Book review: Dean Koontz stretches out into new territory with ‘The Friend of the Family’

What you first notice about a Dean Koontz book is his name.

Big and bold and at the top of the cover, the publishers signal that it’s not what the book is about, but who wrote it, is what’s important.

A few novelists have such lead billing draws. And Koontz deserves it, closing in on 500 million in book sales spanning decades. He’s in everyone’s top 20 of the best-selling authors.

But “The Friend of the Family” is not just another Dean Koontz book. The master of the thriller, often with sidetracks into fantasy and science fiction, has gone into the realms of historical fiction, in a way that is uniquely Koontz. The author takes the reader through what seems to be a simple story of self-awareness and redemption into sometimes magical milieu.

Alida is a slave, a victim of a terrible master, Captain Farnum, who exhibits her in circus- and vaudeville-type shows in speakeasies of the Prohibition era. Only a teenager, Alida has a beautiful face, flowing hair, and a deformed body, which Farnum shows onstage with her in only the bottoms of a two-piece swimsuit. She appears to the gasps and gapes of the country curious and uppercuts urbanites, becoming the punchline to vicious comics. Everyone is laughing at Alida’s expense, “a bargain-basement star in the bootlegging bottom of the culture.”

But Alida is more than a “human curiosity.” She’s a brilliant woman who taught herself how to read at age 4 and loses herself in literature to escape the pain of her existence. She also dreams vividly of another life, usually haunted by Farnum’s cruelty.

As she is being exhibited in the Blue Moon speakeasy near Hollywood, Alida imagines another unfortunate “freak show” victim, John Merrick, the Elephant Man, who was rescued by a doctor and given the opportunity to have a somewhat normal life.

Right on cue, Franklin and Loretta, a couple who had made a fortune in motion pictures, show up backstage and challenge Farnum, whisking Alida away from her captor and into the world of Hollywood high society. She is adopted into their family, like a sister to their own children.

Along the way, we learn some amazing traits about Alida: that she has a photographic memory, allowing her to memorize every book she’s ever read, and that she may have a miraculous power to heal the sick.

Koontz, with his snappy, sometimes rapid-fire writing style, whisks us through the story with some unexpected twists and turns reminiscent of his earlier thrillers. He keeps you guessing about whether the Captain will return to snatch her back into that horrible life of a carnival curiosity, or whether she will get used to the high life only to be abandoned.

“The Friend of the Family” shows us the power of self-awareness, cultural cruelty and the kindness of strangers.

If you think this novel will be more of the same from Dean Koontz, you will be pleasantly surprised.

This story is more than Koontz’s famous name.