The City
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5.0 • 1 Rating
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- $10.99
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- $10.99
Publisher Description
No.1 New York Times bestselling author Dean Koontz is at the peak of his storytelling powers with this major new novel - a rich, multi-layered story that moves back and forth across decades and generations as a gifted musician relates the 'terrible and wonderful' events of his childhood in 1967.
this is the story of a boy and a city...
Jonah Kirk's childhood has been punctuated by extraordinary moments - like the time a generous stranger helped him realize his dream of learning the piano. Nothing is more important to him than his family and friends, and the electrifying power of music.
But now Jonah has a terrifying secret. And it sets him on a collision course with a group of dangerous people who will change his life forever. For one bright morning, a single earth-shattering event will show Jonah that in his city, good is entwined with malice, and sometimes the dark side of humanity triumphs. But it will also teach him that courage and honour are found in the most unexpected places, and the way forward lies buried deep inside the heart.
If he can just survive to find it...
'A story of broken families, race, fathers, sons, love and hate, and how these things can bubble in the cauldron of the city. the most gripping thing I've read in a long, long time. You sense you are reading a master still at the peak of his powers.' Matt Haig, author of the Humans
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Bad things happen, but good things happen, too. That seems to be the message of bestseller Koontz's maudlin account of the life of Jonah Kirk, saddled by his parents with no less than seven middle names, each the last name of a famous jazz musician. The novel, which recounts the consequences of Jonah's encounters with a woman "who claimed she was the city," offers airy optimistic passages that won't persuade anyone acquainted with the harder side of life to always look on the bright side of it: "In fact, time teaches us that the musical score of life oscillates between that of Psycho and that of The Sound of Music, with by far the greatest number of our days lived to the strains of an innocuous and modestly budgeted picture." Jonah's relationships with his gifted, loving mother and with his absent, hustler father are clich s, and the concept that a city, which after all is made "great or not" by its people, takes the form of an attractive woman is too underdeveloped to have any charm.
