The Book Bump

First published: 1998
Author: Stephan King
Language: English
Genre: Horror
My rating: 2/5

Mike Noonan, a bestselling author from Derry, Maine, suffers from terrible writer’s block after his pregnant wife dies unexpectedly. Years pass, and he is drawn to his beautiful lakeside retreat, Sara Laughs. But the once peaceful town is threatened by human and ethereal sinister forces.

The book is written in the 1^st person singular, and you feel you are reading someone’s life story, a memoir. I have no qualms with 1^st person narrative, as it allows readers to get closer to the protagonist. But as mentioned previously, there is something about the style that is odd and a little disturbing. I was wholly absorbed in the story and forgot I was reading. I guess I cannot fault King’s style.

But when I put it down, I found I was generally disappointed. The story had a hard time moving on. Stephen King mentioned in his memoir that he prefers a slow build-up instead of fast-paced, action-packed novels. However, in this instance, I felt that he was waffling. There are more than 650 pages in my edition, and for almost three-quarters of the novel, we are no closer to discovering anything about the ethereal presence in Sara Laughs.  

I liked the small passage where Stephan King alludes to another of his bestselling author protagonists. It shows continuity between his novels, despite them being completely independent of one another.

Throughout the novel, we only get a small glimpse into who Mike Noonan is. We know little about him before he becomes widowed, and his development when he moves back to the TR is quite limited. Although, it’s hard to realise how long passes between his return to the TR and the climax.  We know he’s self-obsessed, shallow, and generally hard to relate to. And I find him to be the same at the novel’s end. He seems slightly conflicted about his feelings towards Mattie, a young mother with whom he strikes up a friendship upon his return to the TR. However, his feelings seem to be mostly about sex. Even the memories of his deceased wife generally revolved around sex. And when he describes most female characters, he describes their physical attributes. Even Kyra wasn’t spared of his thought when Mike mentions she’ll be pregnant in early teenagehood.

Mattie and Kyra were flat characters. However, they had potential that never gets unpacked. It’s a shame that for most of the novel, we only see one aspect of their lives. Mattie seems like a prop to male fantasies. The three prominent male characters (Noonan, Devore and Storrow) only see Mattie as a sexual desire. She is often called a whore, as though that’s normal. Kyra had the potential to be likeable, but I feel we didn’t see enough of her to be able to grow attached. And I find that her speech was baby-fied compared to how an actual four-year-old would talk.

Max Devore is a caricature of an uber-rich white male with more money than sense. He is just as uninteresting and shallow as the other characters.

Sara Tidwell, who is one of the antagonists, turns out to be carrying a lot more baggage than we first imagine. Although, I can’t see how she’s painted as the ‘bad guy’ after what happened to her. Yes, two wrongs don’t make a right, as they say, but she has a motive. However, the scenes in which we learn the truth are very uneasy to read; the graphic description that seemed to go on forever was challenging to digest. Many scenes involving Sara Tidwell and the Red Tops were hard to read because of racism. I understand that King was perhaps trying to portray what life would have been like for the black community in Maine in the 1900s, but it didn’t sit well with me.

I found that the only character I felt anything for was Sara Tidwell. Was that the aim of the story? To reflect on who is the real monster in all this? Is it the one driven to monstrous actions or those who cause others to commit monstrosities?  

Some secondary characters, present at the novel’s start, disappear, only to be mentioned in passing in the Epilogue. They might be secondary, but they are the editor and agent of the protagonist, who is expected to write a new book soon and are prominent in the first part of the novel. They pester him for the book’s first quarter, then radio silence.

I feel somewhat frustrated, having finished reading, that there are a lot of loose ends that I think Stephan King didn’t wrap up to my satisfaction. Of course, others may feel the contrary, but there were many subplots in this book… maybe too many.

I am unsure what to make of the climax. Bag of Bones unravels in the last 100 pages, which changes entirely from the previous pacing. One scene, in particular, comes out of nowhere and ruins the story’s mood.

The epilogue is an unnecessary add-on. In the author’s notes, Stephan King mentions that ‘to some extent, the novel deals with the legal aspects of child custody in the State of Maine’. He touches more on this topic in the epilogue, but I find that after the final sentence of the last chapter, I would prefer it to be left to my imagination what happened to Mike and Kyra. The epilogue states the obvious and, perhaps, ruins the fairy tale. That said, no one said Stephan King was writing a fairy tale ending, but after the ordeal Mike and Kyra go through, it’s nicer to imagine they have their happily-ever-after.

The writing was excellent. Stephan King can make readers forget they are reading. However, his characters lacked depth overall, and the plot was poorly executed, although it had huge potential. I was surprised by my lack of interest in this book, having seen so many good reviews about this book and Stephan King in general.