Heart Transplant Research - Not for the Faint of Heart
I have been asked how much research into transplant surgery I did before writing YOUR HEART BELONGS TO ME. I would like to reveal that, in the interest of accuracy and the accumulation of vivid detail, and because I bring total commitment to my writing, I underwent a heart transplant myself, even though I didn't need one. This would be a lie, however, and people without a sense of humor would write by the hundreds to accuse me of taking a perfectly good heart needed by some patient who really needed it.
To prepare for this novel, I read a few books on the subject of transplants, watched two educational films during which I passed out repeatedly at the sight of blood, and spoke with a few medical specialists in the field--largely to ascertain how they manage not to pass out in surgery every time they expose the pulsing internal organs of a patient.
Ryan Perry, the lead of YOUR HEART BELONGS TO ME, is 34, wealthy from the Internet social-networking site that he created, with an ideal life ahead of him. Then he learns he suffers from cardiomyopathy and will die wis thaithin a year if he does not undergo a heart transplant. The procedure is successful, but a year later he begins to receive gifts--such as a heart-shaped locket--with the message "Your heart belongs to me. I want it back."
Although it might seem to be a ghost story, YOUR HEART BELONGS TO ME is something else entirely. In addition to being a thriller with a medical procedure as a key element, it is an unusual love story. Those who have never read my books--we know who you are--might be surprised to learn that more often than not, a love story is part of the mix. In a romantic relationship, we're vulnerable; and when a character in a novel is vulnerable, we are more likely to worry about him or her and to relate more intimately to the story. Furthermore, people in love have something precious to lose, and in their sometimes desperate efforts to hold fast to that love, they reveal themselves more profoundly than they might otherwise.
In the early years of my career--or what we here in Koontzland call "the long slog"--publishers resisted me when I wanted to mix genres. These days, my publisher encourages me to pursue fresh ways of telling stories. Consequently, YOUR HEART BELONGS TO ME is a suspense novel and love story with a thread of the supernatural weaving through it, set against a backdrop of medicine and medical mystery, concerning certain issues of ethics that are timeless--and others that are unique to our time. And I promise you that the medical detail is not so graphic that you will pass out.
Insights
All About Anna
Ten months after losing Trixie, Dean and Gerda were ready to bring a new dog into their lives. At that time, in May of this year, the Canine Companions for Independence division in Oceanside had a young golden retriever, sent to them from the Northwest division, that they had decided to release from their program.
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The Darkest Ice Cream of the Year
I once said writing a novel is sometimes like making love and sometimes like having a tooth pulled--and sometimes like making love while having a tooth pulled. I arrived at one of those joyful yet excruciating moments while working on THE DARKEST EVENING OF THE YEAR.
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"Starring" Dean Koontz? You've Got to Be Kidding!
My publisher's Creative Marketing Department lives up to its name in every regard: The folks there are creative, they know marketing, and they have their own department. Considering that they also have to put up with me, they would be well advised to rename themselves the Patient Creative Marketing Department.
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ABOUT ODD THOMAS
So I was in the middle of writing THE FACE, polishing page 345 of the manuscript, focused to such an intense degree that even an attack by a pack of wolverines failed to distract me from the keyboard (a team of out-call physicians treated me in my office chair: 124 stitches, a series of rabies shots, a procedure to reattach my left foot, and nine operations by a plastic surgeon to reconstruct my nose - all of which cost me only four hours of writing time.)
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THE IMPORTANCE OF BEING ODD
When I wrote ODD THOMAS, the title character came to me fully formed, as if he were a real person whom I had known all my life. No character in any of my previous novels led me through his story with such grace, with his voice unfailingly strong in my mind's ear, making revelations about himself and his family that were surprising - even shocking in some instances - yet seemed inevitable to me the moment they were made.
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Funny Bone
THE ORIGIN OF AUDIO BOOKS
Ten thousand years before the first word of history was written, the first audio book was created by Og, brother of Nogg and Plogg, son of Vog and Noog, grandson of Zogg and Heather. Og was a born storyteller frustrated that paper had not yet been invented. He wrote his first book on slabs of wood, burning the words and pictures into the surface with sharp pieces of stone superheated in fire fed by Wooly Mammoth fat. He is credited by some with inventing the words "hot," "ouch," "S***," "***k," "D**n," and "************," as well as the exclamation point.
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THE MURDER OF A PEN NAME
During the first fifteen years of my career, my income per novel was so small that I might have done better trying to sell hamburgers to Hindus. The proceeds from one novel per year would have sustained me only if I had crafted all my clothes from leaves, wild grass, and bird feathers, with no concern for the cruel stares that rude people would direct at me, and with a willingness to tolerate the pain from being pecked by all those angry, bald birds.
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