JULIE WISKIRCHEN: So
I'm Julie Wiskirchen.
I'm from the authors team
here at Google Los Angeles.
And today I'm very excited
to welcome Dean Koontz.
When Dean was a
senior in college,
he won an "Atlantic Monthly"
fiction competition,
and he's been
writing ever since.
He's one of the world's
most iconic writers,
with books published
in 38 languages,
and has sold over
450 million copies.
14 of his novels have
risen to number one
on the "New York Times"
hardcover best-seller list,
making him one of only
a dozen writers ever
to achieve that milestone.
The "New York Times"
has called his writing
psychologically complex,
masterly, and satisfying.
"Rolling Stone" has hailed
him as America's most popular
suspense novelist.
Dean's new novel is
called "Innocence,"
and he's going to
discuss it with us today.
So please join me in
giving a very warm welcome
to Dean Koontz.
[APPLAUSE]
DEAN KOONTZ: Thank you.
I normally stand at
a podium and speak,
so this is a little
more relaxed.
I don't have my
notes in front of me,
so it'll be more confusing.
But hopefully-- and we'll try to
make it more with some question
and answer as we go.
And maybe I can
mingle some stories
in about things that
have happened to me.
Normally when I
speak, I just talk
about stupid things that
I've done during my career,
or stupid things that
have happened to me.
And I have files and
files of stupid stories
of things I've done.
So I usually have no
shortage of material.
But I thought today,
since this is different,
I'd probably tell you
a little about where
I came from, a little bit
about where I grew up,
and some things that
happened to me that probably
drove me to be a writer.
And by the way, I see golden
retrievers here today.
We saw them out in the thing.
And I brought mine,
because we were
told we're
dog-friendly territory.
So maybe at some point,
when people get done eating,
I would release Anna if
nobody has a dog allergy
and let her wander around.
She loves people.
So we'll wait until people
get through their food,
because she won't be
quite so people loving,
she'll be food
loving until then.
I grew up in the little town
of Bedford, Pennsylvania.
And we lived in what was
the next thing to a shack.
It was two stories,
but it probably
was a total of 400
or 500 square feet.
It had a tar paper roof.
There's a picture
of it I always keep
to remind myself
where I came from.
My dad had a serious
alcohol problem.
And he was always
getting in fights.
And by the time he
didn't work anymore,
my wife and I counted how
many jobs we could remember he
had had.
And it was 44 jobs in 34 years.
And there were periods
where he didn't work.
And the reason there
were so many jobs
is he also had a
tendency to violence.
And he had a
proclivity to punch out
the boss, which
isn't a career move,
even at Google, where they're
so good with their employees
that you can get away with it.
And so there were
periods of this time
he didn't work at all.
He was a gambler
and a womanizer.
We never knew
whether we were going
to have that roof over our
heads the next day or not.
In addition to all
that-- and I didn't
talk about my father for a long
time after I was successful.
And then one day
I was asked to go
speak to a group of
Walden bookstore managers.
Walden and Borders,
no longer with us.
And I just did my
normal speech, telling
stupid things that
happened to me.
And the audience was very
with me and it was wonderful.
And then we got to the
Q and A. And somebody
said, how did your childhood
affect your writing career?
Your parents must have
encouraged you to read a lot.
And I said, oh, no, books were
not really welcome in my house.
And books were considered
a waste of time.
And my father was
a violent alcoholic
who made my childhood
a kind of-- I
had to escape into books.
But I had to hide the
fact that I had books,
or that I was getting
them out of the library.
And that audience, suddenly,
I lost them entirely.
They just went dead.
And they were all
looking at me, like-- I
realized, oh, I blew it.
Now they think I've had
a terrible childhood.
And it wasn't a
terrible childhood.
I always felt happiness is
a choice, no matter what
you're going through.
And as a kid, there
were things I liked.
One of them was books.
And another was I got a
bike that an uncle gave me.
And I could travel 30 miles,
40 miles a day on that bike,
and go all over this little
farm town where I was raised.
And I could be away
from that house.
My mother was a great person.
But if my father
was there, the house
was not place anybody
would want to be.
Then I said to
them, but you know,
I don't mean to say
my childhood was bad.
I told them happiness
is a choice.
And I said also my father
had a funny side to him.
He was a very good salesman.
He could get people to invest
in inventions that he created.
And he could actually
raise significant money
for those days to
produce the invention
in a number of copies, hundreds
of them, thousands of them,
warehouse them.
But they were never
anything that he could sell.
You'll see why in just a minute.
But he could get people
to raise the money.
And it always amazed me,
because we never saw the money.
He gambled it away or spent it.
And he often had investors
trying to put him in jail.
And he couldn't
hold onto his money.
But he could invent things
that I thought were absurd,
but some people thought
were good investments.
One of the ones I remember
was he had this big exercise
machine.
And this was in
the days-- he may
have been correct
about this-- he called
it the first electric
exercise machine.
And it may have been
true, that in those days,
treadmills were actually
run by your own power,
and they weren't electric.
But it was about the size of an
old console model television.
I'm the only one here old
enough to remember those.
They were about this high,
and this wide, and that deep--
a huge box.
And this was all it
was, was this huge box.
It had a little hole on
one side, and a hook.
And you pulled the hook out.
And this rope came on the hook.
And then you were supposed
to, into a door frame,
screw a little eye hook, so
that the hook could go into it.
Then you turned on the
electric jump rope.
And an engine or
motor turned it.
And it sounded like this.
[MOTOR NOISES]
And it turned this jump rope.
And I stood there
looking at this machine.
He actually got investors
to produce 200 of these.
He never sold any.
And I said, but Dad, who wants
to buy an electric jump rope?
And he got angry very quickly.
And he said, everybody
will want to buy one.
And I said, but when you're
exercising with the jump rope,
part of the exercise is
the arms, the upper body.
It's not all about the jumping.
And he said, this is for
people who want to exercise,
but not too damn much.
[LAUGHTER]
And I had no answer to that.
And then, because he knew
that I wasn't really approving
of this, he said, this is
also the only exercise machine
that a blind man can use.
And I was really
baffled at that.
And then he pointed out to
me that every time the rope
hit the apex if its
arc, a bell rang.
So a blind man would know when
it was starting to come down.
And a friend of
mine, years later
when I was telling
him this, said,
boy, I could see Ray
Charles in the TV commercial
already, singing
"Ol' Man River,"
and the jump rope coming around.
These were always a great
horrible thing for my mother.
Because my mother knew that when
he got people to invent things,
or to finance his
inventions and produce them,
that they would be
coming after us.
And we wouldn't have the money.
And it would just mean he
wasn't working at a job
where he might actually succeed.
And the only thing he
really succeeded at
was insurance sales.
He could sell people anything.
But he could never
hold onto the money,
even to bring it home for food.
Another one of his was-- this
was maybe the most mortifying.
He invented-- we
didn't have dogs,
but he invented a dog bed.
Now, it's not the dog
bed that you think of,
which we see in any dog supply
store or pet supply store.
My father had an elevated dog
bed that sat on a metal frame
and was sort of almost
like a hammock, strung
kind of tightly.
And I said, well,
why do dogs want
to climb up on something
like that to sleep?
If they want to climb up,
they'll sleep on a sofa
or they'll sleep on the floor.
And he said, no dogs
don't want to be
down there where
the bugs might be.
And I didn't no dogs
had a thing about bugs.
And he said, also, this is the
only dog bed that's heated.
And I thought,
well, dogs have fur.
And I know some
small breeds, maybe,
need to be warm, because
they don't have thick coats.
But I said, well,
how are you going
to get a dog to sleep on this?
I don't think a dog's
going to sleep on this.
And he said, we're making these,
and we're going to sell them.
And they made them.
They always made them
before they found out
if there was a market.
And he found out he couldn't
sell these everywhere
where you would sell dog things.
So then he knew a man who had a
series of 14 service stations.
So my father decided that
these would be a perfect object
to sell out of a
service station.
When you go to a service
station to get gas,
and you see this
dog bed, and you've
got dogs, well, of
course you'll buy one.
Google would be nowhere with
my dad as your marketing guy.
So he had all these, but
he couldn't sell them.
But he decided on this.
And he talked to this guy who
had all these service stations.
And this guy decided
he'd look at it.
And so my father set
up a demonstration.
This was after my
mother had died.
And my father had a
string of girlfriends.
And the girlfriend
had this little dog.
It was a mutt.
But it was cute.
And dog's name is Fluffy.
And my father--
oh, I almost forgot
one of the most
interesting things.
My father had
pamphlets printed up.
And the name was
also on the thing.
And it was called
the Koontz Komfy Kot.
And my father thought
it would be clever
if it was spelled KKK.
[LAUGHTER]
It never occurred to
him that he alienated
98% of the people
who saw the bed.
And so the pamphlets
had Koontz Komfy Kot,
and the K were bigger
than anything else,
so you read it as KKK.
And Fluffy was there, and
the girlfriend was there,
and my father was
there, and I was there.
And they couldn't get Fluffy--
encouraging Fluffy to get up
on the bed, they
couldn't encourage him.
Fluffy wanted nothing
to do with the bed,
like I sort of suspected.
So my father grabbed
hold of Fluffy,
who was a nervous little
dog to begin with.
And in front of this
guy he's demonstrating
it to, picked Fluffy
up, set him on the bed.
And Fluffy did what
nervous dogs tend to do.
He urinated.
And that's when they found
out the heating pad was not
waterproof.
It was like a Road
Runner cartoon.
Fluffy just wanted
right off the thing.
He wasn't electrocuted.
But he was a very
suspicious dog thereafter.
[LAUGHTER]
And of course, once
that was revealed,
the fella with 17
service stations
didn't want to sell
it there either.
So then my father
didn't only invent,
he also sometimes
got business ideas.
And one of them
that he got was-- he
thought it would
be a great idea--
he bought a used
steam cleaning rig.
It was all on wheels, and
it was pretty unwieldy.
And it was a thing that
generated steam and was
gasoline powered.
And then you had the steam
wand, which sent the steam out
under high pressure.
And he was going to start a
company to pressure wash truck
engines.
We lived in a town that had a
number of depots for roadway
and a number of trucks.
So they had a lot of trucks
there at any one time.
Why they wouldn't
necessarily feel
it was advantageous to them
to have their truck engines
steam cleaned on a regular
basis, I have no idea.
And as it turned
out, they really
didn't find that
very interesting.
But he thought that was
going to be a big deal.
And it was over the summer.
And so I used to work at summers
when I was in high school.
But that summer, I
was not permitted
to go back to the supermarket
where I worked other summers.
And I was to work with him.
And because he was the boss,
he got the prestige job
with the steam wand.
And my job was to do
whatever he told me to do.
But there was one thing
that had to be done
and was really essential.
And that was the release valve,
pressure valve on this thing.
When the pressure built up
so far that it was dangerous,
it was supposed to release.
There was a pressure
release valve.
Except it sometimes-- in fact,
a lot of times-- would stick.
And what I was supposed to do
was when it stuck and started
to whistle, I was
supposed to take a hammer
and go up to the
generator and smash it
at the side of the thing
until it popped loose.
I thought I was going
to die that summer.
But I'd go up and hammer
it, and it would pop loose.
And the truck thing
didn't last very long.
And nobody seemed to want it,
except the car crazy people
wanted their car engine
to look really clean.
But it wasn't enough
to make a business at.
So then he got the
idea that supermarkets
would like to have their carts
cleaned, because they care
so much about you may be
touching germs on your cart.
Well, he did get one supermarket
to clean a couple hundred.
But after they looked at
them and they couldn't
see that much difference,
that was the end of that.
So the big deal he came
up with was cemetery.
It was his idea
to go in and sell
through the cemetery
people a deal.
If you have a
relative buried here,
we will come in once a month
and clean your tombstone
of your relatives, and it
will always looks pristine.
Because, you know, motors
throw grass up on the stone,
and birds do their
thing, and there's dust.
And so we would
steam clean these.
So he did set up
another demonstration
for the people who
ran the cemetery.
And there were two men and
a woman there for this.
And he set up a stone.
And this was back in the
days when we were first
beginning to see these--
the medallions that
would have a picture of
the dead person on it.
And that was sort
of a new thing.
And it was sort of inset.
And it was glued, of
course, [INAUDIBLE].
And he chose to
clean one of these.
And when he took the
steam wand across the disk
with the picture on
it, it popped loose
and flew like a martial
arts killing star.
And everyone went, ah!
And it goes across the cemetery
and smashes into another stone.
And as that thing is
tearing loose and flying,
my father goes, whoa!
And he pulls the
wand up like this.
And there's a tree overhanging.
And he blows leaves
off the tree.
It's summer.
He kills the tree.
The leaves are
blown off the tree.
And birds come exploding
out of the tree.
And the demonstration's going
very badly, at this point.
Even he knows this.
And at that moment,
the valve sticks.
And I grab up the hammer.
And I go over and
start hammering on it.
And this is the one time
that the hammering on it
isn't working.
And my father has
always told me,
if it doesn't come lose in
so many times you hit it,
then just run.
[LAUGHTER]
So I'm hitting it
and hitting it.
And it's not coming loose.
And so I not only
run, I yell, run!
And I turn and run.
And now these people, these
two men and this woman
with the cemetery,
they start running.
And we're all running
away from the generator.
And the woman falls,
trips and falls.
And I'm a polite young man.
And I stoop over
to to help her up.
And I-- let me help you up.
And I take her by her arm.
And she looks around at me.
And I've got the
hammer like this.
And she goes, no!
We didn't get that.
And that was the end of
the pressure washing event.
So somehow I survived
that childhood.
And there were many nights
where-- we had one car.
Not much of a car.
But we'd be called at a
quarter to 2:00 in the morning,
because bars closed at two.
But we'd have to
walk to the bar,
because he was
drunk on the floor.
And there were all those
humiliating things.
And so I always felt
like an outcast as a kid,
and pretty much was.
I said, my father
wasn't the town drunk.
But he was one of them,
and widely known for that.
So books saved me.
It was books that
I could escape,
and I would know that
people live different ways.
And it's kind of funny
when you're a kid,
and you're living in
that kind of environment.
And you can come to
think that everybody
lives this way when
the doors closed.
And so books showed
me that that wasn't
the case, that there were
other ways to live lives.
It also helped me to escape.
My mother was the
sweetest person.
And I don't know why she put
up with this all those years.
But she also was not
much about books.
And she used to say to me, books
are a total waste, especially
as I got to be 13, 14.
And I said, well they're
not a waste of time to me.
She said you could be
spending that time learning
to fix your car.
Well, I didn't have a car.
And she said, one day
you're going to have a car.
And nobody in our
family is ever going
to be able to afford a mechanic.
So you better learn
to repair your car.
And I said well,
then I'm just going
to have to be the
first one in the family
ever to afford a mechanic.
The irony of me is
it was books that
helped me afford a mechanic,
and a pretty good car, too.
So I was a happy to
get out of that house.
And I worked my way
through a teachers college
and taught in the poverty
program for a year
when Lyndon Johnson
was president.
And that was an eye-opening
experience for me.
I was in a program
where the teachers
were supposed to pick students
in their class that were highly
intelligent, had lots
of potential and desire,
but who came from
extremely poor families
and would benefit, therefore,
from having almost a tutor
program for the day.
So teachers were supposed
to pick 16 children out
of all their classes.
They were to come to me for
English in small groups.
And I got this job because I
hurried my way through college.
I wanted to get
married to Gerda,
and so I took extra
classes and got through
in three and a half years.
And I was graduating
and going into this job
in a school district
in late October.
And it never occurred
to me to think, well,
wasn't this job filled at
the beginning of September?
Yes, it was.
But the fellow who
had the job, which
I didn't learn until the
day I showed up for work,
had been run off
the road by students
and beaten up so badly he was
in the hospital for six weeks,
and decided he didn't
want to come back to work.
So they filled the job with me.
And I thought, well, that's odd.
It's just teaching English.
It's not like he
was-- you know, I
might have wanted to do
that to my phys ed teacher,
but never to my English teacher.
And so then I discovered
that what happened
was the teachers
took this differently
than the program intended.
What they wanted to
do was not yet rid
of their most
intelligent students,
but their most
troublesome students.
So they got rid of the ones
who'd been in reform school
or had police
records or whatever.
So that was a very
interesting year.
And at that, I said, you know,
I don't want to do this either.
And I managed to
get through the year
without getting beaten
up and put in a hospital.
But it was only
because I realized
that these kids had
huge amounts of energy.
So we would do things like I'd
bring a rubber ball to school.
Not a hard one, but not
a super soft one, either.
These days, I'd probably
be put in jail for this.
But when we were
talking doing lessons,
I had the license to
ask you a question.
If you couldn't answer it, I
could throw the ball at you.
And if I missed, you could throw
it at me anytime you wanted.
You could keep it for
a half hour and do it.
So we did things like
this to keep it energetic.
And by the time they were
done at the end of the day,
they didn't want to
bother beating me up.
And then I taught
regular school.
And then my wife said, I
know you want to write.
I was selling short stories in
a couple of paperback novels.
And she said, I know you
want to write novels,
so I'll support you for five
years while you try to do that.
She was working at a credit
bureau in those days.
And so I took her up on it.
I tried to bargain
her up to seven years.
But she's got Sicilian
blood, so she always
wins those arguments.
And it took four
and a half years
before she was able
to quit her job
and go to work running
the business side of mine.
And we've now been
married 47 years.
And it's been the greatest
relationship of my life.
But that's how I
got into writing.
And I wrote paperbacks, a
lot of things over the years.
And finally I got
to the point where
books started to
actually sell, which
was a whole new idea for me.
I mean, I'd sell them,
but very few people
would buy them for many years.
And royalties were not great.
But we could live on them.
And then suddenly one day,
things started to change.
And people started
to find the books.
And I had a publisher then
who didn't, let's just say,
have a lot of faith in me.
But when the books started
to work a little bit,
then she said, I wonder.
And I had this book
called "Strangers."
and it was a big book
with 12 leading characters
and lots of different stories.
And it all has to do
with these characters
all experience something
in the same place
at the same time a
few years before.
And they've all been
brainwashed to forget it.
But the brainwashing
isn't holding.
And different things are
happening to all of them.
And they don't understand
why these things [INAUDIBLE].
Some are having nightmares.
Some are having
moments of fugue.
Others are having all kinds
of different problems.
And gradually they find
their ways to each other.
But in the beginning
of the book,
there is the one
lead character who
keeps waking up from
nightmares and finds
he's been sleepwalking.
And he wakes up at
the back of closets.
He wakes up in
different places where
it's clear he's
hiding from something.
But he can never
remember the dreams.
And he doesn't know
what he was hiding from.
In the first part of the book,
he wakes up at one point.
He mentions that he wakes
up behind the furnace
in the garage.
And it so happened
when I delivered
"Strangers," my
publisher said, I
think you should not
have a commercial editor.
I think you should
have a literary editor.
And I'm going to give
you a literary editor.
And I though, this
is going to be great.
It's like Thomas Wolfe
and Ernest Hemingway.
I wonder what a literary
editor would be like.
This is going to be fun.
And so I really
liked this fella.
He was a great guy.
His name was Alan.
And I delivered this book.
And it was 940 manuscript pages.
And my publisher came back,
said, I love this book.
But you're going to
have to cut in half.
It's too big.
And I could see no
way to cut in half.
If any of you've
read my stuff, I
tend to write pretty
tightly structured books.
And I said, I don't
see how I can do that.
And she said, Alan is going
to show you how to do this.
So I thought, well, this
is going to be amazing,
because I don't think
it's possible to cut 400.
She said, just cut 430 pages.
You don't have to go halfway.
So Alan said, I'm
going through it.
I've read it.
I love it.
But I can show you how
to cut it and everything.
And he said that the way
it's probably going to happen
is, you've got 12
lead characters,
and we'll just cut
them down to nine.
And I thought, yeah, but all the
stories kind of move like this.
And what happens if
he pulled this thread?
Isn't this going to
unravel over here?
He's going to show me.
He's a famous literary editor.
So OK, I'll bite my tongue and
we'll see what happens here.
But then he said,
you know, there's
something that really
bothers me in this book.
You know that moment early on
when the lead character wakes
up behind the furnace?
And I said, yes.
He said, the furnace
is in the garage.
What would the furnace
be doing in the garage?
And I said this is Southern
California where where he's
living, and most furnaces
are in the garage.
Some are in the attic.
But they're mostly
in the garage.
Well, why aren't
they in the basement?
I said, see, in
Southern California,
very, very few houses
have a basement.
They're built on
slabs of concrete.
Oh, still, people, when
they're reading it,
who don't know that,
are going to say,
what's the furnace
doing in the garage?
And they're going to lose
track of the story right away.
And I said, I don't think so.
If the story isn't
gripping enough
to get past the furnace--
And he says, well, I don't know.
I'm going to have
to think about this.
But he said,
meanwhile, I'm going
to show you how to
cut these pages.
Which I said, OK, we'll
see how this goes.
So about six weeks go by.
And the manuscript lands for me.
And it comes with a letter.
And the letter said, Dear Dean,
I have redlined some things
I think we can cut.
And you'll see that
I have redlined
10 pages worth of cuts.
Now all you need to do
is find the rest of them.
He was joking a
little bit, because he
was trying to tell me,
without dissing the publisher,
that this wasn't
going to be possible.
But then it was around that time
that my publisher learned this.
She said, OK, I guess Alan
knows what he's talking about.
But if you ever
write a book again
like this with all
these characters,
please write it so
that some of them
can be pulled out without
hurting the story.
And I tried to
imagine doing that.
Yeah, I'm going to spend
an extra three or four
months on the book,
writing all this stuff in,
so they can pull
it out and it won't
affect the rest of the book.
But I didn't say anything.
So Alan also when he called
me to say he knew I had it
and he called me and said, yeah,
find how many pages you can.
But you're never going
to find what is wanted.
Just do the best you can
and see what I've done.
I said, OK.
He said, but I'm still
really upset that furnace
in the garage.
And you know, I just
realized, there's
another moment where there's
a furnace in a garage later
in the novel.
And I said, well, Alan, I
can't do anything about it.
Because it is
Southern California.
And that's the way it
is here in California.
And a few days go by.
And I'm working on the script.
And I get a overnight
messenger thing from him.
And it's a high-end
real estate magazine.
And there's a
post-it on one page.
And it's a post-it for a big
mansion in San Francisco.
And it's like on Nob Hill
or somewhere like that.
And he's undermining
the description
about it having an 11,000
square foot basement.
And I said, yes.
But see, that's a
mansion in San Francisco.
This is a tract home
in Southern California.
It still bothers me, he said.
And then when I ended up cutting
30 pages out of the text,
out of 940.
And we sent it off to them.
And it went to typesetting.
And when the typesetting
came, he said,
Dean I'm sending you the
typesetting tomorrow.
And you'll proofread
the typesetting.
And you just please
understand there's still
time to fix that
furnace problem.
So at that point, and I
hated to dis an editor,
so I tried to do it with humor.
I wrote him back,
and I said, Alan,
I've written a paragraph I hope
will fix the furnace problem.
And this is the
paragraph I sent him.
"In the garage was a furnace,
but not just any furnace.
An immense furnace, a
huge bastard of a furnace,
so enormous that
natural gas needed
to operate it could have heated
the homes of 1,236 families.
A furnace of such flagrant
excess and ungodly
dimensions that no room was
left in the garage for cars.
A furnace so complex
in its engineering
and so formidable
in its mechanisms
that while performing
routine maintenance,
three repairmen had been killed.
A furnace into which
a clever murderer
could jam the body
of his editor,
with every confidence
that no speck of evidence
would survive the flames."
[LAUGHTER]
And he came back to me
and said, point taken.
And the furnace stayed in it.
That book went on to be my
first hardcover best seller.
And the next book
was "Watchers,"
which had a golden retriever
in it in a major way.
And that book did
much, much better.
And the next book, "Lightning,"
almost went to number one.
And I could see
this progression.
And it was very
exciting, because I
had been working for 20 or
more years, trying to get here.
And very next book after that
was a book called "Midnight."
And it was my first
number one best seller.
And this is absolutely true.
My publisher, Phyllis Grann,
she was a very good publisher
for a certain kind of thing.
I always irritated
her, because I
didn't do the same
book every time.
And she really liked
publishing writers
who did the same book every
time, because it was a product
and she knew how to sell it.
So we already were at
odds with each other.
But I had a lot of
respect for her.
And she called me up.
And you learn about the best
seller list-- your first week,
you learn about it 10 days
before it appears in the "New
York Times," because the
book review comes out,
they have to print that earlier.
And they do the calculation.
So you find out early.
And she called me up and said,
I have very wonderful news
for you.
You're going to debut
with this book at number
on in the "New York Times."
And before I could
say a thing, she
said, I just want
you to understand,
this will never
happen for you again.
You do not write
the kind of books
that can go to number one.
We had five number
ones in a row.
And every time I
had a number one,
she told me the same thing.
And I'm a little slow,
but not that slow.
I said, you know what, I
need a different publisher.
And I moved on from there.
So that's been
some of my career.
And we want to leave time in
this for-- I can babble on--
but for some
question and answers.
I assume you have
some questions.
AUDIENCE: So
basically, I've been
reading your books for years.
I've really enjoyed them.
And it's exciting when
a new one comes out.
But one of the
things I like to do
when I go to talks by
authors that I really like
is ask them who they're reading.
So do you have any people,
especially up-and-coming people
who you think are writing
really good and exciting books
right now that I might use
to expand my reading list?
DEAN KOONTZ: I like this--
now I'm going to draw a blank.
Michael Michael Koryta is a very
good suspense writer, young,
starting up.
I don't have a lot of time
at this point in my life
to read fiction like I used to.
If you've read my
books, you know
there's a lot of
research in them,
because I learned early that
if you screw up a detail,
there are people reading
you who will know that.
And then they'll write you.
And then you'll
feel like an idiot.
Especially if it's a gun detail.
Oh my, you will get mail.
So I make sure all
detail in it is right.
And I just tend to
be writing subjects.
When I was a kid in
college and high school
and I had to go to the
library to research something,
I hated that.
I hated research.
This is mortifying to
admit now, but it's true.
So in high school,
I would always
just-- when I had to do
a paper on something,
I would make up the titles of
the books that I referenced.
And I would make up the authors.
And I'd assigned the book to
Doubleday or somebody else.
And I'd cite the page
and chapter number.
And nobody ever caught me at it.
And I got good grades.
And so I could have gone
into a life of crime.
But when I went to
college, I fell in love
with pinochle in my
first year in college.
And it turned out I
was pretty good at it.
And I met this other
guy who was good at it.
And we became the two to beat.
So we'd have all-night
pinochle things.
And I wouldn't
often go to class.
And so I took up the habit
of faking my research papers.
And I never got caught
at it in college either.
You should never bring your
own children to one of my--
And then when I was a junior,
at the end of my junior year,
a professor of mine had
submitted a short story
I'd written to the
"Atlantic Monthly,"
for the college writing
competition they did.
And it won the
short story prize.
And after that, I really
became a slacker in college,
because my final year was
nothing but English classes
and literature classes.
And I was the first
person at the university
ever to win one of these.
And I could do no wrong.
It was just fabulous.
So I played more pinochle
and made up more papers.
But when I became a novelist
and I had to get it right,
I found out I loved research.
And so now I do so much
of it, outside of Michael,
I love this-- she
writes kids books,
but adults will love
them-- Kate DiCamillo.
And she has this book called
"The Tale of Despereaux,"
and another one.
Adults will laugh their
heads off at these books.
Kids do love them, but
there's humor in them
that only adults will get.
For instance, she has this
one "The Incredible Journey
of Edward--" I can't
remember the second name.
But Edwards is a
ceramic rabbit that's
clothed and has bendable
ears and is an antique doll.
And he's not animated
like other kids.
He thinks, but he can't
talk and he can't move.
So Edward is simply
the victim of what
happens to him in his journeys.
And it's hilarious and moving.
And I just think she's great.
And she writes books, "The
Magician's Elephant," a little
short book.
And it's a wonderful,
absolutely wonderful book
about how our life-- and I
wrote a really long book called
"From the Corner
of His Eye," which
takes quantum mechanics,
spooky effect at a distance,
and says that that not only
works on the subatomic level,
it works in human relationships.
Everything we do has spooky
effects at a distance.
When we do something good in
our lives or something bad,
it affects other people.
It changes what they might
do to somebody else that day.
And it ricochets through
everybody's lives.
And years later, if
you are able to see it,
you would see, if you were
able to pull back and look over
the years, how what you
did had this effect.
You did it in Pittsburgh,
it had this effect
in San Diego three years later.
I took like 800 pages of this.
Kate DiCamillo does it
in this little kids' book
that any adult will
love it as well.
So those are people.
But mainly I read research
and philosophy these days.
AUDIENCE: Thank you.
DEAN KOONTZ: Sorry,
that's a long answer.
AUDIENCE: Hi.
First I just wanted
to thank you,
because I had
isolating childhood.
And at age 13, I
read "Whispers."
And I escaped
through your books.
And so I just wanted
to thank you for that.
Also my question is, you are
one of if not the most prolific
author I've ever heard of.
And it brings your
readers great joy
to be able to keep
reading stories,
like you said, like your
publisher pointed out, that
aren't all the same.
So I was wondering a little
bit about your process.
I know everybody, when
they're falling asleep
has a million ideas.
And I can't even imagine
someone who has so many ideas
they have the book
that you have.
Do you have stuff just
come at you all the time,
and you have to
process it in a way?
Or do you just sit down?
DEAN KOONTZ: Each book is
different to some extent.
Some I can tell you
where the book came from.
And it was a struggle,
or it wasn't.
I was coming home from a
meeting at a studio in LA
on a film development
project with a bunch
of studio executives.
And you always come
out of those meetings
in a psychopathic frame of mind.
And I had driven my wife's SUV.
And so the deck was filled
with Simon & Garfunkel,
Because she likes that,
or Paul Simon on his own.
And I was coming home, and
a song came up, "Patterns."
And there's a line
in it. "My life
is made of patterns that
can scarcely be controlled."
And at that moment I thought,
there's a novel in that.
Somebody knows that there's
a pattern of things going
to happen in his life, and
he has no control over them.
What would that
mean in his life?
And in about 15
minutes, I had the idea
for this guy who's
an ordinary baker.
And he comes from
a family of bakers.
And they're proud of
their expertise as bakers.
And the book would open
the night he was born.
And his father would be in the
hospital to witness his birth,
but was also in the hospital
because his father's father is
dying after a stroke.
And he's going back and
forth from death the birth
in the hospital.
And in the fathers lounge,
expectant fathers lounge,
which in those days would
have done it a different way.
Our lead's father is waiting
to be told he's been born.
And the only other
person in there
is this angry, chain-smoking--
and when I was writing it,
I wrote clown.
And I stopped.
I never do outlines.
So I just take a
premise and go with it.
And I stopped and said, clown.
That's too ridiculous.
And then I wrote him as what
an Emmett Kelly clown is.
Not somebody with the giant
shoes, but a sad sack.
Might have a funny
nose on, but he's
a different kind
of clown than that.
And it turned out that if
I hadn't written clown,
that novel would never
have been the novel
it was, because it
became everything.
Because it became a
psychopathic family of clowns.
And it's a comic novel
that's also a suspense novel.
That wrote almost
itself, because I
was having so much fun.
Certain other books are harder,
maybe because you're not
having as much fun.
And then every great
once in a while,
you write one in a flow state.
The reason prolific is because
I get up at quarter of 6:00
in the morning.
I shower, walk the dog.
I eat breakfast at the desk, and
I'm at the desk by, 7:00, 7:15.
And I work through until dinner.
And I do that at
least six days a week.
If I'm on a deadline,
it goes to seven.
And so there's a
lot of time put in.
But if you get into a
flow state, which athletes
call being in the zone, I do,
like, 20 drafts a page or more.
But I don't go on to
page two until I've
done that many on page one.
I just refine it
until I feel that-- I
have a lot of self-doubt.
So I have to feel
that the page is
really good before
I can move on.
And I go through
a book that way.
It's sort of like
coral reefs are
built with all these dead
little calcareous skeletons.
And mine are done with all these
dead little abandoned sentences
that I've piled up
until the book is right.
But there's some times that
I'll still do those drafts.
But they fly by, because
you're in this place
that you can't make
yourself go to.
And "Innocence" was
a book like that.
"Innocence" just
flew. "Watchers"
was a book that had
a lot of that in it.
So you're not in control.
I say to young writers,
the best thing you can do--
and I have a lot of problem
with writers understanding, even
writers I know and respect.
I say, I never
planned the character.
I know a little bit about him.
I know what his central
problem will be.
And then I give him free will.
God gave us free will to do
the right thing, wrong thing,
screw up, not.
And I give the
character free will.
But people say,
but no you don't.
You're creating the character.
And I say, the
strangest thing happens.
If you don't think it ahead,
and I don't think ahead
what's coming.
I just let the characters
interact with each other.
When I'm writing, if it's
comic element in the novel,
I'm often laughing
out loud in my office.
At other times, I can
be moved to tears,
and be sitting there
crying at the typewriter.
My assistant is here today.
I think people who
work in the house who
pass my office door think I
should be in an institution.
And there's many
other good arguments
for that, but not just this.
But that's how I work.
And it all gets done.
And I'm always amazed that
there's a new book done.
But it does.
And I think you have
to love it to be
able to stay at it
all these years.
And I do love it.
I love the process.
AUDIENCE: Well, we
love that you love it.
We're always amazed
by the end product.
And I'm halfway
through "Innocence."
I preordered it.
I was like, yeah!
So thank you, so much.
DEAN KOONTZ: No, thank you.
You buy my shoes.
[LAUGHTER]
AUDIENCE: Thank you for
coming, and thank you
for telling us about
your writing process.
I was interested in
what you had said
about your very early
research process.
I'm just wondering if you could
maybe say a little bit more
about how you research now.
I mean, it must
be very disruptive
compared to your
regular writing style.
So can you tell us a little bit
more about how you research,
and how it's changed
over the years?
DEAN KOONTZ: Well, in many
ways, it hasn't changed for me.
From the day I could start to
afford to buy hardcover books,
I went completely nuts.
And if I was in a
bookstore and I saw a book
on a very bizarre subject,
you know, like-- I can't even
think of a bizarre
subject right now.
But if I saw a reference
book that I thought,
I'll never see that subject
again, I would buy it,
until we got a
library that probably
has something like
70,000 books in it.
And I built this library
that almost anything
I want to know about I've got
a number of books about it.
Then this other thing
happened as books
became more and more successful.
I would get letters from
readers in the mail.
And some of them would be people
who say-- well, one example
I can give, this
fellow wrote me,
and he was in the Marine Corps.
And he taught actually
not just marines,
but helicopter pilots
in all the services.
And he ran all the
simulators for them.
And he said to me, if you ever
need a military helicopter
in this and you
want to know what
it's like, I can
give you details.
And also you can come and
run through the simulator.
So at that point,
I realized there's
some value in keeping
a drawer in my office
where I just keep all these
people with specialized
knowledge.
And there's nothing better
than calling somebody like that
and asking him,
or going and being
put through the simulator, which
I crashed over and over again.
And it's why I don't fly.
I think even as a passenger
I'm going to crash the plane.
But I don't go online
to do the research.
Because you'd be amazed at
what computer I'm working on.
I'm on DOS yet.
And the reason is I
have to first Windows.
Isn't that Windows?
First Windows.
And I didn't like Windows.
I liked the word
processing enormously.
That's all I do on it,
is write letters or text.
I didn't want to be
going through Windows.
And Linda, my assistant,
took Windows out of it.
Well, in later versions, you
couldn't take the Windows out
of it.
So now I'm still
working-- I still
have that logic unit,
as they called them.
I still have one
of those towers.
We have a spare
in the other room.
I have a new keyboard,
but new keyboards
won't work with my
antique arrangement.
So we have one that will,
if that one breaks down,
and a printer that will work,
and another one to back it up.
And I'm so stick
in the mud, I don't
want to learn new software,
which will slow down
my writing more than
the research would.
So I just want to stay with it.
And when someday
it all explodes,
then my career is over.
Or I have to learn
a new software.
I did an interview with Anthony
Mason for CBS "Sunday Morning."
And he's a wonderful
interviewer.
And they were there
for a couple of days.
And the second day, we
walked into my office.
And they hadn't seen it.
And he looked, and he said,
what the hell is that?
And I said to him, it's
amazing it isn't steam driven,
given how anti-technology-- not
anti-technology, but how slow
I am to pick up technology.
So if I want to use the
internet now for research,
I go to Linda over
there and say Linda,
here's what I need to know.
And it's amazing to me how
quickly she gets it to me.
So I know it must be an
amazing world out there,
but my world is inner.
Fiction is a very
internal thing,
and you have to get lost
in yourself to write it.
And yes, you also have to
love people and the world.
But when you're
writing it, you have
to separate yourself from that.
And I have to turn off the
world when I'm doing it.
And as Linda will
testify, it gets
so bad toward the
last few weeks of it
that I'll get up in the
morning, and I'll forget.
For like three
days, I won't shave.
I won't shower.
I'll think I showered
yesterday, but I haven't.
I pull on a baseball cap.
And I go down.
And what does everybody
in the house call it?
LINDA: I call it troll mode.
DEAN KOONTZ: Troll mode
is what she calls it.
And I probably pretty
much look like a troll
by the end of that.
But I get so caught up in it,
I just want to get back to it
with no interruption when
I'm right at the end.
That's as much as
I can tell you.
Although I will say
there's one other change.
A lot of what I do
now with research
is not researching anything.
More and more, I've been
reading all kind of philosophy,
because philosophy can drive
different kind of ideas,
then you get other ways.
And it can drive the
sort of subtext of books
in ways you wouldn't
otherwise think about.
So there was this
sociologist but philosopher
called Phillip "Reef" or Rieff.
He was out of Princeton.
I've never heard
his name pronounced.
And he's written
a number of books.
Died not too long ago.
And they're cultural criticism,
but they're also philosophy.
I have gotten numerous ideas
out of just reading those books.
They're very difficult, but
they're also very illuminating.
So that's it.
AUDIENCE: Thank you.
DEAN KOONTZ: We probably
have some time for a few more
questions.
We don't want to--
AUDIENCE: Hey, Dean.
How you doing?
Thanks for coming
out and seeing us.
But seeing around here
all the golden retrievers,
I think this is going to be
a very relevant question.
The first book I actually ever
read in my life was "Watchers."
|t was given to be my mother.
And I think I was
around 10 years old.
And I think my question
I have for that
is-- this is more particular.
Where did the idea for the
antagonist, a creature,
as well as the other
antagonist, like Vince Nasco,
where did that stuff come from?
And I'm assuming since
you're a dog lover, that
fueled the Einstein
portions of the book.
But my main question is where
did that book in its entirety
come from?
DEAN KOONTZ: That goes
back such a long way now.
People assume I had golden
retrievers, or I had dogs.
I didn't.
I'd never had.
When I was a kid,
my father got a dog
for a very short period of time.
He was going to teach
to be a hunting dog.
He kept it on a
chain in the yard.
It's the worst
thing you could do
for a dog is tie it up outside.
They're pack animals.
And the dog only lasted a
week, because I went out
to play with it, and it
was so enthusiastic it
wrapped its chain
around my neck.
And if my mother
hadn't looked out,
it probably would
have strangled me.
Because when she came out
and managed to get it off,
for days, I had the imprints of
chain lengths around my throat.
And then we had a little dog
for a week or so that somebody
gave us because they
couldn't take care of it.
And it died shortly thereafter.
So I'd never had a dog.
But I loved golden retrievers.
And I had an aunt who
didn't have a retriever,
but a dog I loved.
And I just loved dogs.
And where the idea came
from that I would write
a novel about genetic
experiments and enhanced
intelligence, and they
would be working on a dog,
and it would be a
golden retriever,
I can't tell you
where that came from.
But I do know that
because you have
to have conflict in
any work of fiction,
it came to me pretty quickly
that this same outfit might
have been doing experiments
on a new kind of soldier
for the battlefield.
It would be a
genetically-engineered creature
it would be completely obedient,
just a killing machine.
And then that these two would
be too smart for the people who
built them and made them,
this very intelligent
golden retriever with
human-level intelligence
and this creature
would both escape.
And the creature
hates the golden,
because everybody loved the
golden and everybody was
fearful of the creature.
And then the idea that
the creature-- you know,
this Frankenstein monster
is pretty pathetic
when you actually look,
especially in the movies.
There's this pathos in it.
And I thought this should be
this very frightening monster,
but it should also be
something that when
you get to the end of it,
you have such pity for it,
you almost hate to
see it be killed.
And then when it comes
to my human bad people--
the question or
the thing-- my wife
used to go to book
signings a lot.
And I never knew
why she would put up
with this, because
sometimes there
will be 2,000 people
in line, and it would
take seven hours or eight hours.
And she would stand beside
me and open the book
to the right page,
or fold it to me.
And at one point, I said
to her, I know what it is.
You think if one of them
turns out to have a gun,
you want to be there to
take it away from them.
Because you know I'm
not capable of it.
And she said, that's part of it.
My wife's 5 foot 2", but you'll
agree she could probably do it.
But people at those
books signings
would say to her-- the
one question most often
was, his villains-- how
do you sleep at night?
Because they think all this
is actually part of who I am.
And maybe it is, but so
far I haven't acted on it.
Having grown up in
a house-- my dad
lived-- he drank a
fifth a day, plus beers.
He smoked three to four
packs of cigarettes a day.
He ate a very high-fat diet.
He did everything wrong
you can imagine in a life.
My mother died at 53.
My father died at 83.
And he was healthy up until
the last couple years.
But he began to develop
degenerative alcohol syndrome,
which is the hollow
spaces in your brain
that are filled with fluid and
serve a purpose in your brain
begin to enlarge.
People with this begin
to lose brain tissue.
And my father later in life
was diagnosed as a sociopath.
He'd been diagnosed as a
borderline schizophrenic
with tendencies to violence,
complicated by alcoholism,
which is a very bad thing.
That he didn't get diagnosed
until he was in his mid
to late 70s.
Then one day a friend
of my father's called.
I'm a little off the
subject, but not.
I'll get back to it.
A fishing buddy of my
father's called me up.
We had moved to California.
And finally we
didn't have to worry
that there would be a
pounding on our door at 2:00
in the morning and it
would my father, drunk.
But we were out here
less than a year.
Then a friend of his called
up and said, he's destitute.
Which he always was.
And you could send
him money, and he
wouldn't have it the next
day, because he'd go to a bar
and buy drinks for everybody.
And he said, he's destitute.
And he's in terrible health.
He's not going to last a year.
So my wife and I sat down and
had to figure out what to do.
And it was the hardest
decision of my life,
but we decided we couldn't.
He was never there
for me and my mother.
And my wife was
a saint for this.
She knew what she
was getting into.
We moved him west, got him
an apartment, paid his bills.
But we said, this
is only for a year.
He lived 14 years.
And it was 14 very bad years.
But my wife dealt with
it in a fabulous way.
But I grew up with this
example of evil in their life.
I mean, my father was
a pathological liar.
He would lie to you
sitting across the table
from you, knowing
you know he's lying.
And he'd get this
smile on his face,
just to see how long
you'd put up with this.
And there was no reason
not to put up with it,
because all he'd do if you
called him on it was explode.
And he'd cause a scene.
And when we'd take him out
on Father's Day for dinner,
we'd go to a restaurant and
we'd be sitting across from him.
And he'd start
things like telling
Gerda about my uncle Ned.
Now, I don't have an uncle Ned.
And Gerda, the first time
this happened, she kind of
looked at me.
And she said, I didn't
know you had an uncle Ned.
And I though, oh, just wait.
My father would go into all
these stories about him.
And they'd be colorful stories.
And at some point, Gerda
would start to get it.
And I could see
when she'd start.
Oh, no.
None of this is true.
Well, when you grew up
with all that and saw it,
I just have an
understanding of people
who are that way, who'd rather
lie than tell the truth,
even if telling the truth
would be better for them.
And when he was
diagnosed as a sociopath,
it was after he made
an attempt on my life
in front of a bunch of
witnesses with a knife.
And you had to go into
a psychiatric ward.
And he later ended
up-- we got him
on anti-psychotic medication.
And they were able to take
him into a retirement home
setting which had
nurses, so that he would
get the anti-psychotics
every day.
And he was there a year.
And there was a
trouble, but he was
the best behaved he'd ever been.
But when they called me up--
the doctor in the psych ward
called me up after
he'd been in there.
And he said, are you able
to talk about your father?
And I said, sure.
And he said, would
this be painful to you.
And I said, not talking about.
Living through it was painful.
And he said, tell me
about your father.
And I said, well,
what you want me to--?
He said, no, let me tell you
some things about your father.
When you were
young, he threatened
to kill you and your
mother, didn't he?
And I said, oh
yeah, all the time.
And he said, and you believed he
would do that sooner or later.
And I said, oh yeah.
I'm amazed he never did.
And he said, your father
was never a religious man.
No.
And he said, but when things
went really bad for him,
he'd go buy a Bible, and he'd
sit reading it by the hour.
And he'd make you
read it with him.
It was like this man
had been in our home.
And he went through behavior
after behavior like this.
And they were all things
that my father had done.
And I said, you're about
to tell me something.
You know what my father is.
And I've been told he's a
borderline schizophrenic
with tendencies to violence,
complicated by alcoholism.
And he said, no, your
father is a sociopath.
He has no ordinary
feelings, as we,
but he's very good
at faking them.
And it was one of
the most-- it may
be the most amazing
moment of my life.
All of this stuff clicked.
All of the things
you wondered about,
you couldn't understand
why these things happened,
why somebody would be that way.
It just suddenly clicked.
You're living with Hannibal
Lecter, except he never
went that far.
He was always in fights.
He ended up in jail
a number of times.
And he was very violent.
But it never went
that extra step.
And so we were very fortunate.
But that's where I have this
affinity, which people tell me
I do, to write really
bad, bad characters.
And I do research on that, too.
The character and the
intensity is actually
based on a genuine
serial killer.
And I had to tame it down.
Because if I had written
what this guy really did,
nobody would want
to read about it.
So it's life experience,
but also research again.
So did that answer
your question?
AUDIENCE: Yeah, it's interesting
because the worse that
character does, the stronger
he gets, presumably.
He perceives himself.
We don't know.
You write it in such a way where
you don't know if he's just
crazy, or he's got some
supernatural ability to absorb
people's--
DEAN KOONTZ: I'm trying
to lead you along that.
But he's not.
He just thinks
he's supernatural.
AUDIENCE: But you could
interpret it both ways.
But I always thought it was
just him being a psychopath.
And the worse I do, the
more innocent the victim,
the stronger I get.
DEAN KOONTZ: I'll tell you
one funny thing about that.
Well, I think it's funny.
He's a particularly
nasty character.
And there's a point in the book
where he kills a scientist.
He's assigned to kill
these people who's
been involved in this.
And he kills this woman
scientist with a hammer.
And I do not write gore.
I just don't.
I never have.
And I would have people come
up in book signings to me
and say, oh, I love your books.
But when it gets
to the gory scenes,
sometimes I just I can't.
And I'd say, the gory scenes?
Tell me one.
I heard this awhile.
And often, when I would
start to ask where,
I found out it was
the same scene, often.
And it was this hammer
scene in "Watchers."
And I'd say to them, how
long do you think that is?
How long is it from the
moment he picks up the hammer
until she's dead.
How many words?
How many paragraphs?
And the answer would
always be, oh, it's
like two or four pages,
or something like that.
And I said, no, he tells
her what he's going to do.
And then he undresses
because he doesn't
want to get blood
on his clothes.
And we know he's crazy.
But from the moment he picks up
hammer until he's killed her,
it says, "The first
blow struck her kneecap.
80 blows later, she dead."
That's all.
But in your mind, you're
seeing the other 80 blows
to some extent, that's
how the mind works.
You imagine it.
And so you don't
have to do the gore.
You just have to set
the situation up and let
the imagination of
the reader take it.
But it's interesting
you brought that up,
because that's the
one that often people
find that just too chilling.
AUDIENCE: It's a chilling
book, but if you are dog lover,
it's something very special
about friendship and connection
to an animal or to,
particularly, dogs.
That's why I connect with it so
much, because I love animals.
I love animals and dogs.
DEAN KOONTZ: The book is
ultimately about love,
and love for each other
and for the animals.
You have to go through hell
to get to the love part.
AUDIENCE: I just wanted to
give the golden retrievers
a shout out for that.
DEAN KOONTZ: Thank you.
You were great.
[APPLAUSE]
