From the Corner of His Eye (Random House Large Print) - Hardcover

Dean Koontz

4.06

33,604 ratings by Goodreads

9780375430947: From the Corner of His Eye (Random House Large Print)

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0375430946 ISBN 13: 9780375430947

Publisher: Random House Large Print, 2000

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Bartholomew Lampion is born in Bright Beach, California, on a day of tragedy and terror, when the lives of everyone in his family are changed forever.  Remarkable events accompany his birth, and everyone agrees that his unusual eyes are the most beautiful they have ever seen.

On this same day, a thousand miles away, a ruthless man learns he has a mortal enemy named Bartholomew.  He doesn't know who Bartholomew is, but he embarks on a search that will become the purpose of his life.  If ever he finds the right Bartholomew, he will deal mercilessly with him.

And in San Francisco a girl is born, the result of a violent rape.  Her survival is miraculous, and her destiny is mysteriously linked to the fates of Barty and the man who stalks him.

At the age ot three, Barty Lampion is blinded when surgeons reluctantly remove his eyes to save him from a fast-spreading cancer.  As the growing boy copes with his blindness and proves to be a prodigy, his mother, an exceptional woman, counsels him that all things happen for a reason, that there is meaning even in his suffering, and that he will affect the lives of people yet unknown to him in ways startling and profound.

At thirteen, Bartholomew regains his sight.  How he regains it, why he regains it, and what happens as his amazing life unfolds results in a breathtaking journey of courage, heart-stopping suspense, and high adventure.  His mother once told him that every person's life has an effect on every other's, in often unknowable ways, and Barty's eventful life indeed entwines with others in ways that will astonish and move everyone who reads his story.

People magazine has said that Dean Koontz has the "power to scare the daylights out of us."  In this, perhaps the most thrilling, suspenseful, and emotionally powerful work of his critically acclaimed career, Koontz does that and far more.  He has created a compulsive page-turner that will have you at the edge of your seat, a narrative tour-de-force that will change the way you yourself look at the world.

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Review:

Horrormeister Koontz looks heavenward for inspiration in his newest suspense thriller, which is chock-full of signs, portents, angels, and one somewhat second-rate devil, a murky and undercharacterized guy named Junior Cain who throws his beloved wife off a fire tower on an Oregon mountain and spends the rest of the novel waiting for the retribution that will surely come. But not before a series of tragedies ensues that convince Junior that someone or something named Bartholomew is out to exact vengeance for that crime and the series of other murders that follow.

Bartholomew's own troubles begin with his birth, which transpires moments after his father is killed in a traffic accident as he is taking his wife to the hospital, and continue with the loss of his eyes at the tender age of 3. Young Bartholomew has visionary gifts, though to his mother, a nice lady who's renowned for her pie-making abilities as well as her sweetly innocent nature, he's just a particularly smart kid who can read and write before his second birthday. Eventually, Bartholomew regains his sight, Junior Cain gets his comeuppance, and fate conspires to bring love into the Pie Lady's life, reward the faithful, and put a happy ending on this genre-bending tale. Koontz will no doubt rocket right to the top of the bestseller list with this inventive, if somewhat slower-paced, read. --Jane Adams

From the Back Cover:

"He [Koontz] has always had near-Dickensian powers of description, and an ability to yank us from one page to the next that few novelists can match."
-- Los Angeles Times

"Reader be warned: this is Koontz at his finest ... thrill-packed ... more than 600 pages of suspense."
-- The Oakland Press (Mich.)

"Though over 600 pages, the book never seems long. The characters are vivid and emotionally exciting, creating a fast and compelling read."
-- Library Journal
"The bestselling author elicits as much emotion as suspense in this spooky story about a boy who loses his eyesight."
-- People

"Dean Koontz is not just a master of our darkest dreams, but also a literary juggler."
-- The Times (London)

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