books

Book review – The City

BY EMMANUEL SURENDRA
September 10, 2014

‘The City’ by Dean Koontz is published by Bantam and available at any major bookstore. – The Malaysian Insider pic, September 10, 2014. Dean Koontz reminds us that sometimes indulging in antiheroes is a good break from all those brave men and women in leotards and masks.

“The City” is about Jonah Kirk, a 57-year-old black American music prodigy. It is his coming of age story, where he recounts the mysterious events that began when he was nine. Jonah came from a dysfunctional family: his father, Tilton Kirk, was a failed chef who abandoned them for another woman, an upcoming novelist.

His mother, Sylvia Bledsoe, had her dreams cut short due to being pregnant with Jonah at an early age, which resigned her to singing at pubs for a living. And there was his grandfather, Teddy, a veteran jazz pianist who inspired him to take up music and to be a better man, better than his father.

Jonah leads the simple life until one day he runs into Ms Pearl, a woman who claims to be the city made flesh. That encounter endows him with the gift to see the future through dreams, which puts his life in danger and leads him to people who change his life for either the better or worse.

The plot is typical Koontz. Jonah is somewhat similar to, say, Odd Thomas. Both are supernaturally gifted through unusual circumstances. But nothing dramatic. Both pay the price for their gifts and go through a solitary journey where only a few people are privy to their abilities. And both go through a life-changing loss. But at the end of the day, they are your average Joes.

“The City” is set in 1960s New York. Koontz provides readers with all the insight needed to appreciate the themes of political instability, racism and the supernatural. There are references to fashion, art and music; more so music as Jonah is an aspiring musician.

But the genius here is Koontz's understanding of ethnicity and the supernatural. Instead of taking the easy route of writing about a white American family, Koontz focuses on minorities. Jonah and his family are black, middle-class and educated. Then somewhere along the line, there is Mr Yoshioka, a Japanese American who is former Manzanar internee.

(Manzanar is one of ten camps where over 110,000 Japanese Americans were incarcerated during World War II.)

As for the supernatural, obviously, Koontz takes a different route from authors such as Stephen King. Just like his previous works, it always has religious, or Christian, elements in it. Take Ms Pearl for example: her claim to be the city made flesh is a leaf out of the Gospel of John in the Bible. The fourth gospel tells of Jesus as the word becoming flesh and walking among men. That is typified in Ms Pearl, which is brilliant.

Overall, “The City” is a good read. Everything in the book is well timed and the plot is not confusing, yet there is that element of suspense. And at about 400 pages, it is just the right size for a work like this.

“The City” by Dean Koontz is published by Bantam and priced at RM99.90. It currently available in hardcopy and you can get hold of a copy at any major bookstore. – September 10, 2014.