As a born avid reader, I was raised in house where Dean Koontz completed the triad of well loved authors. He was one of my mother’s favorites. Once I began reading his work, even his early work when he published under a pen name, I was hooked. Like any author, Koontz has produced a few books that weren’t necessarily to my liking. On the flipside, many of his works rank at the top of my all time favorites list.
In his book “Life Expectancy,” Dean Koontz gives one of the best reads I’ve ever had. In this story mixed with humor, sadness, love, and complete absurdity, one man’s life, shadowed by a deathbed prophecy, comes full circle in a very strange way.
On the night Jimmy Tock is born, his grandfather gives the dates of “five terrible days” in the boy’s life as well as predictions of the birth itself, predictions that are too true for Jimmy’s family to not believe in the darkness that Jimmy’s future holds. This, along with the fact that the hospital is terrorized by a psychotic clown that very night, is the beginning of Jimmy Tock’s strange story.
As Jimmy’s life continues and he experiences each of his five predicted terrible days, his own world intermingles with that of another – the psychotic clown from the night of his birth and his son, the comically named Punchanello, who was to be the greatest clown that ever lived and would never be an aerialist. With each passing day, Koontz gives us another small glimpse into the life that Jimmy Tock’s adversaries have lead, and how one night can set off a chain of events that would connect his family with Punchanello’s forever.
Koontz gives us overtones of tragedy and comedy, an overlying theme throughout the story that his main character even points out early in the book. Told from Jimmy Tock’s point of view under the guise that the book is his, the story is told with a great deal of wit and humor, as well as a few practical literary jokes played on the reader. While many readers will anticipate the twists of the book, the story is told in a way that if you guess something is coming, you’ll still question it before it gets there. Koontz even throws a few turns in that are pretty hard to see, even for the skilled reader.
Jimmy Tock is a character you can’t help but fall in love with, not because he’s the sexy leading male, but because he comes across as a teddy bear. His family, including his parents and his wife, are all written just as well, drawing you into their story with dialogue that is both realistic and animated. Even the antagonist is given a personality that makes you feel a mixture of sympathy, dislike, and kinship through the author’s pen. The story draws you along at an even pace, bringing you full circle in a most extraordinary life.
“Life Expectancy” is not only one of Koontz’s best works, but it’s one of the best books I’ve read in a long time. For anyone looking for a good read that will make them laugh, cry, get completely creeped out, and be on the edge of their seat all in one setting, I highly recommend this book.
