uinely fond of the simple people she writes about. “Most highbrowrnwriters,” Koontz observes, “do not like ordinary life.”)rnThe really amazing thing, we agree, is the smug obtuseness ofrnthe chattering classes that identify government as the source of allrnblessings and regard religion and regionalism as the ultimaternevils.rn”In this bloodiest century of human history, how can anyonerndoubt that evil can arise from government? Statists always bringrnup the Spanish Inquisition, which killed a few thousand people,rna minor horror compared with what anti-religious governmentsrnhave done in modem times,” and he ticks off the tens of millionsrnkilled by Hitler, Stalin, and Mao. “It’s not paranoid to look unflinchinglyrnat the source of so much evil in this century,” he says,rnwondering why the press is so willing to distort the facts.rnKoontz’s latest novel. False Memory, includes not-so-subtle allusionsrnto the false reporting that sold the NATO attack on Yugoslaviarnas a humanitarian rescue mission.rnDK: One of the primary themes of this novel is our society’s increasingrninability to distinguish fantasy from reality. It was sornOrwellian, the way that war was sold to the country, the way thernnews was manufactured—and so badly manufactured.rnIt wasn’t even subtly done. On the one hand were the newrnNazis, on the other were the innocent victims. There was no realit)’rnbase to it. Most people in the media simply wanted thisrnwar to happen, and it terrified me to see the press so warmongering,rnwhen we had thought of the media as pacifistic. BecausernI love this coimtry and love this country’s history, I wasrnalarmed by our lawless and astoundingly violent policy in Yugoslavia,rnbut I was even more disturbed to discover that manyrnwell-educated people of my acquaintance were indifferent tornthe lawlessness and oblivious of its Orwellian nature. As far as Irnam aware, we went to war for the first time against a country thatrnhad done nothing to us or to an ally. A stain on this country . . .rncalculatedly bombing civilian targets. It is difficult to understandrnthe true motivations of the journalists who sold this war,rnthough a large part of it is that these people arc fools.rn/ ask if a novelist with strong opinions is ever tempted to preach.rnHe occasionally may cross the line, he concedes, but he always remembersrnthat preaching does not persuade. A good story can,rnhowever, change people’s minds, as the volume of his mail attests.rnKoontz receives about 10,000 letters a year, most of them to a postrnoffice box whose number is printed in all his recent hooks. Includingrnthe box number did not increase the flow of mail, but itrndid guarantee that no publishers secretary would neglect to forwardrnthe letters.rnHis most popular book to date, measured by letters as well asrnsales, may be Watchers, probably because of its emotional impact.rnKoontz says he is not at all afraid of sentiment, which is notrnthe same thing as sentimentality, “except, of course, in romancernnovels where sentimentality may be wanted.” In recent film, as inrnfiction, there is a striking lack of strong characters and emotionalrncontent, though Koontz professes himself an eternal optimist notrnjust about life but about the arts.rnDK: That is part of our obligafion as Christians, and I do seernsigns of a change for the better. The Sixth Sense—an upliftingrnmovie with an amazing performance by Bruce Willis—is a reminderrnof how poorly most scripts these days are written, howrnfull of holes the plots are, and how cheap the tricks are they playrnon audiences. This is an emofionally powerful film, one thatrnDean Koontz and his dog, Trixie.rnplays fair with the audience. It says, ultimately, that life hasrnmeaning, which is rarely a belief expressed in Hollywood’s currentrncesspool of cynicism.rnSpeaking of messages in fiction, Koontz says that his favoriternwriters have always been didactic novelists but that didacticismrnhas to be kept under control. Asked to name his favorite novelists,rnKoontz begins to discuss Dickens, but digresses.rnDK: In college I was in rebellion, and I was reading people theyrndidn’t want me to read —James M. Cain, Raymond Chandlerrn— what a pair of moralists those two are . . . Cain writesrnabout people who make all the mistakes, but boy do they pay forrnthem. They don’t just walk away into the sunset. Double Indemnity,rnby the way, has one of the best last lines in English-languagernfiction . . . The guilty couple is on a cruise, and thernman—coming home to arrest and imprisonment—now realizesrnthat he’s sacrificed everything for a woman who is mentallyrnand morally sick. She comes into the cabin wearing a red dress,rnand, after some small talk, he turns to the portal, looks up, andrnthinks. The Moon. Of course, those final two words refer to lunacy,rnbut also to the gravitational pull exerted in each of us byrnthe dark side of human nature, to the fact that we are fallen. Yetrnthere is, in addition, an ineffable mystery in the effect of thoserntwo words. They resonate down on that deep level where languagernknots with instinct.rnIt’s this quality of fiction that makes me think that it has morerntruth than nonficfion. It reaches you in mysterious ways that gornbeyond analysis, beyond what even the author can explain,rnthough I’m not a deconstructionist. I know that if I’m sittingrnAPRIL 2000/11rnrnrn