 Welcome friends to this review of Stephen King's Lizzie's story. I'm very excited, aren't you? Well, good to have you. Sit back and relax, take a chill pill, or drink a margarita, or maybe both, although mixing them is not a great idea. Lizzie's story is one of Stephen King's favourite novels, perhaps his absolute favourite. That's no guarantee of quality. Great writers have been partial to their own imperfect works before. Indeed, Lizzie's story is, I think, such a read, flawed in its overindulgence, even as it delivers the signature King trills and shivers, and an emotionally deeper work than many of his others. King's novel is about a main writer, Scott London, and his wife Lizzie. Scott died two years ago, but his absence is felt more keenly by Lizzie than ever before, as she prepares to clean out his study. Events in the present bring the past to bear in horrifying new ways, ways which force Lizzie to face things she has chosen to forget. These inevitably have to do with Scott, his tragic origins and the secret behind his writing craft. There's plenty to recall, plenty to relive, and Lizzie goes chasing down the past with some urgency because her life comes to be at risk. An argument with a local scholar eager to get his hands on Scott's personal archives leads to a far more dangerous situation. Lizzie receives a phone call from Zach McCool, a violent and dangerous stalker whose initial desire to get Mrs. London to give up her husband's archive reveals altogether darker desires. Blood curdling displays of violence and fresh personal tragedies force several layers of past events to come crashing down on Lizzie. Or, okay, okay, let me interrupt myself right here and mention that Lizzie, which I'm going to keep pronouncing as Lizzie, is very significantly mentioned at the very onset of the novel, is actually pronounced as Lizzie, my bad, sorry, in advance to all the angry Stephen King fans who will never see this video. This video, just the one. The other ones will be better, I promise. Anyway, as I said, blood curdling displays of violence and fresh personal tragedies force several layers of past events to come crashing down on our protagonist in the present in what makes for excellent, emotionally resonant reading. It's difficult not to read the relationship between Scott and Lizzie as a tribute and a love letter to King's marriage and wife respectively. The author has spoken of the inspiration for this novel being his return to his study after hospitalization, wherein his wife, Tabitha, had cleaned out and reorganized the writer's workspace. This is what it would look like if I died. I felt like a ghost, King said, about entering the reorganized study for the first time. This inspiration, the fictional Scott London success, the relationship, the main setting, quite possibly the very look architecture of the house in which Lizzie and Scott live. These all invite a little more of an autobiographical reading to that novel than the usual King story does. Excluding, in case the fantastical elements, we can only hope, it's a dangerous road to go down on. It's good to keep in mind that likenesses or not, this is fictive. And even I kind of indulge in the idea that King might, on his own, also be indulgent to indulgent with some of the descriptions, with some of the extended conversations, be they between Lizzie and Scott or between Lizzie and some of her extended family members. It's a difficult, difficult thing to avoid in this particular situation. But I don't think we are entirely at fault for sometimes reading something about Scott or Lizzie in this situation and thinking to ourselves, oh, yeah, that might well be how Stephen King perceives himself, for example. And with some of the ways in which Scott London is gifted a prodigy, it certainly isn't difficult to see why it might be a little bit tricky to give him space from Stephen King himself. That said, the romp in Lizzie's mind, because this novel spends so much more time, as I mentioned, inside the head of a character, than do any of King's novels, is riveting, the kind of literary track I couldn't look away from. But even for me, there was a feeling of bloat or perhaps the need for an editor who would have insisted on a 50-page cut or even 100 pages. I wonder if King's editors ever do that. I wonder if anyone ever does that to also so successful as King is, and for good reason, I might say. He is phenomenal. King always captures the sound and logic of spoken conversation. That's something else I really enjoyed. Lizzie's story displays his skill in this as many of his other pieces do. More than others, it also shows the way in which devout couples engender language all their own. One I enjoyed learning as I read on. Then there are the elements of the uncanny, because much like King's best works, Lizzie's story too gradually builds up a smorgasbord of supernatural horrors, some real bad gunky, as Scott and the rest of his family would say. The worst of the lot is The Long Boy, an ineffable, unknowable creature living in a world entirely removed from this one and the kind of nightmarish presence that haunts dreams and madhouses alike. The Long Boy is the cherry The Long Boy is the cherry on a really boshed up cake, and that cake begins with Scott London's mess of a family. It's great to read about, especially if you enjoy the occasional sojourn into brutal horror nastiness. You will enjoy Lizzie's story if, well, one, obviously you're a Stephen King fan, that always helps. You enjoy psychological horror and don't mind the occasional venture into brutal violence. You have deep appreciation for characters internal emotional lives. You want to take preventive measures about your growing an unhealthy obsession with fandom. This novel illustrates the dangers of just such obsessions. And more, probably. I enjoyed Lizzie's story and think it would make for a great read for, let's say, newcomers to King. People who might in fact enjoy more literary novels, because that's what I think the novel could have really nailed. And I read someone on Goodreads mentioned that they were wondering what would happen if Stephen King had left behind all the fantastical elements and instead had embraced questions of, say, addiction, alcoholism, that kind of thing. If then this would have been well regarded, much better regarded by the more serious critical and literary establishment. Because when it comes to the time we're spending Lizzie's head, her introspection, her memories, the way that past and present come together, all of that I could see easily, easily appeal to people who absolutely love literary fiction. I love that and I mostly enjoy the other stuff as well. But tell me, what about you? What novel by Stephen King have you most enjoyed? Doesn't even have to be a novel. It could be a movie or a TV series or even something like, what was that, Midnight Mass, which was so deeply a spiritual successor to his works. Yeah, tell me all about it. And if you enjoyed this video, please, don't forget to share it with your friends. Stephen King Loving, Stephen King Hating, of course, can have one without the other. Probably you can, honestly. You probably could. But also, don't forget to smash that like button, leave a comment down below. What should I read next by King? I've read plenty, but I haven't read a lot more because the man is one of those prodigious, masterful writers who mostly write phenomenal stuff and also write a whole lot of them, like Adrian Tchaikovsky, whom I don't know why I mentioned, but do I really need a reason? No, sir. What I need to do is read Adrian Tchaikovsky's City of Last Chances. That's probably what I'm going to do very soon. So I'll see you next time. This went on rather quite a bit longer than usually, didn't it? I'm a bit braggy today. That's fine. That's perfect. That's excellent. But I'm going to stop it. Stop now. Philip. Oh yeah, that's me. Philip Magnus. Me, not you. And I'll see you next time. Bye.