On Family Guy, Brian drove the family car over Dean Koontz. …Discovering he wasn’t Stephen King he drove back over and over again on his way to another laugh. Sometimes I see neither the humor nor the irony of a Family Guy bit; this is one time.
Been reading Dean Koontz since the mid ‘80s ..enough to be caught up and awaiting a new yarn (Frankenstein is out in stylized paperback ..but d’ya see what they want for a freakin’ paperback lately?).
Cut my teeth on earlier Koontz in the varied-winds-beside-concrete-pond, Apollo Park, Lancaster, CA. Maya has read about a bakers’ dozen or so from our collection of soft and hardcovers. Ladies dig Koontz too.
Most every story Dean Koontz has written has something worthwhile, as he blends the genres with equal fascination & pulsation, but I especially like the continuing saga of Odd Thomas. Although stories about life & death lay a far heavier ebb on my flow anymore.
While it’s true the story of Odd Thomas suspends reality to the nth degree, there’s more than enough realism painted onto this fine gesso (lapping at your shored up reassurances) to keep the mind from floating off into cryptic surreal imagery without an anchor. And the bougainvillea decorated settings from Pico Mundo to the High Sierras to Magic Beach pull me into the dreamscape without a struggle. Koontz has something akin to Vonnegut’s flair for brutal honesty and comedy, but prettier, warmer beats and smoother rhythms…like an excellent roller coaster or the feel of a longshore drift gradually moving you down coast from your towel and beach umbrella. …Buoying out, …stroking back against the tide. And Boo, the dog, …well, nobody -- not since Jack London -- writes in and around a dog’s perspective like Dean Koontz.
My main point of this post is to suggest you pluck the 4th installment in the Odd Thomas series, Odd Hours, off the shelf and read just the first chapter. …See if it compels you to continue. The narrative is in first person (personal journal) style, but the prose is evolved, poetic, ..enough so that the imagery swims in full Technicolor view before your eyes. If not the first time, then you may have read it too quickly, only half-intently, didn’t …uh.. lend yourself to the moment; …try again…ey.
…time to hit the road.
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