"A Novel Bag of Bones" by the author of "The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon", Mike Noonan; an Author and young widower who grieves the loss of both his woman and his muse, searches for sanctuary in Sara's Laugh.
   In this book there is a place. The place is haunted geographically and genetically. A place where both the angry and loving dead talk to the living, and whisper through the flesh while telling secrets to little girls. A place where the Dead affect the day and the night doesn't matter.
   At the end of this read, I was pleasantly left with a sense that King has become more understanding and/or has returned to his roots regarding that of the intricate importance of one life to another, dead or alive… that which I call Life Plans and Life Plan Contracts.
   This book is a fair to good example of what I believe and teach: "many of life's lessons are learned through sorrow, that doesn't invalidate them, they are as important as the lessons learned in joy". Not since his novels "The Dead Zone" and "The Stand" have I felt that King was musing the "collective unity concept", but with this piece I felt he had once again touched upon that which is part of the most important and most difficult of all human endeavors -- emotional education --not to be simply confused with emotional experience.
   This is no fluffy book, after all, the guy's been around the block a few times; i.e.: recovery from prolific drug & alcohol abuse. He's an experienced bag of bones himself.
   I appreciated the flow of the book even though some of the basic psychic energy- works transpiring in the plot were left out in the cold, and in my opinion could have been capitalized on a little more for the readers--particularly those that intimately know of these things called intangible, yet are so undeniably physical. A little more research was needed regarding a few topics- or perhaps research isn't the issue, perhaps the editor needed to be curtailed. Whatever the case, in it's final shelved form it was good - but could have been more. I refer it to my students with minor cautions regarding the need to remember this is a novel by a beginner, thought provoking, but the topic(s) presented go far and beyond what is able to be portrayed in the books limited pages. Students would benefit by taking note of their own personal emotional responses to Mike Noonan's plight for future review in real life's daily events and for use in JETIU Company's Psychic and Psychic-related courses College Campus.
   While I was reading this I was heavily medicated and recuperating in the hospital from a nasty bout (my 19th episode - no kidding!) of viral Spinal Meningitis. Eventually, back home and crashed on the couch I picked up a newspaper and read (as you all did) that Mr. King had been involved in an accident which landed him in the hospital with serious injuries and multiple surgery dates. Fresh from the death ward, looking at my IV wounds and complaining about bruises from hip shots and butterfly-site wounds I could not and still cannot seem to stop my morbid wondering regarding how he will incorporate his experience into a new novel. Fans are funny that way, knowing that an author's pain will eventually entertain them. An Author's pain is never in vain.
   I already know you are well Mr. King - I'm precognitive. In which case I await your memories of morphine dreams to scare the hell out of me… give me something to think about other than my own fragile bag of bones!