Dean Koontz, Life Expectancy
Although this is not my first Dean Koontz’s novel (I have read the very good Watchers and Lightning, and a couple of less memorable novels like The Door to December), this is my first review of one…
I have been drawn to Life Expectancy because of its very intriguing premises: on the night the hero, Jimmy Tock, is born, his grandfather, who has been struck down by a stroke, rises in his hospital bed just before dying and makes 10 predictions about his unborn grandson. He predicts his name, his birth weight and size, the precise time of his birth and the fact that he will be born with fused toes. Next, he insists that Rudy, who is his son and the expectant father, takes down notes, as he announces five fateful dates, that will mark terrible days in the life of Jimmy. These dates will occur when he is 20, 23, 28, 29 and 30. They are, as the reader will find out, interconnected, and connected also to the strange events occurring on the night of Jimmy’s birth.
I wasn’t expecting such a weird story when I began the book (let’s say it involves very bad circus people!), and it took me while to get used to it. I have several negative comments to make about the book. First of all, I found that some supposedly suspenseful passages were dragging on, becoming quite boring (I am thinking mostly about the first of the five terrible days, and to a certain extent the second one also…) In fact, the pace really picks up in the last third of the book. Koontz does not have the genius of Stephen King, who manages to make uneventful passages creepy. In fact he has in places achieved just the opposite here… Also, by insisting all the time about the goodness and selflessness, almost flawlessness of his characters, how “perfect” they are as a family (and as they view themselves as such!), Koontz, through his first-person narrator, manages to become annoyingly preachy. He has a wisdom to impart about almost everything (not what you expect from a suspense/horror novel!). Then, the humor is quite heavy-handed at times, and the banter in times of deep trouble not very realistic. Last but not least, a couple of “tricks” to mislead the reader are very amateurish, although Koontz could defend himself by saying that they are imputable to his narrator’s inexperience as a writer, though this would be a very weak defense of course…
Despite its numerous flaws, I mostly enjoyed the story, and continue to find that the initial idea is very original, even though its development could have been way better…
Rating: 3,5/5
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