Life Expectancy (novel)

infobox Book |
name = Life Expectancy
title_orig =
translator =


image_caption = Cover of "Life Expectancy"
author = Dean Koontz
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country = United States
language = English
series =
genre = Suspense, Psychological novel
publisher = Bantam Books
release_date = 2004
english_release_date =
media_type = Print (Paperback)
pages = 496 pp
isbn = ISBN 0-553-58824-9
preceded_by =
followed_by =

"Life Expectancy" is a novel by science fiction/horror writer Dean R. Koontz. The plot centers on five pivotal moments in the life of a self-proclaimed "lummox" named James "Jimmy" Tock.

Plot summary

James Tock was born on a stormy night in Snow County Hospital in Colorado...and at the exact moment his grandfather, Josef Tock, a pastry chef, dies of a stroke. Though crippled by a stroke earlier in the week, moments before his death, Josef recovers miraculously to impart on his son Rudy ten cryptic predictions: the boy would be born at 10:46 PM, weigh 8 pounds, 10 ounces, be 20 inches long and be born with syndactyly. Josef also predicts five terrible days to come in his grandson's life. He names each, though not why they are so terrible, and Rudy dutifully notes them on the back of a free circus pass given to him by a police officer friend. Coherent though bizarre his speech may be, Josef Tock does not recover from his event, but expires right after the final word is spoken.

"Kidneys?! It doesn't make any sense! Why would kidneys be so damn important?!"

Earlier in the evening, Rudy Tock made the acquaintance of a strange man, Konrad Beezo. Beezo is a clown for the very circus Tock's pass is for, and is a fitful, spiteful, creepy, chain smoking individual half in his clown costume. His wife Natalie, a trapeze artist of some renown and born of a good family, is lying in childbirth, says he, and her relatives have virtually disowned her for marrying him. He speaks glowingly of his soon-to-be-born son, who is to be named "Punchinello", and will carry on the fine tradition of clowning. He speaks venomously of his father-in-law, using many colorful epithets.

"Do you believe snakes can fly, Rudy Tock?"

Tock is only too grateful to leave Beezo and attend to both his father and his wife Maddy...however, relief is short-lived. Beezo, upon learning Natalie died in childbirth, goes insane ranting about her family sending assassins to kill her and begins shooting, killing a doctor and a nurse. Tock, in perhaps the one moment of heroism in his meek baker's life, convinces the mad clown his enemies have left, and momentarily quells his anger. Beezo leaves, his son Punchinello swaddled in his arms... but drops this bomb: "I'll never forget you, Rudy Tock. Never."

As his late grandfather predicted, Jimmy Tock is twenty inches long, 8 lb. 10 oz, and has syndactyly (a fusing of the digits at birth). The problem is corrected with minor surgery, yet as he grows older, with his grandfather's Damoclesian prediction hanging over him, he begins to see his birth defect as a metaphor for life.

"Things often prove to be fused in unexpected ways. Moments separated by many years are unexpectedly joined, as if the space- time continuum has been folded by some power with either a peculiar sense of humor or an agenda arguably worthwhile but so complex as to be mystifying. People unknown to each other discover that they are bonded by fate as completely as two toes as completely as two toes sharing a single sheath of skin."

Jimmy Tock writes the book, a loose autobiography of personal experience, reminisces, and second- or even third-hand accounts of events, transcribing it from a series of tapes on the eve of his fifth and final terrible day. The narrative is given in an often self-depricating, comically understated manner. However, certain experiences stand out starkly, most noticeably blundering into a harrowing, yet almost surreal, bank robbery by a trio of plastique-wielding craze history buff clowns led by none other than Punchinello Beezo--in which Jimmy gradually realizes he's falling for a comely fellow hostage (task one)--and a dangerous game of chicken with a severely disturbed stalker on an icy road the night his wife Lorrie--the former fellow hostage--is about to deliver their first child (task two). The man after the Tocks is none other than Konrad Beezo himself, looking for retribution for his imprisoned, and accidentally-gelded son. His mad obsession with the family frames both this terrible day (2) and the next predicted day (3)--for Beezo desires a male Tock child as his prize, a new son to raise in the fine clown tradition. The lunatic will do whatever he must to collect what he believes due him, including numerous facial reconstructive surgeries to assume new identities and escape the grasp of the law.

As the prophecies are fulfilled one by one, and he survives each, Jimmy learns many things about himself--as well as Konrad, Natalie, Punchinello, and Konrad's father-in-law, Virgilio Vivacemente, the vain, sadistic patriarch of the world-famous acrobatic clan who casts his long shadow over the lives of both the Tocks and the Beezos. Some of Jimmy's revelations are beautiful; others fearsome; still others shake his meek, lumbering pastry chef's life to the foundation and cause him to reflect on the true meaning of syndactyly--as both an ailment and a life's philosophy.

Jimmy believes that everyone in the world is tenebrously yet inexorably connected to one another, just as his toes were at birth. This phenomenon is often called "six (or seven) degrees" and has been explored by many thinkers, authors, and film buffs over the years, most notably in the party game [http://www-distance.syr.edu/bacon.html Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon] , based upon the ubiquitousness of the actor. Sometimes rendered as "Seven Degrees", the game purports that anyone in Hollywood can be connected to the actor.

"Kevin is A, and another actor named is B.
B appeared in a movie or television show with C.
C appeared with A (Bacon).
This, C has a Bacon Number (or BN) of 2.."

Punchinello represents the other side of the coin; an avowed solipsist who believes that he is the only person who matters, and upon his passing, all the world, all perception, dies with him. Yet it is to this maniac, now in prison for his crime nine years past, that Jimmy comes to, on that day ordained nearly three decades ago, to ask a boon-- which Jimmy believes to be the fourth day in the prophesy, perhaps the hardest of the labors. Jimmy reveals something to his old captor that he recently learned, which he hopes to make the clown's son a bit more agreeable. Punchinello does agree, but one condition--which Jimmy has no choice but to fulfill, for he sees it is the final prophesied task.

And as he prepares to face the last of his five labors, Jimmy reflects on the writing at the bottom of that thirty-year-old ticket on which his life was mapped out: "PREPARE TO BE ENCHANTED!", and all the meanings those four red words hold, with both hope and trepidation.

Five terrible days

Josef Tock predicted five terrible days in Jimmy's life. They begin to occur once he had reached young adulthood. The trials of these days are as follows:

1. Jimmy is held hostage by Konrad Beezo's son, Punchinello, at a library. In the end, Jimmy thwarts Punchinello's escape and in the process Punchinello suffers severe injuries to his genitals which lead to their removal, and Jimmy is shot twice in the leg. On this day Jimmy also meets the love of his life, Lorrie Lynn Hicks.

2. Jimmy's and Lorrie's house is burned down by the vengeful Konrad Beezo, furious over Jimmy and Lorrie's inadvertent injuries to his son, preventing his son from continuing the family 'clown line'. Only three items, including the circus pass with the five dates and a locket given to Lorrie by Jimmy, survive. Konrad swears to return and kidnap Jimmy's and Lorrie's son if ever they have one.

3. Despite attempts to prevent it, Konrad does return (disguising himself with plastic surgery) and attacks the Tocks in an attempt to kidnap their son Andy as promised. Though he loses his life in the attempt to kidnap Andy, Konrad shoots Lorrie. After this shot, Lorrie is rushed to surgery. Lorrie survives the surgery, but loses one of her kidneys which will become important on the fourth date. They are also informed that her injuries prevent them from having any more children.

4. Annie Tock, Jimmy's oldest daughter, suffers from kidney cancer and requires a transplant. Lorrie possesses only one kidney and Jimmy is an unsuitable donor. The Tocks must turn to the imprisoned Punchinello, revealed to be Jimmy's fraternal twin brother (it was only recently learned that they were separated at birth when Natalie died and Konrad took Punchinello; the Tock's son was stillborn and a kind nurse substituted Jimmy for their child in an effort to keep him from foster care or Konrad's family). Punchinello possesses much spite toward Jimmy and Lorrie for castrating and imprisoning him on the first terrible day, but ultimately agrees to the donation, on one condition: Jimmy must kill Punchinello's (and technically Jimmy's) grandfather, the father of their deceased mother. On the day of the successful transplant, however, Jimmy's much-loved grandmother Rowena passes away in her sleep. However, Jimmy's 'deal with the devil' is ultimately revealed to not precisely be that, as...

5. Jimmy is contacted by Virgilio Vivacemente, the aerialist who is his grandfather. Jimmy and Lorrie meet with him at his circus where Virgilio requests their son Andy as his heir. It is very quickly revealed that Virgilio is as foul a sample as humanity if not more so then Konrad and Punchinello: he is planning to buy Andy, and he will not take no for an answer, planning to kill Jimmy and every member of Jimmy's family to get Andy. Virgilio's unbelievable arrogance, cruelty, and malice is further laid bare as it is revealed that Konrad Beezo never impregnated Natalie Vivacemente; rather, Jimmy and Punchinello were products of incestual rape between Virgilio and his daughter, Virgilio believing this was far better to keep his bloodline pure. In the end, Jimmy and Lorrie do refuse, and in the resulting carnage Virgilio is killed by Lorrie after he first attempts to kill Jimmy. In the end, Jimmy survives, and despite the consequences of Lorrie's near-fatal shooting, in the final chapter Jimmy and Lorrie do have a fourth child, Rowena. A patient in the hospital who dies the same day predicts five glorious and joyous days in the child's life, bringing Josef's predictions about Jimmy's life full-circle.

The phenomenon in other books

* Koontz, Dean R. "From the Corner of His Eye" (2001). ISBN 0-553-58274-7

The phenomenon in film

* "Six Degrees of Separation" (1993), starring Will Smith, Stockard Channing, Donald Sutherland.

External links

* [http://www.allreaders.com/Topics/Info_29167.asp Life Expectancy Book Review]