Addison Goodheart. Born in the woods to a crazy woman who
pushed him out for days on end, finally for good at 8 years old to fend for
himself. Then she blew her brains out.
Addison learned to survive in the woods and in the city. He
snuck into NYC under the tarp of a flatbed. Not long after, someone of the same
ilk (“Father”) takes him in to live under the city, coming out only after dark
for food and clothing; Father had a key to a thrift store where they took only
what they needed.
Father and Addison are both unique. People who see their
face and hands become terrified and strike out in an attempt to kill them. Each is, in Addison’s words, “A monstrosity. A miscreation, freak, abomination.”
But Addison learns from Father the ways of the city and of the people who hate
and fear them. He is also very well read because they know the unlocked
doors of the city’s heart, its libraries, its museums.
Father died at the hands of the people they avoid when
Addison was 18. For 8 years, he lives entirely alone in the home Father had
welcomed him. On one sojourn into a museum, he hears footsteps. No, he hears
two sets, one in pursuit of the other. A man is chasing a teenage girl, but her
skills at hiding exceed the man’s skills at seeking, but not Addison’s.
The two, Addison and Gwyneth, form an alliance of sorts. She
has a social phobia. Don’t ever touch her. He is a monster. Don’t ever look at
him. She is from privilege. He is from the backwoods and the underground. Her dead father left her 8 apartments in town, a deep trust fund, and a loyal caretaker to look after her.
The man chasing Gwyneth is his own kind of monster. He had
had business dealings, art sales, with her dad, but Gwyneth's uniqueness even as an
11 year old and his own failings drove him to want to place his own personal
sculpture in a place only the most depraved would approve. For this purpose and
obsession, he had searched for Gwyneth for 7 years.
A vicious winter storm brings maybe 5 or 6 subplots together
for this reprobate's ultimate confrontation with Gwyneth and Addison.
But there are still
over 50 pages left. It can’t take that much to tie up any loose ends. But it is
in these final scenes that Koontz reveals the true nature of the heart and spirit that has drawn Gwyneth and
Addison together and just what their particular gifts really are meant to be.
OK, Koontz is huge. He has 65 previous novels, so he's obviously got this writing thing down. I used to think of him (without any firsthand information) as one of those writers whose work is most often found in the magazine/book section of a supermarket. And being the snob that I am, I avoided looking any further. I was drawn to this book by his Kindle single ‘Wilderness’
that I commented on last month.
During the wait for my reservation to come to the top of the wait list at the library, I
tried a Koontz book from his Odd Thomas series – a book I gave up on so I was a little wary.
But not
this one. One I became accustomed to the rhythm of his presentation and how he flipped back
and forth between the present and the backstory of both Addison and Gwyneth,
the pages pretty much turned themselves. I’ll admit it, Koontz has a literary
vocabulary that exceeds mine by well over 500%; some of his descriptive prose
used words I had never encountered and could’ve used a dictionary in some places.
But no matter, I got the idea. Based on the way the story unfolded, I’d be very
curious if and how he’d carry the story and characters into another book, but
that may also be Koontz's gift to us, and I’ll keep an eye out for part 2 sometime late 2014, if
there is to be one. I hope so. I came to kind of like these two oddballs.
ECD
