Characters in Lisey's Story

… Scott had told him at this lunch of theirs that he was convinced Amanda Debusher was headed for a more serious break with reality, perhaps a permanent one …

… Scott sees not Andrew Landon but Paul, grinning like a goblin, and he shrieks. When he raises his hands to guard his face the wheelbarrow almost tips over again.

… The byline was Anthony Eddington, sometimes known as Toneh. And, as Lisey skimmed it, she found she was capable of anger, after all.

… Arthur Williams, the accountant in New York who wouldn’t let go of a dollar until the eagle shrieked for mercy (or died of asphyxiation) …

… The next day she called the Fogler Library and spoke to Mr. Bertram Partridge, the head of Special Collections. That gentleman grew steadily more excited as Lisey described the books still remaining in Scott’s study.

… Or maybe Billy can come home from Tufts and take care of her. What’s one more Dean’s List student, more or less?

Canty’s husband had snorted at that. The fact that Scott had made millions from his books had never kept Richard from regarding him as your basic dewy-eyed dreamer, and when Rich nominated an opinion, Canty Lawlor could be depended upon to second it.

… Captain S. Heffernan of U-Tenn Campus Security congratulates Tony Eddington, who saved the life of famous visiting author Scott Landon only seconds before this photo was taken.

… he was happy to show her work in progress if she asked about it (a privilege he accorded no one else, not even his longtime editor, Carson Foray) …

… “Hello, this is Cassandra, how may I help you?” A name of ill omen, babyluv, opined the Scott who kept house in her head.

… If Manda was headed for another spell of stormy emotional weather because Charlie Corriveau had jilted her, then Lisey supposed she had better buckle up herself.

… endless supply of jokes both clean and dirty; Charlie Haddonfield, Scott’s agent, who called on business from time to time (foreign rights and short-story anthologies, mostly); plus the handful of Scott’s friends who still kept in touch. But none of those people would call on this number, surely, even if …

… Chuckie Gendron, the short-order cook at the restaurant, is a big fan of the Insider, and she sometimes sneaks a look.

… Until he disappeared in the spring, Clyde was their cat and both boys loved him, but Daddy didn’t love him because Clyde used to waow all the time to be let in or out …

COLVETTE-JOHN, DUMBARTON-ADRIAN, TOWSON-RICHARD, VANDERVEAUX-ELIZABETH (Lizzie Vanderveaux, now there’s a mouthful, she thinks), DRAYTON-FRANKLIN. She’s approaching 319 now, and thinks The nurse is going to come out with Scott’s tray in her hands and her back to me; I won’t mean to startle her but of course I will.

… “It must make you sad, seeing it so empty,” Cory said, and tipped her glass toward the barn. The ice cubes clinked in it.

… She wanted to know if maybe Aunt Cynthia over in Wolfeboro, New Hampshire, could take her in until the baby was put out for adoption …

… He introduced himself as Deputy Dan Boeckman and told her he’d been instructed to take “a certain letter” into safekeeping and photograph “a certain deceased animal.”

… That had been their father’s rhyme when they were kids, and the one of Dandy Dave Debusher’s girls who could never shut her everlasting mouth was surely Manda, dumped first by her husband and then by her own daughter.

She didn’t know how much Canty and Darla still loved each other, but they still used each other the way drunks used the booze. When they were kids, Good Ma used to say that if Cantata caught the flu, Darlanna ran her fever.

“Sorry I’m late. Really sorry. A bunch of us from David’s Honors seminar got arguing about Thomas Hardy, and—” She turned away from him without a word and went back into the kitchen, back into the sound of the Philco. Now it was a bunch of guys singing “Sh-Boom.”

… Deke Williams—no relation to Arthur—the contractor from Bridgton who’d turned the empty haylofts over the barn into Scott’s study and who’d also remodeled the second floor of their house …

… It was Don Cloutier got me in the family way, not God. That was when Dad left the table and his favorite daughter behind without a word or backward look.

… Dr. Sattherwaite, who’s in charge of Scott’s case, has promised her she can dodge reporters by going out the back tonight and for the next few days.

… Lisey, there are a great many concerned people at Greenlawn this afternoon, especially Dr. Stein, the on-call physician, Nurse Burrell, who is in charge of the Ackley Wing, and Josh Phelan, who’s head of our small but ordinarily quite able campus security team.

“Dr. Wendlestadt was in for early rounds, and he was absolutely amazed.”

COLVETTE-JOHN, DUMBARTON-ADRIAN, TOWSON-RICHARD, VANDERVEAUX-ELIZABETH (Lizzie Vanderveaux, now there’s a mouthful, she thinks), DRAYTON-FRANKLIN. She’s approaching 319 now, and thinks The nurse is going to come out with Scott’s tray in her hands and her back to me; I won’t mean to startle her but of course I will.

COLVETTE-JOHN, DUMBARTON-ADRIAN, TOWSON-RICHARD, VANDERVEAUX-ELIZABETH (Lizzie Vanderveaux, now there’s a mouthful, she thinks), DRAYTON-FRANKLIN. She’s approaching 319 now, and thinks The nurse is going to come out with Scott’s tray in her hands and her back to me; I won’t mean to startle her but of course I will.

… A moment later a young woman named Emma was explaining the really extraordinary savings Lisey could enjoy by switching to MCI. Lisey killed this rapturous message in mid-flow …

I’m Frank Halsey, from the plant. Head of Personnel.” And he holds out his hand.

… Frederic Borent, the grad student who met his plane, also reported the cough, and said Scott had gotten him to swing into a Nite Owl to pick up a bottle of Nyquil.

… Gary assures her that the Landons have got the tightest house in Castle View, tells her he’ll keep a close eye on Lisey’s kinfolk …

… she happens to glance beyond him and this time she really does notice Gerd Allen Cole, just standing there with all that fabulous blond hair tumbled down to his eyebrows …

… bundled to the chin in one of Good Ma Debusher’s afghans, two in the morning and his eyes wide-wide-wide as a terrible wind, one all the way down from Yellowknife, boomed outside …

… That was one of Granny Debusher’s sayings, and Granny D certainly had believed in omens, but that old colleen had been on the cooling board when Lisey was barely four.

“I’m Hal Munsinger,” he said. “Lisa Landon.” She extended her hand. Dr. Hal Munsinger shook it briefly. “I’d like to get a lot more information on your sister’s situation—for the record, you know—but as I’m sure you see, I’m in a bit of a bind here.

Lisey’s eyes flew open and she nearly screamed. Then she relaxed again, little by little. It was only Herb Galloway, or maybe the Luttrell kid Herb sometimes hired, cutting the grass next door.

a pleasantly rough male voice said. “This is Hugh Alberness. Am I speaking to Mrs. Landon?”

… On the second sheet was this: Ike came home with a boom, and everything was fine. BOOL! THE END! Nothing else.

… Her one child, named Intermezzo and called Metzie for short, had gone north to Canada (with a long-haul trucker for a beau) in 1989.

… There was Jacob Montano, their lawyer in Portland; Arthur Williams, the accountant in New York who wouldn’t let go of a dollar until the eagle shrieked for mercy …

Lisey knew, all right. On three previous occasions, Amanda had lapsed into what Jane Whitlow, her shrink, called “passive semi-catatonia.” It was different from what had happened (hush about that) (I won’t) from what had happened to Scott in 1996, but pretty damned scary, all the same.

… He didn’t look as young as Jantzen, the doc Lisey met during Scott’s final illness, but if he was much beyond thirty, she’d be surprised.

… Someone will pick it up tomorrow and take it over to Kendall and Jepperson. They’re the vets we have our county account with. They’ll try to determine a cause of death …

It always hurt her when Darla or Canty (or even Jodotha, over the telephone) said crap like that. She knew it was crazy, but crazy or not, there it was. “That’s just Scott’s money.” “No, Lisey. It’s you. Always you.” Darla paused a second, then shook her head. “Never mind.

… Deputy Joe Alston, now grinning himself, high-fived her there in the sunshine near the mailbox where she’d found the dead Galloway barncat.

“That would be John Doolin, Mrs. Landon. Born in Shooter’s Knob, Tennessee.

… Her visitor’s name had been Professor Joseph Woodbody, of the University of Pittsburgh English Department. Pitt was Scott’s alma mater …

“Mrs. Landon—” “Lisey.” “Lisey, there are a great many concerned people at Greenlawn this afternoon, especially Dr. Stein, the on-call physician, Nurse Burrell, who is in charge of the Ackley Wing, and Josh Phelan, who’s head of our small but ordinarily quite able campus security team.”

… Someone will pick it up tomorrow and take it over to Kendall and Jepperson. They’re the vets we have our county account with. They’ll try to determine a cause of death …

… Lincoln, Dad Debusher’s surviving brother, came up from Sabbatus to give away the bride. Scott’s friends from Pitt and UMO had been there, and his literary agent had done the best-man honors.

Hundreds of memories waiting to be called forth? And most of them surely more pleasant than the memory of Dashmiel, that southern-fried chickenshit coward . . . “Stop it,” she murmured. “Just stop it now. Lisa Debusher Landon, you open your hand and let that go.”

… “Lisa Lemke.” Another Lisa, small world, Lisey thinks but does not say. What she says is, “My husband’s been shot, Lisa.

… She became aware of something wet stroking her face and at first thought a dog was licking her—Louise, maybe. Except Lou had been their Collie back in Lisbon Falls, and Lisbon Falls had been a long time ago.

Lisey’s eyes flew open and she nearly screamed. Then she relaxed again, little by little. It was only Herb Galloway, or maybe the Luttrell kid Herb sometimes hired, cutting the grass next door.

… “When does Matt get back from Montreal?” “Week after next. Don’t even think about asking me to call him, either—he’s earning our trip to St. Bart’s next winter …

… old Max Silver hadn’t been talking about what his hulk of a potato-grader would do to her clothes but what it would do to her.

… The boy was Mike, and he was the one who said they were very sorry for her loss. Lisey thanked them both for their kindness, and meant it.

… needs to go see Mr. Baumer at the barbershop in Martensburg, Mr. Baumer with the elk’s head on his wall and the faded decal in his window that shows a Merican flag and says I SERVED …

… Mr. Simmons, the RFD 3 mailman, must have tucked a package in the box, although on fair days he was more apt to use a rubber band or two …

… “Mrs. Cole from down the road.” Jackson Cole is the name of the guy who wrote Iron Man of the Yankees. “She comes in every day. And besides, Paul knows four different ways to make meatloaf.”

… “Mrs. Jones heard her screaming and carrying on and breaking stuff. Doing one of her Big Ts.” One of her Big Tantrums. Check.

… He says Mrs. McKinney in Reception will have a cab waiting back by the cafeteria loading dock “as soon as you give her the high sign.”

… Naresh Patel, owner of Patel’s Market, was himself on duty when Lisey came in at just past five o’clock on that long, long Thursday.

… Nurse Burrell, who is in charge of the Ackley Wing, and Josh Phelan, who’s head of our small but ordinarily quite able campus security team.

… The woman who took Lisey’s call identified herself as Communications Officer Soames and said she couldn’t put Lisey through to Sheriff Ridgewick …

… thinking about Andrew “Sparky” Landon, and Paul Landon, and Scott Landon—Scott the survivor. Thinking about bools. Good bools and blood-bools.

That dog’s name is Pluto, she knows because she has heard the people over there yelling at it from time to time, fat lot of good it does.

… I think it would be wise if you got here as soon as possible, Professor Meade had told her over the phone. Your husband has been taken ill. Very ill indeed, I’m afraid.

… Lisey set out to get righteously smashed on Rich Lawlor’s Long Island Iced Tea, a thing she hadn’t done since Scott had died.

… The last and gaudiest confrontation had been over a boy named Richie Stanchfield, and had been serious enough to land Darla in the Central Maine General ER …

… Would any doctor—even a sympathetic one like Rick Bjorn—take them seriously? He’s stopped listening to music when he writes, that’s one thing.

… Roger Dashmiel was probably as ignorant of what had actually happened as the campus cop. Which meant there were only two people in the whole round world who knew the truth about that afternoon …

… Woodbody’s Scott Landon and the American Myth lecture class was extremely popular and extremely large. He also had four graduate students doing Scott Landon theses this year …

So far as I know Gosling was the only cop who ever went up there to the home place, and big deal. My own Daddy once said “Sheriff Gosling couldn’t find his own ass after he took a shit.”

… transforming previously dim rooms into wonderlands of light; Smiley Flanders, the plumber from over in Motton with the endless supply of jokes both clean and dirty; Charlie Haddonfield, Scott’s agent, who called on business from time to time (foreign rights and short-story anthologies, mostly); plus the handful of Scott’s friends …

… His only comment so far had been to identify the tirelessly dancing photographer as Stefan Queensland of the Nashville American—also of U-Tenn Nashville, class of ’85.

… it was not the long boy. Because that thing isn’t like anything we can understand. It’s its own thing, and better not thought of at all. Ever.

Like with the Landreaus? And your Uncle Theo? —What do you think, Scoot? Get his head, less you want it to bump all the way down.

… her sense of déjà vu is enough to make her peek in and see a huge beached whale of a man—Thomas Yanez—in the single bed.

COLVETTE-JOHN, DUMBARTON-ADRIAN, TOWSON-RICHARD, VANDERVEAUX-ELIZABETH (Lizzie Vanderveaux, now there’s a mouthful, she thinks), DRAYTON-FRANKLIN. She’s approaching 319 now, and thinks The nurse is going to come out with Scott’s tray in her hands and her back to me; I won’t mean to startle her but of course I will.

COLVETTE-JOHN, DUMBARTON-ADRIAN, TOWSON-RICHARD, VANDERVEAUX-ELIZABETH (Lizzie Vanderveaux, now there’s a mouthful, she thinks), DRAYTON-FRANKLIN. She’s approaching 319 now, and thinks The nurse is going to come out with Scott’s tray in her hands and her back to me; I won’t mean to startle her but of course I will.