Essay: The Many Genres of Dean Koontz

If you were to name the best selling authors of all time, who would they be? William Shakespeare would instantly come to your head, along with Stephen King, and J.K. Rowling. Well, have you ever heard of Dean Koontz? Dean Koontz has been one of the most popular authors over the past few decades, selling a dramatic amount of 400 million books. To the masses, Koontz is well-known for using suspense, horror and science fiction to manifest his imagination. Furthermore, he’s able to develop those spine-chilling ideas into stories. Contrarily, Koontz’s incorporation of [his] faith in his novels is more obscure, but plays a vital role in a multitude of them. Dean Koontz illustrates the two themes: suspense and science fiction, in his novel Odd Thomas. Furthermore, he incorporates faith and belief in others, Catholicism and the universe to develop the character “Odd”, along with the story line.
KOONTZ’S CHILDHOOD
Dean Koontz was born during the time of the year when the weather is hot and sticky. To be exact, he was born on July 9th, 1945, in Everett, Pennsylvania. He grew up an only child of an abusive and poverty stricken household in a nearby town, Bedford (“Dean Koontz Biography”). Koontz’s father was a raging alcoholic and physical-abuser. He constantly failed to relate to his son or have that special father-son bond that many other [normal] fathers share with their sons. In an interview with Beliefnet, Koontz shared more personal and traumatic experiences he had with his father: his father tried to kill him — twice. After his first attempt, doctors were coerced to put him on anti-psychotics, and the second one was in front of a lot of witnesses in a psychiatric ward. One of the psychiatrists who had to deal with his father’s outbursts shared a few things with Koontz. She told him that his father was extremely sacreligious, and he only went to Church when things were really bad. Furthermore, she diagnosed him as a paranoid schizophrenic. She continued on and said, “Somebody with this tendency to violence complicated by alcoholism and has a paranoid schizophrenic complex will frequently be the kind of person you see in the news who has killed himself and his family” (“Dean Koontz: Angels, Demons, and Our Mysterious World”). This devastated him. What damaged him even more was his father’s actions leading up to those moments: threatening to kill himself, along with Koontz and his ill mother.
With having an extremely unhealthy family-life, Koontz dedicated his time to read books and watch movies in hopes of an escape from his horrific life at home. These passions started when he was extremely young, and they influenced the rest of his life. At about eight years old, Koontz’s writing career began as he started writing and selling short stories to his relatives for just a few cents.
ON THE ROAD TO SUCCESS
Continuing his path, Koontz graduated from Shippensburg State College with a bachelor’s degree in English. After graduating college, he soon married his high school sweetheart Gerda Ann Cerra and became an English teacher at a local high school. Gerda encouraged him to further pursue his career, as he wrote a multitude of short stories when he wasn’t busy with work. As a matter of fact, she even made a deal with him: he could quit his job and work for five years towards getting a writing career, with Gerda’s support right behind him. Soon after Gerda made this deal, Koontz published his first novel, Star Quest, which fell under the sci-fi genre. Another novel, Beastchild, by Koontz was recognized with a Hugo Award nomination, setting his great literary success into flight (“Dean Koontz Biography”). More and more people began to recognize his talent, which further propelled his career. Koontz’s novel, Whispers, published in 1980 became his first paperback bestseller. Many other of his books hit No. 1 on the New York Times bestseller list.
KOONTZ’S USE OF GOOD PREVAILING EVIL, SPIRITUALITY, AND DEMONS IN HIS NOVELS
Growing up in a dysfunctional family affected Dean Koontz for the rest of his life. Although he went to Church when he was an adolescent, behind closed doors, we’ve learned that his family was far from religious. However, as a child Koontz was an optimist and was always able to find something to fill him with hope and wonder (Duran). In time, Koontz was lucky enough to meet his current-wife Gerda, who’s family introduced him to something he’d never seen before: a sense of closeness and love. Subsequently, Koontz began looking up on Catholicism. At about halfway through college, he came to the epiphany that perhaps he was destined to become Catholic. So, he did.
After Koontz’s conversion: Catholicism allowed Koontz to look at the world in a more complex way and find meaning in it. It revealed to him why he always had and always should have felt hopeful and vigorous. The trauma in Koontz’s life led him to believe that evil triumphs over good. Moreover, with those dark days behind him and [now] being enlightened by the Catholic faith, he’s realized that good always wins in the long run. For decades, Koontz’s religious vision has pervaded his work, making him the most popular Catholic novelist in the world (Doerflinger).
The use of “Free Will” in his novels. In contrast to many authors, Koontz learned throughout his writing career not to form the characters in his books. Instead, he lets characters form themselves. He gives them free will, just like how God gives us the freedom to do what we want. It is ideal to let characters evolve depending on the obstacles thrown at them. Additionally, it makes the story fascinating for both the author and the reader. With Koontz having a low-boredom threshold, he has to entertain himself at the keyboard or he’ll just end up falling asleep. Koontz discusses the benefits of giving characters free will in an interview with Beliefnet, “They will take the story into places you never imagined it would go. That’s the exciting part of writing, because the characters just fascinate you. They’re constantly a surprise” (“Dean Koontz: Angels, Demons, and Our Mysterious World”).
The overlap of genres. It is extremely hard to distinguish what genre Koontz’s works fall under. He has been acclaimed as a writer who keeps readers up at night, making them check under their beds. On the other hand, Catholic teaching may not be explicitly present in his books, but Koontz’s awareness of evil and good going hand-in-hand rest on that faith: while evil exists, the physical world is filled with the invisible presence of God; while there is sin in the world, there is a longing for grace (Doerflinger). Ultimately, he is aware that the world is not all sunshine and rainbows. He understands the power of supernatural evil in the world and the greater power of supernatural good that fights it off. In an interview with Beliefnet, Koontz gave insight on his worldview.
I believe the world is deeply mysterious and it’s full of wonder, and both wonder of a bright kind and wonder of a dark. As to specific demons and things like that, I don’t know that I go to the extent that I would identify individual demonic spirits. But, I will tell you, I have lived long enough to believe not just what Catholicism tells me, not just because it tells me there is real evil in the world, an embodied evil, but because I have seen so many things in my life that make no sense to me. I see people do evil that harms them as much as it harms somebody else, and yet they’re compelled and driven to do it for no apparent psychological reason. So, I do wonder, and I do look around and have no problem believing that there are forces at war in the world. And there are forces for good and there are forces for evil, and they go beyond the mundane. They go into something that is a spiritual realm. (“Dean Koontz: Angels, Demons, and Our Mysterious World”)
ODD THOMAS: THE THRILLER
Published in 2003, Dean Koontz’s novel Odd Thomas incessantly keeps people on their toes. It is based on — what seems to be — an ordinary guy, Odd, who lives in a Southern Californian town called Pico Mundo. To make a living, Odd is a cook at a grill in his small town. Moreover, he’s madly in love with his girlfriend and soulmate, Stormy Llewellyn.
Odd’s gift. Odd is not like most twenty-year old cooks: he can see the spirits of the dead. However, that is not the most peculiar thing about Odd. Dead people seek him out, too. Along with these dead people, Odd also sees dark entities, called “bodachs”, who are attracted to mass violence and follow evil people around as they plot destruction. Throughout the novel, Odd watches hundreds of bodachs enter a Pico Mundo from the “dark portal”. His sixth sense — which Stormy refers to as a “psychic magnetism” — allows him to solve crimes and chase murderers throughout his neighborhood. As early as the first chapter, a very young victim of sexual assault and murder, Penny Kallisto, approaches Odd and he’s immediately able to indicate her killer using his sixth sense and intuition. He says, “Evil was coming. I wondered whose face it would be wearing” (Koontz 9). Odd feels an evil presence coming, but he doesn’t know who’s involved or what event is going to unfold.
Fungus Man. After indicating Penny’s killer, the rest of the novel is based on Odd’s simultaneous use of his supernatural gift, his “psychic magnetism”, and his intuition, to track down a strange man — who he named Fungus Man. Odd quickly discovered where Fungus Man lived. Later that day, Odd broke into his house and was completely unaware of what he was going to encounter. At this moment, the reader is also skeptical and anxious to discover what Odd will find. Eventually, he uncovered the truth about the Fungus Man: he desired to be a famous mass killer, just like those on the posters he has scattered on his walls. From this point forward, Odd tries to battle against time to try to stop the Fungus Man before he commits a heinous crime. Unfortunately, Odd too late — the Fungus Man had already killed a number of people after shooting up the local mall Stormy worked at. Stormy was killed, too.