Essays

I have just realized that for years I have addressed this newsletter to “readers,” inadvertently limiting my audience to those who can read. In fact, I have limited my reach even further by assuming that I am producing this newsletter for people who not only can read but who also read for enjoyment and prefer novels, as opposed to manifestos advocating the destruction of the world as we know it. Let me hasten to apologize to those I may have failed to include in my greeting. Also let me assure you that I am here for all of you, even for those who can read but who loath novels and bitterly despise novelists and would burn down their own home rather than let it be inherited by any child who spoke in favor of me and my kind.

In my defense, I would argue that if I chose to please you by writing a manifesto advocating the destruction of the world as we know it, I could produce a stirring and amusing document that would inspire a large cult of like-minded zealots who would perpetrate terrifying spectacles of mayhem and chaos. Now, of course, you are saying, “All right, Koontz, if you’re sincere, if you could indeed overthrow civilization with a manifesto that I would enjoy, why don’t you go write the damn thing instead of your stupid newsletter.”

I would take no offense if you said such a thing. Although I could create an ideology so appealing that my followers would destroy the world within a month of the document’s publication, I am not easily offended. Anger is not my thing. Indeed, I have not experienced a moment of anger in 47 years, since what is known around here as the “Month of Blood and Fury,” when the dry cleaner couldn’t get that spot of gravy out of my favorite sport coat.

However, because of a decision I made when I was 25, I am unable to inspire and oversee the destruction of the world no matter how much the idea might appeal to me. You see, back then I took advantage of an offer by one of those fruit-of-the-month outfits and gave them a one-time payment of $14,999 to purchase a lifetime membership. I’ve now received $96,400 worth of fruit. Destroying the world would be a hoot. But I’m not the kind who can walk away from what amounts to free produce, even if I am sick to death of those little citrus things they call “sugar babies.”

Whether you want to destroy the world or not, here’s something that I’m sure we can agree on. Companies that contract to send you fruit every month should be severely punished for including avocados. Yes, an avocado has a seed and qualifies as a fruit, just as do tomatoes. Technically. When I expect real fruit, something sweet, and instead receive a box of avocados and tomatoes, I do not get angry. Anger is not my thing. But I do become infuriated. I think the executives of these companies should become nonpersons, forbidden employment of any kind, painted green to identify them as vegetable fanatics, and required to limit their diets to dishes in which garbanzo beans are a significant ingredient. They might as well have run a company called Infuriation-of-the-Month Society, sending you something guaranteed to propel you into a seething rage.

Personally, anger is not my thing. As both a writer and reader, my thing is storytelling in the form of novels. This Thanksgiving, if I get gravy on my favorite sport coat, if I drop a mass of buttery mashed potatoes on my pants, if I dribble cranberry sauce on my shirt, I will smile and take it with good humor suitable to the season, and I will consider the day to have been delightful because I will spend the evening reading a book. The book might be one by another writer that he or she is aggressively flogging in his or her own newsletter. If it is a book of mine, it will be The Forest of Lost Souls, my latest, or The Bad Weather Friend, which came out early this year. I won’t engage in aggressive flogging. That’s not my thing. But I do honestly believe you will feel that for the price of my novel you are getting more value than $96,400 of fruit.