Intensity

Intensity – by Dean Koontz

When my father was alive, he never could understand why I enjoyed reading books as much as I did; especially horror books. “How can anybody get scared reading a book?” he would ask incredulously. If anyone thinks they can’t get scared reading a book, reading Intensity by Dean Koontz just might make you change your mind.  The scariest thing about this novel is that the horror doesn’t stem from mythical monsters, ghosts, vampires, and/or zombies.  The scariness is emitted by one of the two main characters in the book.  It’s scary because we know such individuals, while thankfully rare, do actually exist.  In other words, a real living and breathing human being. This is not a book a young woman should read if she’s alone in a house on a stormy night.

This book consists of basically two characters, and the bulk of the story takes place in one 24-hour period. We’re introduced to Chyna Phillips, a young woman of 26 who’s driving from another state with her girlfriend to stay with her friend’s family for a few days. Her family lives in some rural part of the country where you can imagine a lone house surrounded by a bunch of corn, but not much else.

Without giving away too much of the plot, Chyna encounters a psychotic killer, and she narrowly avoids death.  Most people in Chyna’s shoes would be incredibly overcome by fear if they were faced with such an encounter. Yes, Chyna is plenty scared, but Dean Koontz tells us throughout the story of Chyna’s miserable childhood.  After being raised by an abusive, alcoholic mother who drags Chyna all over country to live with low-life boyfriends, Chyna knows suffering and fear better than most.  So when she avoids the clutches of this madman, her urge isn’t to run, yet to fight.  Yet to fight effectively, she must plan. This takes time, and she really doesn’t have much of it.

The other half of the book is told through the eyes of her adversary, the psychotic lunatic.  When Koontz takes his readers into this man’s brain, the scariness is inescapable.  Whether we admit it or not, we subconsciously pray every day that we’ll never encounter an individual such as this man. Again, it’s terrifying when we’re reminded that there are actually real demented people out there.

So as the story progresses, we move deeper into the cat and mouse game of these two individuals.  They learn from each other, and learn about each other. Because of the surroundings, the story is downright eerie.  Many criticize a large part of this story as ‘slow’, and to an extent, they’re right.  This book has a lot of introspection; a lot of intense introspection.  Because of the intensity, we simply get impatient, and we want many of the scenes in this book to conclude much quicker than they actually do.  Think of a horror, or suspenseful movie that you’ve recently watched.  Whatever the scene you’re watching, you’re hoping the character will hurry up and finish what he/she is intending so the camera will cut to a happier, cleaner scene.   So yes, the book is slow at times, but that’s precisely the point.  “Intensity” is a perfect title for this novel.

I really enjoyed this book, but I’m 99% certain I’ll never read it again. Nor do I have any intention to ever watch any type of movie that may have been created that was based on this novel.  I admired this book’s boldness, its craft, and its….well….intensity. The subject matter for such an endeavor, though, is something that many, including myself, prefer not to think about.  Koontz did a great job here. He manages to write an incredibly intense, and terrifying scary piece of work. 

Yes, you can write a horror story without elements of fantasy or supernatural.