Odd Thomas, (Conclusion)

This story has, from the nature of the premise and the development of the plot, hinted at an “explosive” ending from the start, though the actual explosives came as a major surprise.  There is a fine balance struck here between overselling and underselling the climax.  More often, an author will spend way too much ink on a great ending and dilute its effectiveness.  Occasionally, an author will bring about a fast, hard-hitting ending and then either drop us cold on the last page, or try to end more gracefully with a drawn out, uninteresting aftermath.  To my mind, “Odd Thomas” ends perfectly, with just the right tension and economy of detail in the violent, bloody climax, and a soul-shattering aftermath to top it off.  Beautiful craftsmanship. 

Odd’s confrontation with his past is weaved into the storyline in an interesting way.  His amateur detective work involves exploring his own twisted psychology as influenced by his childhood traumas more than following up on conventional clues.  The fact that he feels compelled to visit his estranged father and then his psychotic mother, with time running out, creates a special kind of tension that becomes almost unbearable.  The description of his return to Robertson’s corpse is Horror at its finest – lest we forget that this book can be found in the Horror section at the bookstore!  We tend to think of horror story books and movies as being rather one-dimensional, the way most of us normally think of romance novels.  Indeed, Mr. Koontz has gone on record as saying he has never been quite pleased with the results of filming his stories until now. 

During our hero’s visit with his mother, we get a hint at what may contribute to the origin of Odd’s oddity.  Their argument brings out her mental instability with a vengeance and she reminds him that she spent her entire pregnancy carrying him wishing he wouldn’t live:  “I dreamed and dreamed that you would be born dead.” … “Dead inside me,” she repeated.  “Month after unending month I felt your rotting fetus festering in my belly, spreading poison through my body.” … “Do you hear me? … You poisoned me, you filled me with pus and dead baby rot…”  Yes, this writing is over the top; but the point is driven home that we’re dealing with a seriously disturbed woman here.  Could her attitude towards baby Odd in the womb have contributed to or even triggered his ability to see dead people?  Koontz leaves it to us to ponder the point. 

In the climactic sequence, Odd’s “psychic magnetism” – the homing device that leads him to a specific person – practically takes charge of him as he gives it free reign to carry him through the coming crisis.  This Psychic Magnetism Syndrome (or PMS, as Odd and Stormy have jokingly referred to it) helps him make all the right decisions and be in all the right places at the right time to avoid massive loss of life at the site of the incident.  Even when he thinks he has completed his mission, it drives him on to perhaps the most important factor of all.  The reader has been thoroughly prepared for this, so we don’t get the feeling that it was all too easy.  We cheer him on as he goes!

 

Earlier in the story, we noticed the interesting plot twist of his mistaking a dead person that only he can see for a still-living person.  The fact that this device is used again at the end in such a heart-wrenching fashion is superb storytelling.  Will the movie, when it comes out, be altered at the end to prevent such a crushing emotional trauma?  I hope not.  No, I predict a lot of very wet eyes streaming out of the theaters after the show when this hits the circuit in a couple of weeks - including mine.  I can hardly wait!

[After writing the above, I have learned that the release of the movie has been delayed until next September, at the earliest, apparently due to legal wrangling over alleged contractual violations concerning the promotion of the film.  Sigh.]





May's book is "C" is for Corpse, by Sue Grafton. If you're not familiar with this series, you're in for a treat! It's okay if you haven't read the first two; these books are very independent of one another. So join us in May for a fun read!

Odd Thomas, (Chapters 28-47)

I could be wrong, but I don’t think there is a substantial genre of novels written about those who see dead people.  This book may well be the most famous one.  After the movie comes out, maybe there will be a flood of them, like the flood of vampire books and movies we’ve been subjected to since the Twilight series became a hit, or the zombie craze that has spun off from that.  Part of me kind of hopes not… 

With this book, Mr. Koontz has already staked claim on some of the more interesting twists that might arise if the genre were to escalate.  There have been mystery stories, on and off the screen, where someone got a glimpse of a person they had thought was dead, thinking they’re seeing a ghost or a walking corpse, perhaps someone under the protection of the Federal Witness Protection program.  But Odd Thomas, in an intriguing reversal of this concept, sees a dead person whom he mistakenly takes for a living person…nice irony!  Only later in the story does Odd (and the reader) discover that Mr. Robertson has been dead most of the day, and has been stalking Odd in anger as a dead person, blaming Odd’s meddlesomeness for the death.  In an overworked genre, such as the murder mystery, a twist like this would have been seen through by aficionados of the field – but I would bet my left butt cheek (to borrow a phrase from one of the scenes in this book!) that no one, not even the most dedicated Koontz follower predicted this twist on the first read-through. 

The action picks up speed to quite a pace in this section of the book.  The chapters are rather short, but each one seems to contain a complete and important scene in the plot sequence.  The encounter with the coyotes and the ghost of the prostitute at the Church of the Whispering Comet Topless Bar, Adult Bookstore, and Burger Heaven does come perilously close to chargeable with being “filler,” just to make the book a little longer.  It seems like a lot of plot baggage just to show Odd disposing of the corpse planted in his apartment.  And yet…Koontz’ ability to charm us and keep things interesting on the strength of his prose makes it all right.  The viciousness of the hungry coyotes is almost palpable – they become characters in their own right. 

Speaking of secondary characters…  Another of this author’s impressive abilities is that of making the supporting roles come off the page as vividly as the stars.  Even the flirtatious nurse at the hospital manages to become real in her short dialog with Odd.  Through her, we also get a more complete picture of how his peer group sees him in this small town environment.  She strongly implies that “all the girls,” as well as herself, will be very interested to know that he is now engaged to be married to Stormy.  This tells us more about him than he seems to realize himself.

 

Other secondary characters shine as well.  We are treated to Mr. K’s well-honed ability to write dialog for children.  Nicolina and Levanna Peabody, 5 and 6 years old respectively, give us a discourse on what kind of women wear pink or “kiss men for money.”  Also, the various members of the police force that we come into brief contact with all seem to have their own personalities – rare for fictional police officers!  The only secondary character we’re missing here is the dog-in-a-key-role, something that this author is very well known for.  For that, I recommend his “Fear Nothing” featuring the black Lab, Orson.




May's book is "C" is for Corpse, by Sue Grafton.  If you're not familiar with this series, you're in for a treat!  It's okay if you haven't read the first two; these books are very independent of one another.  So join us in May for a fun read!

Odd Thomas, (Chapters 14-27)

There are many reasons why reading a Dean Koontz book is enjoyable.  The most obvious is the “horror story” factor, for which writers like Koontz, Stephen King and others are unfairly characterized as one-dimensional.  Koontz actually uses the horror factor rather sparingly - most of the “monsters” in his works are of the human type.  Sometimes he is content to simply creep you out; and he does this very well.  The effect can be as abrupt and as chilling as waking up from a particularly creepy dream.  Odd’s realization that Bob Robertson – Fungus Man – is not only on to him, but actively stalking him, comes as much of a shock to us as it does to him.  To look out a window and see the antagonist standing out at the street staring in your direction is tinglingly creepy. 

It occurs to me that one of the reasons I would have liked a young John Cusack in the role of Odd Thomas is that his humorous line delivery often has a very effective deadpan quality, delivered without an apparent attempt to be funny.  The lines in the book would frequently best be given without cracking a smile, spoken in apparent earnestness. This could be reading too much into the character, but I would bet that Koontz would agree.  I’m hoping Yelchin’s performance in the movie reflects this style, but I won’t be more than a little disappointed or surprised if it doesn’t. 

We finally get to know Stormy, the love of Odd Thomas’ life in this section of the book, and she’s everything he says she is.  The casual conversations between the two are superb examples of what I believe to be this author’s greatest strength as a writer.  'As I turned left into the street, she said, “Let’s stop by my place first, so I can get my pistol.”  “That’s a home-defense gun.  You’re not licensed to carry.”  “I’m not licensed to breath, either, but I do it anyway.”  “No gun,” I insisted.  “We’ll just cruise and see what happens.”  “Why’re you afraid of guns?”  “They go bang.”  “And why is that a question you always avoid answering?”  “I don’t always avoid answering it.”  “Why are you afraid of guns?” she persisted.  “I was probably shot to death in a past life.”  “You don’t believe in reincarnation.”  “I don’t believe in taxes, either, but I pay them.”  “Why are you afraid of guns?”  … I can be stupid.  As soon as I spoke, I regretted my words: “Why’re you afraid of sex?”' 

Any male who’s been in a relationship can tell you what her reaction was.  But, with real depth of character – and character development – Stormy eventually apologizes: ‘”I’m sorry, Oddie.  That was my fault.”  “It wasn’t your fault.  I’m an idiot.”  “I pushed you into a corner about why you’re afraid of guns, and when I kept pushing, you pushed back.”  And now any male who’s been in a relationship can see why Odd is so much in love with this lady.

 

There are strategically placed hints throughout the text that this sequence of events is not going to end well.  The narrator, Odd, has made it clear that he was prodded into telling this story and that is it a painful experience for him.  ‘Having somewhat calmed her nerves and partly settled her fears, I felt quite manly ... I was the worst kind of fool.  When I look back on that August night, changed forever by all my wounds and all my suffering, that undamaged Odd Thomas seems like a different human being from me, immeasurably more confident than I am now, still able to hope, but not as wise, and I mourn for him.’  Wow; call me crazy, impressionable, anything you like, but I’ll stack this man’s depth of prose against any writer who ever lived.




Next week's chapters: 28-47.

Odd Thomas, (Chapters 1-13)

Of the 70-80 novels that Dean Koontz has written (under that name, anyway), “Odd Thomas” may well be the most popular.  The fact that he has continued with several sequels into a series attests to that.  From the beginning, we can see why.  Writing in first person, the 20-year-old Odd is an engaging, self-effacing, highly relatable young man with whom the reader feels a real connection.  This is definitely Koontz at his witty best.  And when you add the premise that this young man sees dead people, you have a recipe that can’t lose.

Almost immediately – in the first two chapters – we find him avenging a little girl’s death by chasing down the killer…who has been identified by the dead girl herself, in the form of a silent manifestation of her previously living self.  In the process of running down the villain, Odd treats us to an almost constant stream of witticisms, such as when he chases the suspect into a woman’s house and kitchen: “Past her, on a far counter, smoke poured from a toaster.  Some kind of pop-up pastry had failed to pop.  It smelled like strawberries and smoldering rubber.  The lady was having a bad morning.” 

As our hero’s character is further developed, we see several more endearing traits such as the fact that he takes great pride in being a superb short order grill cook, comforts a senile old neighbor in her irrational fears, and relates winningly with his co-workers.  Koontz’s writing – always a treat – is often as poetic and deep as it is witty.  In describing the child-killer:  “Here was a diseased and twisted bramble of a soul, thorny and cankerous, which perhaps until recently had been imprisoned in a deep turning of Harlo’s mental labyrinth.”  Practically every page has a remarkably phrased observation worthy of stopping for reflection.  This is a feature of almost any of his books, but he has really hit his stride in this respect with this work. 

Odd’s ability to see dead people has accompanying quirks as well, such as his ability to see the entities that he calls “bodachs.”  With the movie coming out soon, it will be interesting to see how these are depicted.  They are described in pretty good detail here, so one can only hope that the movie producers don’t drop the ball on this.  Speaking of which, Willem Dafoe as the Police Chief, Wyatt Porter is a good call.  Stormy Llewellyn is described in the book as having a “…Mediterranean complexion, jet-black hair, and mysterious dark eyes…she looked like a sultry espionage agent…”  Addison Timlin? I’ll believe it when I see it!  Anton Yelchin as Odd?  I think he can make it work.  My pick, if he were still young enough looking for the role, would have been John Cusack.  Yelchin will probably have to play it differently than Cusack would have, but I’m optimistic. 

The mysterious dark room:  I remember reading a critique somewhere that this passage is never followed up on, that the book never gets around to explaining the significance of this “portal to nowhere” that Odd encounters in the house of “Fungus Man.”  The implication seems to be that Koontz wrote it in, intending to later weave it into the story somehow, but forgot to do so!  Well, maybe.  I have noticed instances in other books of his of strange passages that made me feel that I was missing something.  I have always assumed it was just me.  That this mysterious multi-dimensional room is the point of origin for a host of bodachs to enter our universe may be its only function.  If so, one might wonder if it was necessary to the story.  Personally, I don’t think it detracts as much as it adds, so I’m willing to let it stand as is, in this otherwise stunning work!

Next week's chapters: 14-27.