Bag of Bones

Mike publishes his latest novel, All the Way from the Top, a year after Jo’s death. He experiences writer’s block for the first time in his career, a challenge he attributes to the fact that he began writing when he became engaged to Jo. Jo had encouraged Mike to pursue his writing career after she enjoyed reading the first draft of his debut novel. Mike soon found a literary agent and sold his manuscript, though he was initially ashamed about being perceived as a commercial writer. Jo reminded him to chase the joy of writing as an activity, not the perception. Mike decided that he would only trust Jo’s perception of his writing.

Mike enjoyed moderate success as a commercial writer, falling just outside the top of the bestseller lists. With his book advances, he purchased their Derry house and a summer house locally referred to as Sara Laughs. The summer house stands next to a body of water called Dark Score Lake.

Mike instituted a ritual during the writing of his second novel. Whenever he finished a new book, he would tell Jo about it, hoping to hear her say the words, “Well, then that’s all right, isn’t it?” (22)

After finishing his latest novel, Mike decides to say Jo’s magic words himself, though they feel hollow without her. Mike does not write again for four years.

Mike doesn’t tell anyone about his writer’s block and instead pretends that his creative endeavors are going well. To sustain his career for the next four years, Mike retrieves a series of unpublished manuscripts he had written several years earlier and kept in a safety deposit box. Every year, he supplies each of the manuscripts to his agent, Harold Oblowski, and pretends that they are all new novels. He only hints at his problem when he tells Harold he is thinking of slowing down. Harold discourages this, explaining that it will hurt his career.

Mike takes Harold’s advice and tries writing new work. His writer’s block is so intense that it makes him physically ill. To explain the psychology behind his writer’s block, Mike recalls his old creative writing teacher, who suggested that a fictional character was a “bag of bones” when compared to a dull living person. Mike compares himself to a “bag of bones” to explain the futility of his efforts.

Toward the end of 1997, Mike starts dreaming of Sara Laughs, which he compares to Manderley, the setting of Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier. Most of the time, the dreams see Mike walking down the lane that leads to Sara Laughs. Standing at the driveway, he looks down at the house. Three sunflowers grow from the stoop. Mike tries to descend the driveway, but his body refuses to move for unknown reasons. He sees a cut on his hand. He is afraid to find out what is in the house. When he hears someone coming up behind him, he turns around. The dreams typically end there. Recalling the opening to Rebecca, Mike is drawn to the allure of his dream.

Mike spends the Christmas holidays with Jo’s brothers. When he returns home to Derry, he feels refreshed enough to try writing again. He immediately experiences a panic attack and falls off his chair, causing him to believe that his writing career may be over.

Over the winter, Mike passes the time doing crossword puzzles. Saddened by his writer’s block, he deletes his word processor program. Harold tells him that the publisher is interested in expanding his latest book contract into a three-book deal. To Harold’s dismay, Mike rejects the deal outright.

Mike has his last dream of Sara Laughs. Walking to the driveway, he sees that someone has placed a sticker for the radio station WBLM 102.9 on the Sara Laughs sign. A voice in Mike’s head urges him to descend to Sara Laughs to escape the big thing he knows is following him. He wrestles with the voice, telling it that he can’t move because he has “writer’s walk.” Once he acknowledges this, he can suddenly move again. The voice tells him to hurry because he has a book to write. Mike expresses his fear that Mrs. Danvers, the malevolent housekeeper from Rebecca, is waiting for him. He moves on, knowing that the house will protect him from whatever is following him.

At the end of the driveway, Mike sees Jo’s coffin turned to its side. The coffin is empty, which makes Mike want to turn back. Jo’s corpse rushes out of the house in a white shroud. Mike knows that she has been waiting for him and that he will scream when she gets him.

Mike wakes up in the corner of his bedroom, having crawled there from his bed while he was dreaming. He is unable to sleep again for the rest of the night, unsure why Jo wanted to hurt him. The following morning, he discovers that he cut the back of his hand at some point during his sleep.

In March, Mike bumps into an elderly acquaintance named Ralph Roberts, who encourages him to take a vacation. Walking around Derry, Mike starts feeling the inclination to write again. Mike considers Ralph’s advice, not having gone on vacation since Jo was still alive. He books a six-week trip to Key Largo to let his creative instincts percolate.

During the trip, Mike thinks about his life with Jo and his last dream of Sara Laughs. He interprets the dream as being really about his fear of writing. He realizes that he isn’t scared of his writer’s block so much as he is afraid of moving forward in his career without Jo. He decides that if he is to try writing again, he must return to Sara Laughs because it was where his writing ritual began. He also theorizes that if he returns to Sara Laughs, it will end his recurring nightmares. The only thing Mike cannot reconcile with his interpretation is the cut on his hand.

Mike returns home and finds a shoebox of Jo’s photographs. He feels lustful looking at a picture of her in a swimsuit and spends the rest of the evening feeling angry about Jo’s absence. When he thinks about drinking to calm down, he realizes that he is on the verge of developing an alcohol dependency.

Mike calls Bill Dean, the caretaker he hires to maintain Sara Laughs, and informs him that he will be visiting for the Fourth of July. Bill will hire his regular cleaner, a woman named Brenda Meserve, to help prepare the house. The call makes Mike miss his neighbors at Dark Score Lake. He asks Bill to take photographs of Sara Laughs before it is cleaned.

Four days later, the photographs arrive. In one of the photos, Mike sees the three sunflowers from his dream.

In June, Mike meets up with Frank. Frank is concerned about Mike’s isolation, citing his “thousand-yard stare.” Mike indicates that he hasn’t wanted to date anyone since Jo died.

Mike leaves Derry for the unincorporated township where Dark Score Lake is located, TR-90, in July. Throughout the drive, he worries about the possibility that his dreams might come true. He decides to recreate the circumstances of his dream to dispel his fear. Mike leaves his car and walks to the Sara Laughs driveway. He passes by the open field known as Tidwell’s Meadow, where a Black blues singer named Sara Tidwell had lived decades earlier. He stops at the Sara Laughs sign and waits for something to happen, but nothing does.

Mike verbalizes a need for help and is answered by a voice in his head. The voice tells him to return to his car, instead of proceeding to the house like in his dream. Mike disobeys the voice and continues down the driveway. The voice in his head mocks him with the line he had read from Maugham’s novel. Mike identifies the voice as the same one that had narrated his nightmare, calling it a “UFO voice” that belongs to an outsider.

When Mike sees the new moon in the sky, he remembers that the moon had been almost full in his dream. He is relieved when he sees that the driveway is empty. Mike reads a note from Bill indicating that he will visit the following week when he returns from Virginia. Mike briefly thinks that something is moving behind him. When he calms down, he realizes that it was strange that he and Jo had been in Derry when Jo died. Jo often asked Mike to bring her to Sara Laughs to escape the summer heat, except that she hadn’t in August 1994.

Inside the house, Mike hears a child sobbing, which fades away. Mike checks if anyone might be in the house, but he gets no answer. Panicked, Mike leaves the house and thinks about what he can tell Bill to explain his sudden departure. By the time he reaches his car, Mike rationalizes that the sound he heard was air in the house’s pipes. He hears Jo’s voice encouraging him to fight his fears, using her magic words to embolden him. Mike obeys and drives back to Sara Laughs.

Mike no longer hears the sobbing. He weeps remembering Jo again. After turning in for the night, he has a peaceful sleep. When he wakes up, he recalls hearing the bell attached to his fireplace moose head (called Bunter) ringing in the night.