Hope you had a good Christmas. I’ll be celebrating (if anything I do can properly be described by that word) with my family here on Saturday.
So how did I spend the holiday? Mostly shoveling snow, as best I recall. We got another couple inches on Christmas Eve night, and my renter and I cleared that out. Christmas Day snow was predicted to be light, but Mother Nature was in a giving mood, so we got a couple more inches on Christmas Day and overnight. My renter being at work today, I shoveled all that by myself. My neighbor, who generally does our shared driveway with his snowblower, continued his tradition of perfect timing by being out of town. (Traditions mean so much at Christmas, after all.)
But I found time to stretch out on the couch with a book too. (Actually I had little choice after all that snow shoveling.) I read Dean Koontz’ The Husband. Good book. I won’t make this reading report an actual review. I think most of you know (and I’m figuring out by now) what to expect of a Dean Koontz book. He appears to be improving as a writer with the years, from what I can tell, but I wouldn’t rate him as a great novelist. But I’ve discovered that he’s an author I can go to and pretty much count on for a good experience—even a moving experience. The Husband is about a man who’s a husband in two senses. He’s married to a woman he loves, and he also runs a lawn service (which makes him a “husbandman” in the traditional English parlance). He lives a conventional middle class life and is happy in it. So it makes no sense when he gets a call telling him the caller has kidnapped his wife, and wants two million dollars in ransom.
Great story. Not (I think) a typical Dean Koontz thriller in that the supernatural element is almost entirely absent. But the tension never lets up, and the morality is excellent. There’s also some insightful social commentary. Enjoyed it very much.
So what would be a good one to start with, by this author, if one wants a neat suspense story that doesn’t wallow in a lot of carnage-‘n’-carnality? Something one might read to the wife when we decide we’re ready to take a break from Arthur Conan Doyle.
I think The Husband would be a very good choice. Newly out in paperback.
A bad choice (in my opinion) would be ‘One door away from heaven.’ This is a strange hodge podge of a novel. (I’ve just finished.) It contains some of the best writing I’ve seen from Koontz; but also some of the worst. In the end it didn’t work for me. It features a young girl (I adored) who must have had the worst parents on earth. I thought the e.t. character was a Big mistake. The first half of the novel was brilliant; and very funny in parts; very eerie in parts. The last chapter was incredibly hokey. In the end I thought Koontz ruined his own novel; one that could have been great. (I got the impression he couldn’t bring himself to write a final chapter he had planned.)
– I agree with Koontz on his views of Peter Singer. (Reading the book I felt like – for the first time maybe – that there is a legitimate place for the genre of horror; as I agree with him that the ideas of Singer are (in implication) horrific.
– I think Koontz made a mistake in making his views so obvious. I’ve always been taught that this is a mistake. i.e. a novel is NOT an editorial.
– I admire K. for his effort in this novel; but think the result was badly flawed.
Dumping everything in your lap, I think, appears to be one of Koontz’ problems as an author. He tells instead of shows. He doesn’t trust the reader to infer his message.
On the other hand, he’s a bestseller and I’m a former novelist. Maybe I should try to emulate him.
Thanks, Lars! What about The Taking, which I just picked up (literally – – a discard)?