From the Corner of His Eye is a novel by the best-selling author Dean Koontz

Dean Koontz

Dean Ray Koontz is a prolific American author best known for his novels which could be described broadly as suspense thrillers. He also frequently incorporates elements of horror, science fiction, mystery, and satire. A number of his books have appeared on the New York Times Bestseller List, with...

, released in 2000. It is the story of a boy named Bartholomew Lampion, a ruthless killer named Enoch Cain, and a girl named Angel, born by the result of a rape.

Synopsis

Dean Koontz writes a tale of good and evil, and how the concepts influence people's lives. The book begins with three separate stories that eventually intertwine: a loving relationship between a mother and her genius son, a ruthless killer, and a young woman who takes it upon herself to raise her late sister's baby.

Bartholomew Lampion

Bartholomew Lampion (known as Barty by his mother and his friends) was born to Agnes and Joey Lampion, but Joey died in a car accident on the way to the hospital to take Agnes in for labor. Barty was exceptionally smart as a baby. He learned to talk and walk exceptionally early and taught himself to read at the age of two. He also started advanced mathematics a little later. Throughout the book he is known as a "child prodigy

Child prodigy

A child prodigy is someone who, at an early age, masters one or more skills far beyond his or her level of maturity. One criterion for classifying prodigies is: a prodigy is a child, typically younger than 18 years old, who is performing at the level of a highly trained adult in a very demanding...

." One day, Barty and his mother go to his father's grave when it is raining. Agnes gets soaked in the weather, but not a single drop touched Barty, as he says, "I ran where the rain wasn't."

Barty, when reading at the age of three, starts to complain about wavy lines in the pages of his book. A doctor informs Barty and his mother that Barty has a rare cancer that would spread to his brain if his eyes weren't removed. Barty's eyes are then surgically removed, but later in the book he gets to see again. When he is thirteen, Barty says that he sees where he wasn't blind. His daughter, Mary, eventually permanently restores his sight.

Agnes Lampion (The Pie Lady)

Agnes Lampion was Barty's mother, married to Joey Lampion who died the day Barty was born. Agnes guides Barty through life and its obstacles. She was known as the "Pie Lady" and gave out pies, as well as doing various acts of kindness around the town.

Enoch Cain (Junior)

Enoch Cain is a delusional psychopath. He pushed his beloved wife Naomi off the observation platform of the fire tower to her death. It was later revealed that he did this for financial benefit, profiting from the state paying him compensation to avoid a civil lawsuit, as Enoch would have triumphed in resulting litigation if he had decided to do so, claiming the bridge wasn't maintained adequately. He manages to fool all the investigating officers into thinking that it was an accident. Only one detective, Thomas Vanadium, is unpersuaded, and later devotes his life to proving Cain's guilt. He manages to nearly kill Vanadium and believes he did so, but eventually, Vanadium is revealed to have survived and constantly stalks Enoch, at first making him believe that he is a ghost back for vengeance.

Cain often promises himself he will never kill again for fear of punishment, and yet he breaks these promises due to his increasing insanity and eventually decides he enjoys killing and becomes a serial killer. Enoch's reasoning for this is that he has no belief in an afterlife and decides to do whatever he wants in this world without fear of punishment in the next. He also seems incapable of feeling any remorse mentally, but his body almost always reacts physically to these events, such as vomiting or getting large boils. He normally rationalizes these with absurd explanations that only make sense in his own demented mind. His life and the White family's destinies become intertwined because of an unsettling dream and an act of violence. Early in the book, he believes that Angel is Bartholomew, and attempts to kill her, Celestina, and Wally but, though he wounds Wally badly, is fended off and nearly shot by Celestina. Later, Cain is revealed to be Angel's father, the result of a rape. In the end, his assumption his offspring would bring about his undoing is true as he is ultimately pushed into another world by Angel after trying to kill Barty and being distracted by his nemesis, Detective Vanadium, leaving the killer trapped there. According to Angel, this world is inhabited by the 'big bugs' she was drawing. While his fate isn't explained further, it can be assumed he was either killed by the insects, or died of old age.

Thomas Vanadium

Thomas Vanadium was a detective and previously a priest. He had a talent to flick quarters through a hole or gap in dimensions and into another. He was sent into a coma which lasted for 8 months after Junior killed a nurse and tried to kill Vanadium. Vanadium suffered numerous facial injuries as a result of this, thus making his face severely distorted. However, he chooses to keep his face in this condition as a way of tormenting Junior, spending much of the book after this making Junior believe he is a ghost back for revenge. Unlike Angel, Barty cannot extend his power to Vanadium so he can walk in the rain without getting wet. Near the end of the story, he helps Angel, Grace, and Celestina move into the Lampions' house. After finding Junior's former lawyer's severed head in a cooler at his and Wally's house, Vanadium arrives just in time to distract Junior enough for Angel to push her evil father into another world. Eventually, after Jacob is killed by Junior, he moves into Jacob's apartment on the Lampions' property (by then Thomas had become good friends with the Lampions, the Whites, and the Isaacsons). He also helps start The Pie Lady Services. A few years before Thomas eventually died from old age, he once again became a man of the cloth.

Celestina White

Celestina White was the sister of Seraphim White (Angel's mother) and adopted Angel when her sister died. She was hunted by Junior, but managed to escape by beating the killer with a chair. She later marries Wally Lipscomb, despite their age difference, and has two children with him, named Seraphim, after her sister, and Harrison, after her father, who was killed by Cain.

Angel White

Angel was the daughter of Seraphim White and Seraphim's rapist, Junior. Angel was adopted by Celestina, her aunt. She and Barty become friends almost immediately; she and Barty also later get married and have a child named Mary. Celestina, Wally, and her grandmother, Grace, later move in next door to the Lampions. She, like Tom and Barty, can see other realities but also has the ability to push people into other worlds, which she only does once and she has no way to bring them back. She finally ends her father's reign of terror by pushing him into another world, which she says was a picture she drew of giant insects.

Seraphim White

Seraphim, or Phimie, was Celestina's younger sister. She died after naming Angel. She was 15 when she was pregnant with Angel, and was 16 when Angel was born. When Junior visits Phimie's grave, he remembers the time he spent with Seraphim. He mentions that Seraphim was raped by Junior, which led to her being pregnant with Angel; she claimed she was raped in order to be spared scorn from her family. However, Seraphim was in fact raped; it is only in Junior's mind that she was a willing participant. Junior is delusional; he sees life very differently than others. He believes that when his rape victims struggle and plead they are in fact simply playing hard to get and in fact are inviting him to rape them.

Jacob Isaacson

Agnes's brother as well as Edom's twin brother. Jacob lives in an apartment on the Lampions' property and has been there since he graduated from high school. He also has a good talent for baking. Jacob is obsessed with tragedies caused by mankind (fires, murders, crashes, etc) Jacob is ultimately garroted and killed by Junior when Junior manages to track Angel and Barty to the Lampions' property.

Edom Isaacson

Edom, as stated above is the identical twin brother of Jacob as well as Agnes's older brother. He often recites terrible natural disasters (floods, hurricanes, earthquakes, etc) from the past to a mostly unwilling audience. As a child, he received an award for roses, but his father (who considered striving to better one's self a sin) beat him and tried to force him to eat some of the roses. After Agnes marries Joey, Joey takes him to town and buys him all the materials he needs to start his own rose garden. Edom later marries Agnes's English student and good friend Maria Gonzalez, a Mexican woman, and he opens his own florist's shop.

External links

• From the Corner of His Eye Book Review