From the Corner of His Eye
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| From the Corner of His Eye | |
 Cover of From the Corner of His Eye |
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| Author | Dean Koontz |
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| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Genre(s) | Suspense, Thriller |
| Publisher | Bantam Publishing |
| Publication date | 2000 |
| Media type | Paperback |
| Pages | 768 |
| ISBN | ISBN 0-553-58274-7 |
From the Corner of His Eye is a novel by the best-selling author Dean Koontz, released in 2000. It is the story of a boy named Bartholomew Lampion, a ruthless killer named Enoch Cain, and a girl named Angel, born by the result of a rape.
Contents |
[edit] Synopsis
Dean Koontz tells a fascinating tale of good and evil, and how the concepts influence people's lives. The book begins with three separate stories that eventually intertwine: A loving relationship between a mother and her genius son, a ruthless killer, and a young woman who takes it upon herself to raise her late sister's baby.
[edit] Characters
[edit] Bartholomew Lampion
Bartholomew Lampion (known as Barty by his mother and his friends) was born to Agnes and Joey Lampion, but Joey died in a car accident on the way to the hospital to take Agnes in for labour. Barty was exceptionally smart as a baby. He learned to talk and walk exceptionally early and taught himself to read at the age of two. He also started advanced mathematics a little later. Throughout the book he is known as a "child prodigy." One day when Barty and his mother went to Joey's grave it was raining. Agnes got soaked in the weather, but not a single drop touched Barty. This is shown on page 292-293.
"As the fragrances of wet wool and sodden denim rose from her
sweater and jeans, Agnes switched on the heater and angled the
vanes of the middle vent toward Barty. "Honey, turn that other vent
toward yourself."
"I'm okay."
"You'll catch pneumonia," she warned, reaching across the boy
to flip the passenger's-side vent toward him.
"You need the heat, Mommy. Not me."
And when she finally looked directly at him, blinked at him, her
lashes flicking off a spay of fine droplets, Agnes saw that Barty was
dry. Not a single jewel of rain glimmered in his thick dark hair or on
the baby-smooth planes of his face. His shirt and sweater were as dry
as if they had just been taken off a hanger and from a dresser drawer.
A few drops darkened the boy's khaki pants-but Agnes
realized this was water that had dripped from her arm as she'd
reached across him to adjust the vent.
"I ran where the rain wasn't," he said.
-From the Corner of His Eye- Pages 292, 293.
At the age of three Barty was reading and started to complain about wavy lines in the pages of his book. When his mother took him to the doctor He found out that he had a rare cancer that would spread to his brain if his eyes weren't removed. So they took his eyes out, but later in the book he gets his vision back when he is thirteen. Again he says that he was walking where he wasn't blind.
[edit] Agnes Lampion (The Pie Lady)
Agnes Lampion was Barty's mother and was married to Joey Lampion who died the day Barty was born. Agnes guided Barty through life and helped him when he was blinded. She was also known as the "Pie Lady" and gave out pies to people as well as doing various other acts of kindness around the town.
[edit] Enoch Cain (Junior)
Enoch Cain was a delusional and arrogant psychopath. With an extremely obscure and demented motive, he pushed his beloved wife Naomi out of a fire tower to her death. He managed to fool all investigating officers that it was in accident, except Thomas Vanadium who devoted his life to proving his guilt. He often promised himself he'd never kill again for fear of punishment, yet broke those promises due to his increasing insanity. He and the White family's lives became intertwined because of an unsettling dream and a vicious act of violence. He is revealed to be Angel's father. Early in the book, he believed that Angel was Bartholomew and attempted to kill her, Celestina, and Wally. He is pushed into another world by Angel after trying to kill Barty.
[edit] Thomas Vanadium
Thomas Vanadium was a detective and previously a priest. He had a talent to flick quarters through a hole or gap in dimensions and into another. He was sent into a year-long coma after Junior killed a nurse and tried to kill Vanadium. Vanadium suffered numerous facial injuries as a result of this, thus making his face severely distorted. Unlike Angel, Barty cannot extend his power to Vanadium so he can walk in the rain without getting wet. Near the end of the story, he helps Angel, Grace, and Celestina move into the Lampions' house. Eventually, after Jacob is killed by Junior, he moves into Jacob's apartment on the Lampion's property (By then Thomas had become good friends with the Lampions', the Whites', and the Isaacsons'). He also helps start The Pie Lady Services. A few years before Thomas eventually died from old age, he once again became a man of the cloth.
[edit] Celestina White
Celestina White was the sister of Seraphim White (Angel's mother) and adopted Angel when her sister died. She was hunted by Junior, but managed to escape.
[edit] Angel White
Angel was the daughter of Seraphim White and Seraphim's rapist, Junior. Angel was adopted by Celestina, her aunt. She and Barty become friends almost immediantly, she and Barty also later get married and have a child named Mary. Celestina, Wally, and her grandmother, Grace, live next door to the Lampions'.
[edit] Seraphim White
Seraphim, or Phimie, was Celestina's younger sister. She died after naming Angel. She was 15 when she was pregnant with Angel, and was 16 when Angel was born. When Junior vists Phimie's grave, he remembers the time he spent with Seraphim. He mentions that Seraphim was not raped but had sex with Junior willingly, which led to her being pregnant with Angel; she claimed she was raped in order to be spared scorn from her family. However, Seraphim was in fact raped, it is only in Junior's mind that she was a willing participant. Junior is delusional, he sees life very differently to others. He believes that when his rape victims struggle and plead they are in fact simply playing hard to get and in fact are inviting him to rape them.
[edit] Jacob Isaacson
Agnes's brother as well as Edom's twin brother. Jacob lives in an apartment on the Lampion's property and has been there since he graduated from High School. He thinks of himself as a miserable failure, he also has a good talent for baking. Jacob is ultimately shot and killed by Junior when Junior manages to track Angel and Barty to the Lampions' property.
[edit] Edom Isaacson
Edom, as stated above is the identical twin brother of Jacob as well as Agnes's older brother. He often recites terrible tragedies from the past to mostly unwilling hearers. Later, he gets married to Maria ( Agnes's English Student and good friend) a Mexican woman.
