I like Stephen King. He’s one of our best writers, and he has a talent for evoking mood and dialog that I don’t think I’ve ever seen equalled. The Stand was amazing, The Green Mile sublime, On Writing both poignant and helpful. But lately, geez. Ever since Gerald’s Game his fiction has suffered from a kind of creeping paralysis, and unfortunately Lisey’s Story is a prime example. I read about eighty pages into the book, and while King’s skills at characterization and metaphor are as good as ever, I was practically crying for something – anything! – to happen. What small smidges of action exist occur in flashback, which kind of robs them of impact.
Okay, so it’s not supposed to be an action novel. Fine. But still, how much can a reader take of a widower sitting in a study and going through her husband’s old stuff? There was far too much of that, too much perfluckity rumination, and not enough happening in the story to move it along. I don’t know if the pace picks up later on, but I’m not really inclined to find out. The title of the book is Lisey’s Story, not Lisey’s Character Study. And I want a story.
What King should do is write an action novel. Go in completely different direction, along the lines of John Sandford or Robert Crais. Now that would be something.
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