“In a book like this, you don’t dare go overboard with the fantasy.” Dean Koontz on The Forest Of Lost Souls

Author Dean Koontz is back with another supernatural thriller, which sees a woman take on corruption in her local town (with a bit of help from her wolf friends) in The Forest Of Lost Souls.

Check out the official synopsis here…

Raised in the wilderness by her late great-uncle, Vida is a young woman with an almost preternatural affinity for nature, especially for the wolves that also call the forested mountains home. Formed by hard experience, by love and loss, and by the prophecies of a fortune teller, Vida just wants peace. If only nearby Kettleton County didn’t cast such a dark shadow.

It’s where Jose Nochelobo, the love of Vida’s life and a cherished local hero, died in a tragic accident. That’s the official story, but Vida has reasons to doubt it. The truth can’t be contained for long. Nor can the hungry men of power in Kettleton who want something too: that Vida, like Jose, disappear forever. One by one they come for her, prepared to do anything to see their plans through to their evil end.

Vida is no less prepared for them.

Vida, the forest, and its formidable wonders are waiting. She will not rest until goodness and order have been restored.

We sat down with the legendary author himself to get some insight into his new novel and find out what he’s got in store for us next…

What drove you to write this story, and were there any real-life events, myths, or folklore that influenced it?

At least 40 years ago, I saw an Art Deco bronze sculpture of the Roman goddess Diana crouched among a pack of wolves, holding a bow and arrow. It was such an arresting image that I never got it out of my head.  All these years later,  I came across a 1967 quote from Eric Hoffer: “What starts out here [in the US] as a mass movement ends up as a racket, a cult, or a corporation.” For whatever reason, all these years later, the quote and the image connected in my strange head,  and a story was born.

Eric Hoffer was known as the “blue-collar philosopher,” and was a popular figure in his time. Mainly, he was less about philosophy than about common sense. Hard as it is to believe, there was a market for common sense in those days. We’ve progressed since that primitive era and now if some “blue-collar philosopher” starts speaking common sense, we stone him to death and capture it all on our smartphones.

What inspired the title The Forest of Lost Souls?

There was another title that none of us liked. Brainstorming ensued. Anguish, anxiety, and desperation. Weeping and wailing that terrified the dog and caused her to hide under the bed. And suddenly we realised the title was there in the last line.

Vida is complex and deeply human. How did you go about developing her character for The Forest of Lost Souls?

I took great pleasure in writing about Jane Hawk (the lead of five novels) because she was so smart and tough, so tech and security savvy. I thought it would be interesting to write about a woman just as strong and as smart as Jane – but smart about something different, about nature and our role in it,  a woman with a deep love and knowledge of the natural world that gives her an edge in a battle for survival. As usual, once I start, the character shapes herself or himself.

The supernatural elements in your books often have a grounding in reality. How do you balance the fantastical with the believable in this novel?

A novel thick with realistic detail about things in our world—how they work, why they work that way—provides the perfect setting for elements of fantasy because the fantasy can be made to seem to be a piece with all the story elements that are so real. In a book like this, you don’t dare go overboard with the fantasy, slinging around unicorns and magic lamps and talking raccoons. What I write in a book like this is more like a pared down magic realism carried forward by suspense and momentum.

The Forest of Lost Souls has some heavy themes within it, including loss, grief, crime and corruption – what do you think it is about genre stories that make a good platform to explore such themes?

Literary fiction used to thrive on such themes, but decades ago most writers in that territory began to equate sentiment with sentimentality. They became so misanthropic that they can find no merit in our species except in those who strictly adhere to an acceptable ideology. Ideologies inevitably dumb down them and their work. If a writer doesn’t believe in human exceptionalism, he or she is too cynical to grieve for anyone—or to write about loss and grief convincingly. If you’re a nihilist, it’s impossible to write a story in which you convince the reader that anything matters. Like many of those who consciously define themselves as “literary,” some genre writers have been carried out to sea on that same dark tide, but a lot of others still write with the conviction that human life matters and that there is hope for the future. 

What is it about genre stories that appeal to you as a writer?

Everything.

The themes of loss, redemption, and survival feel prevalent in the novel. What message or feeling do you hope readers will carry with them after finishing the book?

That courage and persistence in a righteous cause will lead to a happier and more fulfilling life than sheepish acceptance. That evil is real and cannot be shaped into benevolence by therapy or caring. That dogs are generally better people than people are.

What are you reading right now?

Several books about the 1930s . I’m writing a novel set in that decade. It was a fascinating time full of so much change that a story with an element of the fantastic, wrapped in the detail and dramatic events of that time, has been an exciting project.

What’s next for you?

Another novel, not the 1930s epic but a spooky comic novel titled Going Home in the Dark, comes out next May, a story that was great fun to write. You would expect me to say it’s great fun because you have been conditioned to think that every writer is engaged in shameless self-promotion, and though I am indeed engaged in shameless self-promotion, Going Home in the Dark is really, really great fun.  As you wait for it to be published, The Forest of Lost Souls is well worth your time and will contribute to your sense of leading a fulfilling life.

The Forest of Lost Souls is out now. Order your copy here.