Rating: 
Summary: Ehhh...Where are the vampires?
Review: As a veteran reader of Laymon I'll be the first one to tell you that the man has written just as many misses as he has hits. For every classic like "Island" or "The Cellar" there are turkeys like "Endless Night", books so trivial and banal I almost feel like I should wrap them in cardboard. But the genius of Laymon is this: even with the stinkers, he keeps us reading. I will never accuse a Laymon novel, no matter how dumb, of being a slow or boring read. "The Stake" falls somewhere in between. The quality of Laymon's writing is excellent and the setup was good however he never develops his concept to the fullest. What could have been an explosive horror novel somehow falls flat.
Larry Dunbar is a writer of gruesome horror novels. Despite the grotesqueries he writes, Larry is just about the nicest, most well-mannered person you could ever meet. He lives in a quiet suburban home with his teenaged daughter and loving wife. One day on a road trip exploring a ghost town with his wife and two of their friends, Larry stumbles upon a corpse buried under the floor of a hotel. Turns out the corpse is (apparently) a female vampire with a stake in her heart. On a return trip with his friend Pete, Larry lugs the corpse back home and sets off to write a non-fictional account of this supposed vampire. But what if the vampire is not really dormant but ready to come back to life? What happens if you pull the stake? Larry is about to find out...
The central character being a horror writer, there are definite undertones of self-referentiality to this tale. The wife and daughter, the struggles with publishers & editors, the setbacks associated with being a writer of gruesome horror, I mean really Laymon is just writing about himself here. The self-referentiality doesn't bother me that much, at least he's not using his horror writer character as a veil attempt to pepper his novel with his own opinions (a la Bentley Little) but it does become very cheesy after a while. That's too bad because his writing quality is top-notch here; he's not filling pages with dialogue, but letting setting and mood take over. He effectively juggles two separate storylines involving different characters and blends them together in the end quite nicely.
I guess my main quelm with "The Stake" is how mellow of a horror novel it ends up being. There is practically none of the violence and nudity Laymon's become so famous (or infamous) for. Even worse, there's not much action either and the marketing of this book as a vampire novel is slightly off-putting. I mean a real vampire novel would have things to scare the reader such as oh I don't know...vampires? There is only one vampire in this entire novel and she spends the whole time lying motionless in a coffin with a stake in her heart while the rest of the characters run around dealing with all sorts of unrelated things. I had high hopes for "The Stake" especially since I wanted Laymon to redeem himself after disappointing me so much with his other vampire misfire "Bite". Oh well, I guess bloodsuckers were not meant to be the man's specialty.
Rating: 
Summary: Excellent read!
Review: Great book! Twists and turns all the way through. The only problem was that it wasn't long enough! It would be great if he'd write a sequel.
Rating:
Summary: MY FAVORITE BOOK EVER
Review: I am a fan of weird authors- Hunter S. Thompson, Bret Easton Ellis( Who is my fav.) etc etc. But I was told that The Stake was a good book. I hate horror novels, ever since I read Stephen King, But I got this, and what I found was that this is one of the best books about Obsession ever. We follow two stories in One.The first is Two Couples stumble upon a Coffin with a body with a Stake through it's chest. Larry, a horror novelist, becomes obsessed and He and Pete, the other guy, plan to write a novel about it. So while Larry is finding out who the "Vampire" Is, he bcomes obsessed with who or What it is. The Second being Larry's Daughter who has the hots for her English teacher, who turns out to be a bad person. This book is beyond brilliant, PLEASE BUY THIS BOOK.
Rating: 
Summary: God bless Laymon!
Review: If you are looking for a great vampire book or a great book in general try "the Stake." It's not the traditional vampire story, not what one might expect from typical horror novels. Laymon takes a fresh approach to an old monster, very cool.
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Summary: At last, vampire tale that is unique and original.
Review: Richard Laymon's sudden passing on Feb. 14, 2001 was a serious blow to horror's literary validity. Anyone who has read more than one of Laymon's books will know that. The Stake is a particularly good one, alternately fall down funny and curl up into a fetal position and cry for momma scary. A horror writer (who seems to be made from a mold quite similiar to Laymon's, judging from the little writer details and scrumptious in-jokes he throws in), his wife, and their neighbors/best friends find a gruesome secret in an old, deserted ghost town. The corpse of a woman with a stake driven through her heart. This is only the first in a long line of frightening and mysterious events that befall our characters, they're far too realistically drawn to be called heroes. As with Laymon's other stories I have read, the human monsters (which include a sadistic rapist and one loony vampire hunter) are far more disgusting and evil than the fantasical creatures that usually inhabit these sorts of tales, this makes the novel far more realistic and disturbing than its contemporaries. As with Laymon's other books I was sorry to see it end, I wanted to hang around the characters some more and see how the events colored the rest of their lives, they were THAT well drawn. Definitely a novel I will be revisiting and one I highly recommend.
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Summary: Much more than just a vampire tale
Review: The Stake is intrinsically a fairly straightforward tale, but one where the true nature of the vampire is not revealed until the dying chapters of the story. The real horror in this book is the relationship between the main characters and their friendships with others. Although not your normal vampire tale, the usual elements are all their in abundance but what has become almost a formulaic tale has been given a new breath of life by Laymon. Much of the action takes place in a deserted wild west ghost town and this place could be anywhere, maybe down the end of your road and you know you really want to go incase you too can have the same sort of find as Larry and Pete. There are two themes running the book, one is the tale of the vampire that is in their midst, well thats if she is really a vampire. The second is the way in which man interacts with each other, the true horror in this story being a psychotic mass murderer who touches on the lifes of Larry and his family. Whilst not one of Laymon's best books it has his trademark style which makes it engrossing and the midnight oil will burn long as you promise yourself just this one last chapter then I really will sleep!
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Summary: Fun, fun, fun, till her daddy takes the stake away....
Review: This is a true treat for Laymon fans! Larry, Jean, Pete and Barbara are four friends who go exploring through a ghost town only to literally fall upon a mummified corpse with a stake through her heart. Pete and (reluctantly) Larry cook up a money-making scheme: author Larry will write about their adventure with the corpse and finish off the story with a ceremonial de-staking. The question floating in the background throughout the novel is will this gal sit up once she's no longer staked?
I love how Laymon builds in real-life terror from human monsters in his tales. In this one, Larry becomes so obsessed with the corpse that he not only starts dreaming about her, he totally overlooks some very serious things going on with his wife and daughter. Teen daughter, Lane, finds herself fighting something far worse than a potential vampire. THE STAKE is quite a unique vampire tale. It's fun, it's suspenseful, it shows the true monsters for what they really are. This is a great book for any horror, vampire, or suspense fan. Try it, you won't regret it!
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Summary: it did keep me up
Review: This is my first exposure to Richard Laymon. The early plotting and character development seemed sophomoric and contrived. Early on, I was tempted to cease reading, but I am glad I overlooked these weaknesses because the book turned out to be a real page turner. Honestly, I did stay up into the wee morning hours to finish it. And even then, my sleep was fitfull because of my memory of some very vivid scenes. The graphic and anatomically detailed desciptions of sexual abuse (and the aftermath) are troubling, but they do seem appropriate within the context of the narrative. After all, we read such books to get a 'visceral' high. As well, it is somewhat discomforting to read about a 'happily married' family man lusting after teenage girls and incessently watching his neighbor's wife's breasts and 'rump' (it seems to be one of Laymon's favorite words). Once Laymon makes it clear that he is not going to pull any punches, the plot becomes ingrossingly unpredictable.Realizing that he was not constrained by 'good taste' or PC sentiments I was never quite sure what would happen. Yes, characters often behave in ways that make you say to yourself "no one would do that", but just the same, I wanted to know how this twisted tale would end. In short, it was graphic, thrilling and quite wicked. I recommend it highly.
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Summary: Not your typical vampire book...
Review: This was my first book by Richard Laymon, and I found this one to be very entertaining. The whole basis of the novel, whether or not Larry will pull the stake out of Bonnie is almost a second thought compared to the other underlying story with his daughter Lane, and her infatuation with her teacher, Mr. Kramer. I honestly was enthralled with both stories, though I was happy how it ended. I recommend this book to any fan of the genre, it's a new twist on an old theme, and yes, like the others who have reviewed it as well, it will make you stay up late, just to finish "one more chapter".
Rating:
Summary: A real page burner!
Review: This was my introduction to Laymon, and what an introduction! This book is wonderfully suspensful, with the freshest take on vampires since Anne Rice. It examines the question of what is a monster in a way I've never seen before, and it kept me up until 2 a.m. to find out what happened next.
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