Newest Koontz should be erased from 'Memory'

Ok, ok, here's how I see it: after Dean Koontz's mid-life crisis and its resultant Fear Nothing and Seize the Night, two books jam-packed with, like, totally radical surfer lingo, the master of suspense returned to college to learn how to write again. But, instead of taking a class on fiction writing and returning to the gripping thrillers of yesteryear, Koontz dropped writing and loaded up on literature, psychology and art history courses. The result? His new book, False Memory, which—though resembling a typical Koontz book more than his previous two—is nothing more than a ridiculous mess of pop-cultural allusions and brainwashing psychobabble.

COURTESY BANTAM DOUBLEDAY DELL

If Koontz did go back to college, then he was definitely "that guy" in section, for he fills False Memory with artsy descriptions like "The soggy morning was as luminous as a painting by Renoir," and the equally bad "He was reminded of the art of Jackson Pollock, though this was more fraught with meaning, and more appealing to the eye." His presumption is only magnified by his similar references to dozens of literary icons, even going so far as to name one of his characters Holden Caulfield.

It's extraordinarily difficult to describe False Memory without giving anything away, which testifies to the novel's intertwining characters and exceedingly sophisticated plot. Martie Rhodes (a woman—hey, after 37 books, you can't blame Koontz for running out of first names) finds herself suddenly panic-stricken at the sight of her own shadow. After similar attacks (in front of mirrors, etc.) Dr. Mark Ahrliman, a prestigious psychologist and the local bigwig therapist, diagnoses her as autophobic (Martie is afraid of herself). Meanwhile, her best friend Susan, a recovering agoraphobe (a person with a fear of open spaces), suspects that her estranged husband may be drugging and raping her while she sleeps. Martie's husband Dusty discovers the connection between the friends' respective phobias, but in typical Koontz fashion, it's a lot more complicated than he thinks.

Because of its length—at over 600 pages, the novel is the author's longest in years—False Memory struggles with the traditional Koontz formula. The book is a case of too many cooks spoiling the broth. There are over 12 major characters, some of whom aren't introduced until very late, some who don't even have names, and some whose entire lack of character development makes their role in the plot all the more difficult to understand. Most of Koontz's suspenseful passages are as sharp as ever, but, as with Seize the Night, pages and pages are dedicated to tedious, trivialities far too many times.

It isn't until around page 300 that Koontz finally explains what is actually going on (longtime readers should be able to figure it out about 100 pages earlier). But for all its bloated descriptions and unnecessary editorial comments, the first half of False Memory is rather good. For the first time in many Koontz books I reveled in flipping back through chapters and chapters, searching for a seemingly inconsequential event that suddenly appeared essential to the story. Nevertheless, the second half drags on and on, seldom revealing anything interesting and culminating in a "climax" that comes out of nowhere.

But despite all of the overwrought paragraphs and irrelevant Georgia O'Keeffe allusions, Koontz's greatest problem continues to be his dialogue, which, although less Californian, now appears to be ripped from an episode of Dawson's Creek. It is difficult to take seriously a character who spews, "You're such a feeb," in the same paragraph as "Pro-geriac, meaning `someone afflicted with progeria,' which is a `congenital abnormality characterized by premature and rapid aging, in which the sufferer, in childhood, appears to be an old person.'" Even this is outdone by one character's ceaseless use of the haiku, which proves nothing other than that Koontz must have paid attention in fifth grade.

If I were to write like Dean Koontz, I might summarize False Memory this way: "It reminded me of the art of Piero Manzoni, who shat in a can and put it on display in a museum." Granted, it's definitely an improvement over his last two books, so if you liked those (communists), then you'll probably like False Memory. As for me, I'll just have to wait another year, hoping and praying that his next book, unlike the art of Joseph Beuys, isn't a big, fat pile of lard.

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