the Greater Nashville area. Nonetheless, I believe it did contribute to my putting this book down once and for all.I'll give King another shot, I'm sure. I hear Hearts in Atlantis is great, but it will be a long time, if ever, before I try to puzzle out the story or Lisey again.

    1 person found this helpful

  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Love this story. Narrator was fabulous!!
    She nailed the character voices I imagined when I read this book in print. Well done!

    1 person found this helpful

  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    A truly dark romance that is thrilling from beginning to end. I've read this book more times than I can count and will probably read it over that many times more. I also highly recommend listening to the audiobook. Mare Winningham's voice is just perfect for reading this story out loud.

    1 person found this helpful

  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Excellent book! So very moving! I have read it 2 times and have now listened once. Worth the effort every single time. Moves me to tears every time and I do not allow my tears freedom to leave my eyes very often.

    Thank you Stephen King for sharing this story from beneath the writing tree!

    1 person found this helpful

  • Rating: 1 out of 5 stars
    1/5
    I normally love a Stephen King book, but not this one. I didn't like the repetition (which is present in most King books, he seems to latch onto some particular phrase or device and just clings for dear life) of the phonetic spelling of words or names. Maybe once to illustrate someone's accent, but after that, it just becomes very annoying for me to read.Don't get me started on 'smucking'. Yes yes, Lisey and Scott were super super special and connected, blah blah. There was a good story here, supernatural and mental illness, but I couldn't stick with Lisey long enough to appreciate it.

    1 person found this helpful

  • Rating: 2 out of 5 stars
    2/5
    I've never read any Stephen King before, but I received this as an advance and decided now was as good a time as any to give him a try. Many friends and fellow readers whose opinions I think very highly of are huge Stephen King fans, so I consider the lack of King's book in my arsenal to be rather shameful. However, I'm not sure Lisey's Story was the place to start.Frankly, I can say very little about this book because I read very little of this book. I tried -- really and truly tried -- to hang on and to complete my first King novel, but it failed to capture my interest rather spectacularly. I found myself staring out of windows at absolutely nothing in order to avoid reading this book. I actually made it about 100 or so pages in, but felt like I still knew next to nothing about Lisey, a character whose head I had been inside since I began reading the novel. Her grief for her husband, while trying to come off as deep and profound, simply felt a little flat. More like the idea of grief than anything resembling actual grief. I don't think it helped that as a native (and lifelong) Nashvillian, some major portions of what I read took place in what was supposed to be Nashville, but bore little to no resemblance to the actual city. I suppose readers who live in cities that feature more often in fictional works handle this better. For me it is just startling and takes me out of the narrative. However, I suppose that isn't a complaint that would matter much to anyone who doesn't live in the Greater Nashville area. Nonetheless, I believe it did contribute to my putting this book down once and for all.I'll give King another shot, I'm sure. I hear Hearts in Atlantis is great, but it will be a long time, if ever, before I try to puzzle out the story or Lisey again.

    1 person found this helpful

  • Rating: 1 out of 5 stars
    1/5
    My First book of Stephen King's and something convinced me not to go ahead and finish the book. May be I am used to clearer narration style. I didn't really like Lisey's character sketch. One word : Boring. I couldn't really go ahead reading the book! No offense Mr. King. I am not really comfortable with the way you write.

    1 person found this helpful

  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Proving that King still has the story-telling ability that made him famous.

    1 person found this helpful