Dean Koontz isn’t sure where the idea for his new novel, “The Other Emily,” came from.
“You don’t look for ideas. Sometimes something pops into your head. Sometimes you know where it comes from. Others, you don’t know. I’m just glad they keep coming,” the bestselling author said in a conversation from his southern California home.
“For this book, a story came into my head about a man who lost the love of his life, victim of a serial killer. But there she was, sitting on a bar stool and she hasn’t aged. That was the premise and my mind went from there, leading to a spooky love story with some sci-fi, although I don’t say too much about that because I don’t want to give anything away.”
The man who lost his love is writer David Thorne, still grief-stricken and guilty because he wasn’t with his beloved Emily when her car died on a lonely road in the rain and she was abducted by serial killer Ronny Lee Jessup. Ten years later, he sees Emily in a club. But she still looks 25, her age when she died. This woman says her name is Maddison, but she is so like Emily that David can’t believe it. Is she Emily’s doppelganger or the real Emily, whose body was never found?
David visits Jessup in prison every so often, trying to get the monster to admit he killed Emily and tell where she is buried. But Jessup, wanting David to return, never admits to anything except hiding the corpses of 14 victims he will reanimate someday.
One of Koontz’s friends, a nonfiction writer, told him that Jessup was the creepiest character Koontz had ever invented.
“I took that as a compliment,” Koontz says with a laugh. “It was fun when Ronny came onto the page. Here’s a guy with a next-door-neighbor quality that made him even creepier.”
A cover story about Koontz in the March issue of The Big Thrill magazine said of his new novel: “The appeal … needs no explanation: It’s a love story wrapped inside a thriller, with elements of cutting edge science fiction and enough suspense to keep readers turning pages well into the night.”
A starred review in Booklist said “… a downright frightening book … (he is) one of popular literature’s superheroes.”
At 75, Koontz, has published more than 100 books of suspense, horror, science fiction, romance and fantasy, sometimes with several elements all in one book. That describes “The Other Emily,” his 79th book in print. He says some of his work is out of print because “I didn’t now what I was doing in the early days.”
Koontz began his string of 14 New York Times bestsellers in 1980 with “Whispers.” Other chart-toppers include “One Door Away from Heaven,” “Dragon Tears,” “Sole Survivor,” and “Odd Hours.” His books have been translated into 38 languages and have sold over half a million copies. Sixteen of his novels were made into films, including four in the Watchers series.
Raised in Everett, Pa., with an abusive, alcoholic father, Koontz graduated from Shippenburg State College (now Shippenburg University), and worked as a teacher with the Appalachian Poverty Program and as an English teacher at a suburban school district.
In 1966 Koontz and his wife, Gerda, were married. Three years later, Gerda promised to support him for five years as he attempted to become a full-time writer. He didn’t disappoint her.
“Now my wife takes care of the business end. Our offices are side by side,” Koontz says. “If I have to write a check I am not a happy man. All I can do is write stories.”
The couple moved last year from a gated community into a smaller house in southern California, with half an acre for their much-loved Golden Retriever Elsa to roam. It was not an easy move.
“We had to move 20,000 books,” Koontz recalled. “That doesn’t count 8,000 editions of my work. When things aren’t going well, I walk into that room, look around and tell myself ‘I’ve done this before and I can do it again.’ ”
After writing so many books, Koontz is proud of how he’s kept his writing fresh.
“I read a great deal in all kinds of genres and I continue to write, write, write to learn to do better,” he says.
“When I started my career, agents would tell me not to do anything new because readers wanted to know what they were getting. I am a restless reader in all genres and I mashed them up in my books. I got negative feedback in those early days but I liked what happens in my books — sometimes humor, sometimes a love story, sometimes suspense. Because I do that, I have new ideas I wouldn’t have had.”
Koontz follows a strict writing routine, getting up a 5 a.m. to walk and feed the dog, then writing straight through for 8 to 10 hours.
“I like long writing sessions so I can keep the mood of the story and the characters,” he says. “If I break it up I’m afraid I would not hold onto it. If it’s working, the characters become very real to you. Character, in the end, is the center of all good fiction. They have to shine or the story doesn’t work.”
He never does an outline so he doesn’t always know where the story is going.
“I start with a premise and I might know a little bit, certain scenes, then a character sticks up the story and we go with it,” he says. “In the new book I didn’t know how I was going to explain Emily. By page 50 or 60 I was getting a little terrified that I wasn’t going to come up with explanation. I was walking a tightrope. I was very happy when, suddenly, I knew where this is going.”
In conversation
Koontz and author James Lee Burke should have a great conversation to launch Wordplay, because Burke’s 40th book, “A Private Cathedral” (Simon & Schuster, $28), also mingles crime, horror, mythology, science fiction and romance.
Burke’s popular Louisiana-based Detective Dave Robicheaux takes on a time-traveling, superhuman assassin who travels on a ghost ship and can conjure horrifying hallucinations. In a starred review, Publishers Weekly said: “An imaginative blend of crime and other genres, Burke’s existential drama is both exquisitely executed and profoundly moving.”
About Wordplay
- What: Dean Koontz and James Lee Burke virtually launch the Loft’s third annual Wordplay book festival in a historic conversation that brings the popular writers together for the first time.
- When: 7 p.m. Sunday, May 2, streamed on Crowdcast, YouTube and Facebook Live.
- Information: Wordplay is an all-virtual event for 2021 from May 2-8. For tickets and the schedule, go to: loftwordplay.org
Poetry at Wordplay
Minnesota author and teacher Bill Meissner will write free, personalized poems on demand May 6 as part of Wordplay.
Meissner is the author of five books of poetry, most recently “The Mapmaker’s Dream” and three books of fiction, including “Spirits in the Grass,” which won the Midwest Book Award. For Wordplay he will spontaneously write a short, free verse, upbeat poem for anyone who requests one, and it will be sent to you via email. To request a poem, email Meissner between 1 and 3 p.m. May 6 at wjmeissner@stcloudstate.edu.
