Bag of Bones

This article is about the Stephen King novel. For the TV miniseries based on the novel, see Bag of Bones (TV miniseries).

Bag of Bones
First edition cover
Author(s)	Stephen King
Cover artist	Frank Oudeman
Country	United States
Language	English
Genre(s)	Horror novel
Publisher	Scribner
Publication date	September 22, 1998
Media type	Print (Hardcover)
Pages	529
ISBN	978-0684853505
Preceded by	Desperation
Followed by	The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon

Bag of Bones is a 1998 novel by Stephen King. It focuses on an author who suffers severe writer's block and delusions at an isolated lake house four years after the death of his wife. It won the British Fantasy Award in 1999.

Plot summary

The narrator, Mike Noonan, a bestselling novelist, suffers severe writer's block after his pregnant wife Jo suddenly dies in an accident. Four years after Jo's death, Mike, still grieving, is plagued by nightmares set at his summer house in TR-90, Maine. He decides to confront his fears and moves to the lakeside house, known as Sara Laughs. On his first day, he finds Kyra, a 3-year-old girl, walking on the road, rescues her and returns her to her worried mother, 20-year-old Mattie Devore.

Mike learns that Mattie's father-in-law is Max Devore, an elderly rich man who will do anything to gain custody of his granddaughter, Kyra. Kyra's father, Lance, has died. Max threatens Mike over the situation and Mike hires John Storrow, a custody lawyer, for Mattie. Mattie repeats a remark once made to her by Max, implying that the two men's great-grandfathers were associates. Mike is puzzled by this, since his family came from points quite distant from TR-90. Max drags Mike into the custody battle but Mike, accompanied by a local lawyer, Romeo Bissonette, makes the custody lawyer hired by Devore look foolish by beating him at his own game. Mike begins to write again, and realizes that Jo's ghost is assisting him in solving the mystery of Sara Tidwell, a blues singer whose ghost is haunting the house. Mike asks the locals what happened to Sara Tidwell, but is warned to refrain from digging in old scandals. He also learns that Jo frequently returned to the town in the year before her death, without telling him.

In an encounter, Max and his personal assistant, Rogette, try to drown him. Mike survives due to the help of his wife's spirit. Max unexpectedly commits suicide, which seemingly leaves Mattie and Kyra free from his influence. Throughout the story, Mike has complex dreams of Sara Tidwell, Mattie, and Jo; he speaks on the phone with Mattie and can tell not only what she is wearing, but what she is thinking. After Devore's death, Mike is plagued by uneasy feelings on behalf of Mattie. Clues gradually appear, provided by Jo, while Sara Tidwell's spirit fights to keep him from learning the truth. He begins to understand when he notices how many names of local inhabitants begin with a "K" or "C" and learns how relatives of several people he knows in town have drowned in childhood.

Mike, Mattie, John, Romeo Bissonette, and George (a detective that helped Romeo with the trial) are having a party when two gunmen commit a drive-by shooting. Mattie is killed, while John, Romeo and George are wounded. Mike, the only adult not hit, takes Kyra back to Sara Laughs as a huge storm breaks. Under the influence Sara Tidwell's ghost, he prepares to drown Kyra and commit suicide himself, going so far as to give Kyra cocoa and Benadryl to make her sleep. The ghost of Jo tries to prevent him, and calls his attention to the novel he has begun to write. Hidden in the pages are clues that clarify some of the mysteries. As Kyra sleeps, Mike goes to Jo's studio and discovers documents that Jo had hidden away, among them a genealogy showing Mike's blood relationship to one of the town families. Several families had firstborn children with "K" names who had been murdered or died mysteriously. The genealogy shows that Mike and Jo's child would have been the next firstborn child with a "K" name in the family line.

Mike realizes this must be Sara Tidwell's curse for something that had been done to her. He leaves the house with a shovel and a bottle of lye to search for Sara's grave, knowing that the only way to break the curse is to destroy Sara's bones. On his way, the ghosts of Max Devore's grandfather and several members of the old families attempt to stop him. Mike learns in a vision that these men had viciously raped and killed Sara, and drowned her son Kito in the lake; all the "K" children who have died were descendants of those men. Mike makes it to the gravesite, but Sara's ghost tries to stop Mike by assuming corporeal form. Jo appears in corporeal form as well, as Sara has been taken over by an "Outsider" to harm Mike and prevent him from reaching Sara's bones. Jo struggles to fight off the Outsider while Mike digs up and destroys Sara's bones, ending the curse.

Returning to the house, Mike discovers that Rogette has kidnapped Kyra. He follows Kyra and Rogette, arriving just as Kyra bites Rogette and attempts to flee onto a floating dock in the storm. Discovering the last mystery surrounding Sara's curse, Mattie's ghost appears and knocks Rogette into the lake. Rogette tries to pull Mike in with her, but is impaled by wreckage from the dock. Mattie's ghost says her goodbyes to Mike and Kyra, telling Kyra that she is now Mike's "little guy".

The novel ends with an epilogue, which reveals that Mike has retired from writing and is attempting to adopt Kyra. His status as a single, unrelated male complicates things, and the adoption has taken longer than anticipated. The outcome of the adoption is left unresolved at the end of the novel, but the reader is given hope that it will be positive. The Outsider is also referred to when the "bag of bones" reference is touched on: "It wants what's in the bag."

Connection to King's other works

• Ralph Roberts, the main character from Insomnia, appears briefly in the novel. During his appearance he asks Mike Noonan if he suffers from insomnia. Noonan also notes Roberts's death, as described in Insomnia's epilogue. Joe Wyzer, also from Insomnia, appears briefly in the novel.
• Ray Garraty, the main character from The Long Walk, is mentioned in the novel. However, there's no indication this is the same Ray Garraty; this Ray Garraty is a character in a novel Noonan is working on during his stay at Sara Laughs.
• Jo Noonan reads books by Bill Denbrough, including It.
• Sara Laughs is located on Dark Score Lake, from Gerald's Game.
• Mike Noonan lives in Derry, the setting for It and Insomnia.
• Thad Beaumont, from The Dark Half, is mentioned as having killed himself.
• Norris Ridgewick, sheriff of Castle Rock, shows up at Mike's door. Mike asks about former sheriff Alan Pangborn, and Norris mentions Polly Chalmers. All three were central characters in Needful Things.
• Jared Devore, Max's ancestor, mentions Shawshank Prison.
• Near the end of the novel, Mike wonders if the events he witnessed might indicate that he is ready for Juniper Hill, a facility for the dangerously insane, which featured prominently in It and Needful Things.
• Sara Laughs is the twinner to Cara Laughs, a location in The Dark Tower VI: Song of Susannah and The Dark Tower VII: The Dark Tower.
• Lisey's Story, King's 2006 novel, mentions a Mike Noonan novel, but not the outcome of his adoption of Kyra.
• TR-90 is the location of Kashwak in King's novel Cell. It is also mentioned as a nearby town in King's novel "Under the Dome" and is briefly mentioned in The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon.
• The importance of 19, a number of talismanic power in The Dark Tower series, is introduced here.
• A woman Mike meets in the gym is said to be reading a book by Ellen Gilchrist; this is the maiden name of Ellen Rimbauer (Rose Red).

Reception

The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction reviewer Charles de Lint declared Bag of Bones to be "a powerful, moving novel." Elizabeth Hand praised it lavishly: "What is extraordinary here is how good the writing is. . . . The characterizations are plummy, the dialogue sharp, and even the ghosts play second fiddle to Mike Noonan and his genuinely anguished midlife crisis."

Awards

British Fantasy Award winner in 1999

Bram Stoker Award winner for Best Novel in 1998

Audio version

The audio version of Bag of Bones is noteworthy in several respects. Like all Stephen King books, the audio version is unabridged. It is read by Stephen King himself, one of several books he has read himself for audio version publication, including Hearts in Atlantis, Lunch at the Gotham Cafe, and In the Deathroom. Intermingled with the text are bits of music and a song sung by Sara Tidwell; this music and song were recorded specifically for the audio version of Bag of Bones. Finally, the audio version of this book includes an interview with Stephen King.

Tenth Anniversary Edition

Bag of Bones: Tenth Anniversary Edition
Author(s)	Stephen King
Cover artist	Frank Oudeman
Country	United States
Language	English
Genre(s)	Horror novel
Publisher	Scribner
Publication date	October 21, 2008
Media type	Print (Paperback)
Pages	660
ISBN	ISBN 1439106215

A trade paperback edition was published in the fall of 2008, commemorating the tenth anniversary of the novel's release in 1998. It contained a Q&A with Stephen King, along with "The Cat from Hell," a short story from his then upcoming collection Just After Sunset.

Film adaptation

Main article: Bag of Bones (TV miniseries)

A four-hour TV miniseries directed by Mick Garris and with teleplay by screenwriter Matt Venne aired on A&E in December 2011. Irish actor Pierce Brosnan plays Mike Noonan, with Broadway actress Anika Noni Rose taking the role of Sara Tidwell. Filming took place in and around Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada in August and September 2011.

External links

• Stephen King's official website
• The film's official MySpace profile
• Bag of Bones at Worlds Without End