The hanging clues begin with the first 28 words of the first sentence, “On that
Tuesday in January, when her life changed forever, Martine Rhodes woke with a
headache, developed a sour stomach after washing down two aspirin with grapefruit
juice . . .” As we later learn, the
brainwashing in the story is initially achieved by the use of drugs, although
once the programming in place, drugs are no longer needed.
So I wonder if in an earlier plan, the brainwashing had just been completed
the night before. That would be the
first clue – Martie’s headache and sour stomach were hangover symptoms from the
drug.
On the other hand, sometimes a headache is just a headache.
The headache and sour stomach are just the first two of a whole string of minor misfortunes. Martie also ruined her hair by using her
husband’s shampoo, broke her nail, burned her toast, and found ants under the
sink that she killed with insecticide. All
in one sentence! (It’s a long
sentence). None of this has any further
relevance to the story; the point is simply to show that none of these
misfortunes phase Martie because she is strong and resilient. Or,
as the novel puts it, her recently deceased father, a heroic fireman, bequeathed her “an optimistic nature, formidable coping skills, and a deep love
of life.” This makes the point that even
the most mentally healthy person is vulnerable to the sinister mind control in
the novel. Martie’s mother also calls (still in the first sentence), trying to break up her marriage. This is somewhat relevant to the story, in
that it serves, for a time, as a decent red herring. (More on that later).
By the end of the page, Martie is out walking the dog, Valet, and her headache clears, never to be heard from again. So it may not have been intended as a clue, just one of the misfortunes that can’t get her down. The grapefruit juice is another matter. Koontz returns to it twice. Martie had switched from orange to grapefruit juice because of the lower calorie count. There is nothing suspicious about this, but then again, nothing else in the novel suggests that Martie worries about her weight, or that she has any reason to. A change in behavior, even an innocuous one, with a seemingly rational explanation, can turn out to be a sign of mind control. And as she gets odder and odder symptoms, she keeps wondering if they are caused by tainted grapefruit juice and wanting to get it analyzed. Koontz does everything short of jump up and down and shout, “Hey, dummies, this is a clue!” Then he drops it and never goes anywhere with it. If this is supposed to be a red herring, fine, there’s nothing wrong with some red herrings. But in that case you are obliged to stop and explain why really, this thing that appeared serious had a perfectly innocent explanation. That doesn’t happen here. The mystery of the sour grapefruit juice is raised, dropped, and forgotten. But I digress.
We last saw Martie walking her golden retriever. (Dean Koontz is a great dog lover who includes a dog, usually a golden or labrador retriever, in most of his stories). In a
nicely (and soon) explained clue, the book says that the walk lasts for an hour
except Tuesdays and Thursdays, when Martie has another obligation. Valet always seems to know when
those days are and complete his business quickly. As he does, Martie is overcome by a
heart-pounding, chest-tightening terror – apparently of nothing. The only thing she can think of is that she
is still spooked by the nightmare she had last night and had been having “on a
few other recent nights” about being attacked by a man made of dead, rotting
leaves. This is the first clue that
maybe her mental state is not as stable as advertised, although even the most
mentally healthy people have bad dreams sometimes. But again, the statement that she has had the
same nightmare “on a few other recent nights” also suggests that at the time
Koontz was thinking of her brainwashing as something recent. We later find out that it happened months
ago.
Then Martie’s eyes fall on her shadow, and she realizes that this is
what had frightened her. “In the severe
angle of the morning sun, the houses and trees case distorted images, too, but
she saw nothing fearsome in their stretched and buckled shadows – only in her
own.” This both is and is not a good
clue. It is the first suggestion of
something that is not immediately apparent.
She is not afraid of the shadow because it is a shadow, but because it
is her shadow. This is the first, well-concealed, suggestion
of the direction her anxiety will go.
Then again, it is the last time she ever expresses any fear of her
shadow. Although her behavior soon
starts becoming stranger and stranger, the fear of her shadow never
returns. Wouldn’t it be better to
start with a mild and vague version that slowly develops into her real
phobia? In fact, Koontz does a good job
of this later.
Martie closes her eyes, takes a deep breath, and when she opens her eyes finds the anxiety gone. End of Chapter 1.
My review may turn out to be as slow-going as Fred Clark’s after all.
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