‘Memory’ Will Captivate You, Even Cause You To Lose Sleep

“False Memory” by Dean Koontz (Bantam, 640 pages, $26.95)

Dean Koontz makes me yawn.

Oh, not while I’m reading, I assure you. But the next morning, when I’ve read way past my bedtime, into the wee hours, because I’m too captivated by his story (and too scared to turn out the light), I sit at my desk and yawn.

A person can only take so much tension and still sleep.

Koontz not only creates a terrifying situation, but always knows so much about his subject, it’s like reading a well-written encyclopedia on it.

In this case, he tackles brainwashing and the power of hypnosis. He doesn’t need any slimy extraterrestrials or Third World villains to accomplish his goal - just one crazy psychiatrist with a bent for sadism.

In this story, Martie Rhodes is struggling with her best friend’s serious case of agoraphobia (fear of being in open or public places), when she begins to experience some irrational fears herself - a rare autophobia (fear of oneself). She develops a terror of her own shadow, her mirror image, and anything she sees as a possible weapon with which she can hurt anyone else. She even pictures herself digging her car key into her husband’s eye.

In one passage, Martie frantically packs up all the knives and sharp objects in her kitchen and tapes the box shut.

“Although the butcher knife - all the knives - remained in the box, she could feel the weight of that weapon as if she were holding it now in her right hand: thumb pressed flat against the cold blade, fingers clenched around the wooden handle, forefinger jammed against the guard, little finger tight against the neb. This was the grip she might use if she were to strike with the knife from a low angle, swing it up, hard and fast, and drive it deep, to disembowel some unsuspecting victim.”

These aren’t the thoughts of a normal newlywed.

Meanwhile, her husband, Dustin, is trying to save the life of his drug-abusing younger brother, who is trying to commit suicide by leaping from a roof.

At first, the couple see their traumas as separate, but eventually come to realize they are part of a larger problem. Dustin is the first to suspect that Dr. Josh Ahriman, the very psychiatrist who is trying to “help” them all, may be the culprit behind their horrifying experiences.

The story spans just a few days of time, but seems as intensely interminable to the reader as it must to the characters (if they were real).

There are a few gruesome deaths in this tale, but somehow Koontz manages to make the psychological damage much more fearsome than the physical.

“False Memory” goes beyond the story of Martie and Dusty and explores the ramifications of brainwashing. Dusty, for example, begins reading a copy of John Lahr’s “The Manchurian Candidate,” a novel about brainwashing, and discovers that the evil Dr. Ahriman has borrowed liberally from its characters.

Somehow, Koontz makes it believable that Martie, who designs computer games, and Dustin, who owns a house-painting business, can best the genius doctor. Their humanity and common sense overpower the best-laid plans of evil.

Finally, Koontz releases the reader from his taut grip and lets his fans rejoice that once again good has triumphed. Trust me, it doesn’t mar the reading experience to know that (almost) all’s well at the end.

Maybe you’ll get more sleep than I did!