Ali Karim was a Board Member of Bouchercon [The World Crime & Mystery Convention] and co-chaired programming for Bouchercon Raleigh, North Carolina in 2015. He is Assistant Editor of Shots eZine, British correspondent for The Rap Sheet and writes and reviews for many US magazines & Ezines.
Set in a time of social upheaval during the lead up to America’s entry into the Second War; it’s the authors array of vividly realised characters that make this uplifting historical narrative special.
Koontz’s tale commences in 1930 with a teenage girl Alida, one of the attractions of the Ten-in-One show at McKinsey’s Travelling Carnival. The girl has a beautiful face, but beneath her shoulders lies hideous body deformations akin to the British human exhibit John Merrick [aka The Elephant Man]. Alida is exploited by being paraded nearly naked by the odious Forest ‘Captain’ Farnham for the amusement of the curious and the uncouth. Alida escapes the indignities she is forced to endure by her voracious appetite for books, especially Dickens.
The opening is reminiscent of William Lindsay Gresham’s Nightmare Alley as the Carnival backdrop gives way to the Speakeasy. While displaying Alida to a more refined voyeur at an exclusive Speakeasy ‘Blue Mood’ in San Diego, Captain Farnham is confronted by Loretta and Franklin Fairchild, young Hollywood film producers who are bridging the gap between silent films and the talkies. The couple soon force a deal with Captain Farnham, and buy Alida’s freedom from his clutches. It becomes obvious to the reader, that we’ve not heard the last of Forest ‘Captain’ Farnham as the Fairchild’s depart with Alida to their mansion - Bramley Hall [aka ‘The Bram’].
The skill Dean Koontz has weaving a large array of characters into an engaging narrative [but ensuring each stands erect and distinct on the page] is truly extraordinary. It makes for astonishing readability and perverse curiosity as the pages turn as if by automation.
We meet Loretta and Franklin’s three children, Isadora, Gertrude and Harry. ‘The Bram’ is complete with loyal staff, each with interesting backstories; the Cook Luigi, the Groundsman Reinhardt, the Major-domo Julian and his wife House-keeper Victoria, her Maids Lynette, Harmony, and Anna-May as well as the children’s teacher Miss Blackthorn. And what would a Koontz novel be without a canine companion? This time it’s Rafael.
The characters develop in-concert with the events [and history] that unspool as the novel is propelled into the 1940s. We learn of the Stock market crash and the great depression that followed, the San Francisco earthquake, the Spanish Flu, the dark side of the emerging Californian film industry [aka Hollywood Babylon], the pseudoscience Eugenics, troubles brewing in Europe [and the Pacific] and much else as The Friend of the Family Alida Farnham is formally adopted into the Family becoming Adiel Fairchild.
Koontz illustrates his love of books and reading throughout the narrative as well as genuinely positive messages about overcoming the adversities in life. At times that the exposition is somewhat heavily applied, but it’s required for the story-telling to remain smooth and does not reduce the propulsive nature of the tale.
There is charm, as well as melancholia and melodrama throughout the proceedings - but above-all-else this novel is a page-turner with heart.
If you are suffering from a ‘reading slump’ or hooked on an addictive ‘doom scrolling’ cycle on your Smartphone – The Friend of the Family is the antidote, because as a novel The Friend of the Family is a hell of a thing.
