Intensity
by Dean Koontz
Knopf, $25 hard
Chyna Shepherd is
determined to avoid intensity or involvement of any kind. Chyna, whose life has
been shaped by a traumatic childhood of abuse, wants a life without risk. But
when she becomes the only survivor of a mass murder, she is forced to struggle
against a killer whose fulfillment lies in intensity of experience.
Intensity, by novelist Dean Koontz, is a pin-you-to-the-chair tale of
suspense, with a protagonist who is possibly the best female character that I
have seen yet in the thriller genre.
Intensity traps the reader in two nightmares: the nightmare of
attempting to defeat its protean killer, and a remembered nightmare of
helplessness. As a previously victimized woman who finds strength and
redemption, Chyna Shepherd is probably Dean Koontz’s most fully human female
character to date. Chyna is good without being needlessly angelic, and
traumatized without being a cowering victim. Koontz makes her a resourceful
woman in a desperate situation, illustrating her dilemma of fear and self-doubt
through vivid flashbacks of Chyna’s violent past. While her predicament
occasionally strains belief, she herself never does, remaining sympathetic,
vital, and real throughout — I felt almost that she should be in a book a
little classier than a suspense-thriller novel.
Not that Intensity isn’t pretty classy in its own right. The book is
swiftly paced, and as largely and sharply detailed as an IMAX movie, while
Chyna’s epiphany of redemption feels wholly natural. In Intensity,
Koontz achieves a nearly perfect blending of spiritual, if conventionally
Christian, inquiry and suspenseful horror. Koontz is no C.S. Lewis; his villain
is too dislikable to encourage pondering his nature.
Intensity not only kept me insensitive to ringing phones and dirty
dishes until the last page, it provoked me to theological and ethical
considerations that I haven’t had since I was 14: Does evil — does God, for
that matter — exist? What would I do if faced with evil? What do most of us
do?
— Barbara Strickland
I’ve been mindlessly
jabbering about how I want to get something into print so my friend talks to
her editor and I am given two books of poetry to review. This is like having
twins for your first pregnancy. If I can pull this off, anything else should be
a piece of cake.
Red Suitcase by Naomi Shihab Nye (BOA Editions Limited, $12.50 paper) and Drop
Zone by Gail Peck (Texas Review Press, $10 paper), are full of poems from women
who have embraced life in its extremes. Nye lives in San Antonio, and has
traveled the world. Peck is from the Deep South, and gives us bittersweet
stories of her life.
Red Suitcase lets us know that Naomi Nye is at home both in Jerusalem
and the capital city of Texas. Strong love and deep reverence for humanity
threads its way through her work. While watching a father carrying his sleeping
son across the street in the rain she says it all: “Fragile, handle with
care.” Her writing captures the richness and dignity of the human spirit
with simplicity. The way she charms words, putting them together unexpectedly,
is delightful. “…A shawl of sun on our backs…” conjures up an image
so lovely that I cherish it even in Austin’s scalding summer heat. The chilling
and yet funny comparison of fashion models to skulls in the catacombs will stay
etched in my mind. Anyone who has watched her child growing up and away from
her will grasp the sudden yank of the heart felt in “What Is Supposed to
Happen.” With Nye’s boundless compassion she presents her subjects as
extraordinary human beings. She offers us hope. Nye’s observations make a big
family of lives and tales from 20 places on the planet. I laugh and cry in the
same breath and wonder what happened to these people long after I put the book
down.
In Drop Zone, Gail Peck, named for the “…wind that blew against
the house in the month I was born…” pulls me directly into her life and
touches my heart. Some poems are filled with torment, and hard to forget. Her
experiences are so painful you wouldn’t wish them on anyone. Peck reminds us of
the searing truth that deep hurts won’t go away: “…I wake at four a.m..The
bodies wash up. They won’t open their mouths. So I tell their stories while my
husband sleeps…” Her poem “Bugsy” illustrates how violence toward women
breeds violence toward children. “…One of the worst things my mother ever
did was to call Elford Pruitt a cocksucker…” made me laugh. Not because
the story was funny; it wasn’t, but that this woman, filled with fear, got up
enough courage to tell her drunken brother-in-law to get out of her yard. It
occurs to me that her mother was a very good woman if that was one of the worst
things she ever did. Her direct language cuts with its sharpness. Those with
similar experiences will appreciate her poems; this collection was the 1994
winner of The Texas Review Southern and Southwestern Poets Breakthrough
Series.
Naomi Nye and Gail Peck, women with notably different experiences in life,
write with clarity and compassion. As seasoned poets, both have garnered
numerous awards. Naomi Nye includes family, but also reaches out to lives in
distant countries. Gail Peck’s work is personal and focused closely on her
experience of family ties. We need both of these writers to keep us tuned in to
life. I don’t often pick up a book of poetry, but I am inspired to read more by
these women. — Jean Bonnen
This article appears in January 19 • 1996 and January 19 • 1996 (Cover).