"Strangers" by Dean Koontz

"Courage, love, friendship, compassion, and empathy lift us above the simple beasts and define humanity.

—THE BOOK OF COUNTED SORROWS"

Wow, this was gripping or what!

First let me state here that I have never read anything by Dean Koontz previously and was just vaguely familiar with his name, but as he kept popping out in recommendations it was inevitable that sooner or later I will decide to check him out. Apparently he had already published tons of novels before "Strangers" definitely put him on a map in 1986 and ever since he was compared to Stephen King, which is why I got curious - luckily, these are two completely different authors and although I understand comparisons, Koontz seems much more psychological, while King has his own nightmare going on. The strangest thing is, initially I had really hard time going into this novel - for some reason it took me a whole month just to get trough first hundred pages and I seriously considered just dropping the whole thing off, until one day everything clicked and the novel suddenly pulled me in with such force that I couldn't put it down, I gulped the rest 600 pages in four days. 

Perhaps what bothered me in the beginning was the way Koontz slowly set the stage - in hindsight it looks completely logical but as he kept introducing completely unrelated characters who all live far away from each other and have no obvious connection, it tested my patience. This group of people all suffer from mysterious nightmares that seriously affects their lives and it just kept on and on - until suddenly reader start to connect the dots and everything makes sense. It came to the point that I talked to friends and read at the same time, completely engaged and lost in the story. Like some sweeping saga, it eventually just got bigger and bigger - King did something similar with "The Stand" but I enjoyed this one much more, even though it felt as it will never end, because Koontz is gifted with psychological perception and his characters behave like real people. Every now and than, there was some unexpected, stunning moment like this one:"That night in Chinatown, hope swept back into his world like a summer breeze stirring music from a cluster of wind chimes." Now, that was very poetic and it instantly reminded me on Sappho who thousands of years ago wrote "“Love shook my heart, like the wind on the mountain, rushing over the oak trees.” - I know I'm stretching it a bit here, but her lyrics just wouldn't get out of my head.

Contrary to what I expected, "Strangers" is not a horror but a very exciting suspense novel - fairly long and occasionally very detailed, but once you read it, it seems like it couldn't have been done any differently. I am so thrilled right now with my newest discovery that I am seriously considering continuing with Koontz who until now was complete mystery to me.