From the Corner of His Eye
Dean Koontz

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 that 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 he ever 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 of 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, councils 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 person'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.

The description of this book does not do it justice. It it not just a story about Bartholomew Lampion, but about many other characters as well. The genius of this novel is that all of these characters are intertwined in various ways that none of them could ever even conceive of. In the end, everything comes together in an astounding way.

The way everyone's lives touch each others and the way that everyone is interconnected is not only impressive because of a fantastic story, but also because most writers attempting to write a novel like this would have a work that was a bit too messy. Not so with Dean Koontz. This work is crisp and clean even though it hops back and forth with characters that at first have nothing to do with each other even though in the end they have everything to do with each other.

This book does have many adult themes running through it and so I would not recommend it for a younger crowd, but for anyone older, it is definitely worth the read. It also shows that we all have choices in life, and sometimes even when we make the wrong choice there is another world (many worlds) that parallel this one where we made the right choice. So in some world, those who strive to be good always make the right choice where as those who are evil merely choose which evil path they wish to follow.

It is truly difficult to describe a book that is so complex, but it is an amazing read.

My rating: Five out of five snails.