Tuesday, April 29, 2008

Have a COOL & CHILLING summer !

Looking for a novel which makes you feel cool during the summer without jumping into the pool or sticking your face to a refrigerator ? How about re-visiting 1998 best-selling novel ?

Back of Bones” by Stephen King, a well-known horror and best-selling novelist, was chilling. I was not into horror or Stephen King – especially an horror which keeps ‘scary thing’ coming which sometimes might be just a bizarre or even funny. I read this because my friend gave me this book. Surprisingly, I liked it. It went behind the horror. It made me interested in reading more of his novel, not simply because of high-profile author but because of its contents. This novel would not make you feel like a grown-up in a cheap haunted house in amusement park. No wonder he is the best-selling novelist !



I think it has wide appeal as the author is usually know was an entertainment writer. Yet it had literary value as well, for me.

There is a love story, but the novel is a horror – of course – and a mystery with inexorable revelation of abhorrent truth in an apparently peaceful small town. Piece by piece, Stephen King throws a clue which made me guess all the time and grabbed me all the way to the end.

There are also insights about us - monstrous desire causing violence which unexplainable cruelty human has and the past we all cannot avoid. It made me think about the soul and fate which we are responsible for.

Stephen King has received The Bram Stoker Awards in the Novel section, an award hold by Horror Writers Association, for this novel. He previously received the same award for Misery and Green Mile. Among these three novels, Bag of Bones is the only novel which did not turn into a movie. This is something worth to read as a novel because of its contents. It is a non-stop mystery and horror with historical background and the surprising revelation.

The story begins as a best-selling and widowed novelist returns to his isolated summer home in a town called Sara Laughs haunted by nightmares. He unexpectedly discovers the secret his deceased wife kept, started communicating with a ghost and become thrust into an ugly custody battle in the town which would change his life forever. What made his deceased wife coming back to Sara Laughs without him ? Is the ghost giving hints or a setting traps ? What was the meaning of his nightmare which seems to be relevant with the secret behind the town ? Where will these lead him to ?

You can go to amazon.com to buy this book. Enjoy COOL summer !