Dean Koontz has a really nice house
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A few weeks ago I interviewed Dean Koontz at his house for the Los Angeles Times.
Since the interview was approximately 8,000 words long, and only about 500 or so made it into the profile, I thought I’d share some additional insights. I also want to talk about his house.
I knew Dean Koontz was a big deal because he’s written buckets of bestsellers. I’ve read some of his books, but the one that stands out is Strangers, which I read while I was in the Navy.
It’s about a bunch of people who suffer from weird conditions and are drawn to the Tranquility Motel in the Nevada desert. They find out that they’ve all been subjected to a memory suppression experiment connected to the Thunder Hills Depository, a secret government installation.
Basically Dean Koontz was writing the X-Files before the X-Files. Alien abduction, supernatural visitations, reincarnation, amnesia. It’s all there.
I like that Koontz doesn’t limit himself to one particular genre. You might find an alien in one book, a monster in the next one, and a kid with supernatural powers in the following book. Sometimes he mashes them all together. He told me one reviewer called him “the inventor of the cross-genre novel.”
But for all his success on the page, I find it hard to separate the man from his house, which is a reflection of his immense wealth. I mean the guy has statues. I saw at least a dozen of them.
So let’s get a few things out of the way. Koontz grew up very poor. His father was a violent alcoholic who terrorized his wife and son. He grew up in a house without any books. The public library was his sanctuary. It was a place where he felt safe, but also where he could escape to imaginary worlds. He loved science fiction.
Koontz doesn’t use ghostwriters. He writes all of his own books, logging ten-hour days, six days a week—minimum.
He doesn’t care for travel.
When I met Koontz he was wearing faded dad jeans with a black belt, polished black Rockport shoes, and a Navy blue button-down shirt. He dresses like a dad on Friends or an extra on Seinfeld. I’d be willing to bet he’s owned this ensemble since both shows were on the air. He dressed what a guy who grew up in a tarpaper shack in Pennsylvania considers nice clothes.
I liked Koontz from the moment I met him, and left with an immense amount of respect for his work ethic, business savvy, and for the way he treats people (me, the photographer, his assistant Linda, the property manager). (Yes, he has a property manager.)
But I imagine it was like visiting the pharaoh in his palace and discovering he’s a down-to-earth guy. I was relieved I wasn’t going to get my head chopped off, metaphorically speaking, but I couldn’t get over the opulence of the place.
It’s the nicest house I’ve ever visited. It’s nicer than most hotels and resorts I’ve been to. At 2.5 acres it is a resort. It’s got an infinity pool, a hot tub, and a movie theater, complete with a marquee.
Koontz is a huge fan of the Art Deco period and the design of the house reflects this aesthetic. So it’s both tasteful and over-the-top. I mean have you ever looked at an Art Deco lampshade?
After the interview, Koontz took me on a brief tour of his house.
Above the entrance to his garage, which I wish we’d gone into but I’m not a really a car person (Nuvia is the automotive enthusiast in the family), is a huge sign that reads, “THE REAL WORLD.” Koontz explained the sign served as a reminder that he was entering the real world, “because this” – and here he stretched out his hands to encompass the house and the land it sits on – “isn’t real.”
I think about that a lot. I pride myself on being able to write anywhere. Coffee shops, kitchen tables, airports. My writing space occupies a modest corner of the condo, but there aren’t any doors that separate it from the rest of our home.
I think all writers fantasize about having a place of their own. It’s why we fetishize writing residency and retreats because the fantasy isn’t just about furniture, it’s the time away from our real lives.
Koontz has created a space where he can write and be apart from the rest of the world for days and weeks on end. I think the sign more than any piece of art of features of his house, no matter how expensive, is a reminder of his good fortune.
More quotes from Koontz:
On his work habits: “There’s this momentum thing that happens as you’re getting into the last quarter of a book. All those decisions you’ve had to make, that you’re almost afraid to make because it’s gonna shape what’s next. Now they’re mostly behind you and it’s the force of those decisions that are driving the story. That becomes almost more fun. And then I can put in a twelve- or fourteen-hour day because it’s kind of exciting. I want to know how am I going to resolve this. I don’t outline. So I never know where anything is going.”
On starting out as a science fiction writer: “I started with science fiction and I wrote these paperback originals and at some point I knew that wasn’t where I belonged even though as a kid that’s mostly what I read. So I bought the rights back to all of them and kept them out of print. Once you’re labeled, they keep labeling you no matter what you do. I hadn’t written a science fiction novel in 10 or 15 years and the reviews would read, “Something different from science fiction novelist Dean Koontz.”
On acquiring the rights to his backlist: “I bought back a bunch of early books. Writers I know said, ‘What are you doing?’ We would have to pay them back as much as I was paid to write the book. Some books were more recent. I started to see we were going to get on the bestseller list if the momentum kept going. I lot of these books had been written under pen names. I thought, There’s value in these beyond which the publisher realizes. So I started buying them back. I had done four books at one house, paperback originals, my agent at the time went to them and said, ‘We’d like to buy these back.’ They were out of print. They had them in warehouse but they weren’t actively selling them. He said, ‘Let me see what our stock is.’ He came back and said. ‘He can have them for nothing. These books aren’t worth anything anyway.’ Really? Okay. So I took them. When I put my name on it after we’d been on the bestseller list, it went to number one and stayed there for six weeks and sold 2.5 million copies.”
I’ve saved the best story for last, so if you’re still reading, this is for you. As I mentioned in my profile, Koontz’s computer isn’t connected to the Internet. Does he have the Internet? Of course he does. His assistant works at his house and her office is connected. When he wants to send a message or reply to a query, Koontz types it up on his Compaq computer, saves it to a five-and-a-quarter inch floppy disc, walks the disc down the hall to his assistant, and she cuts and pastes into an email. That is how one of America’s best-known writers sends email.
Lit Pics for November 14-20
Literary recommendations in Southern California and beyond.
Thursday November 14 at 7pm (SD)
Auschwitz survivor Rose Schindler discusses her new memoir Two Who Survived at Bread & Salt at 1955 Julian Avenue in Barrio Logan. The event includes a screening of the short documentary The Driver Is Red by San Diego filmmaker Randall Christopher.
PLAN B (SD)
The Catapult Book Club will be discussing Convenience Store Woman by Sayaka Murata at 7pm.
Friday November 15 at 6pm (SF)
I’m not going to be in San Francisco this weekend, but if I were, I’d head to Book Passage to hear Steph Cha read from her new novel Your House Will Pay.
PLAN B (LA)
Remember when I told you about the Relics of the Hypnotist War at Automata in L.A.’s Chinatown? (One of the reasons I switched to Substack is because you can’t link to past newsletters on TinyLetter.) New shows have been added and there are still tickets for November 15, 17, 21 and 22.
Saturday November 16 at 3pm (LA)
Margaret Wilkerson Sexton will discuss and sign her new book The Revisioners with Glory Edim at Book Soup.
Sunday November 17 at 4pm (SD)
Gloria Steinem will discuss her new book The Truth Will Set You Free, But First It Will Piss You Off! This event is presented by Warwick’s but will be held in the Shiley Theatre at 5998 Alcala Park in San Diego. This is a ticketed event, but it’s not too late to get on the waitlist.
Monday November 18 at 7pm (LA)
L.A.’s Book Soup puts on some incredible events, but this one sounds absolutely riveting. Grammy-nominated singer/songwriter Allison Moorer will be joined by her sister Shelby Lynne to discuss Blood, Moorer’s memoir of losing her mother to her father’s murder/suicide.
Tuesday November 19 at 7:30pm (LA)
If the impeachment hearings are any indication there are few things more ridiculous than a morally bankrupt GOP shill trying to defend a corrupt president with conspiracy theories, but Mark Z. Danielewski reading from a picture book might be one of them.
Wednesday November 20 at 7:30pm (LA)
Jami Attenberg will discuss and sign her new novel All This Could Be Yours with Allisa Nutting at Skylight Books.
PLAN B (LA)
Former Camgirl Isa Mazzei reads from her new memoir Camgirl at Stories Books & Café at 8pm. Mazzei is also the screenwriter of the movie Cam. Do you detect a theme?
Thank you for reading Message from the Underworld. Do you have a literary event that you’d like to see listed? Shoot me a message.