Meet Alida: Dean Koontz’s Odd but Endearing Friend of the Family
In his latest novel, The Friend of the Family, Dean Koontz returns to the carnival world for inspiration, a setting he used to great effect in The Funhouse (1980) and Twilight Eyes (1985). Koontz’s fascination with traveling carnivals dates to his childhood, when he lived near the county fairgrounds and dreamed of running away with the circus to escape his traumatic family life. In writing The Funhouse—a screenplay-to-novel adaptation that Koontz wrote under a pen name to avoid being labeled a horror novelist before he became a bestselling author—and even more so in Twilight Eyes, Koontz drew on his knowledge of the carnival subculture to portray the midway’s eccentrics with uncanny authenticity.
It’s 1930 when we meet seventeen-year-old Alida, the heroine of The Friend of the Family. Prohibition is in full force, the Great Depression looms around the corner, and Alida is being exploited for her physical deformities. She’s the main attraction in a traveling carnival’s ten-in-one freak show run by the domineering huckster Forest Farnam. Referring to himself as “Captain,” even though “he had never been a captain of anything,” Captain Farnam claims that Alida’s mother was his sister and that he adopted Alida from her at age two, with legal documents to prove it. Although Koontz keeps the reader in suspense about Alida’s birth defects until the very end, we learn early on that her beautiful face is offset by features in her torso and extremities so grotesque that she conceals them under shapeless clothes and gloves.
Alida is such a profitable draw that Captain takes her on the road during the carnival offseason, where he puts her on display in humiliating speakeasy stage shows. Highly intelligent, a prodigious reader, and blessed with a photographic memory, Alida relies on literary escapism to substitute for what others experience firsthand, and she can recall every line from her favorite book, A Tale of Two Cities. After being heckled during a performance in San Diego’s Gaslamp District and suffering from severe depression, Alida’s fortune takes an unexpected turn. A sophisticated couple attending the show, horrified by the cruelty on display and sensing that Captain’s adoption papers must be forgeries, offers $40,000 for Alida’s freedom, which he accepts only under threat of being reported to the police.
Franklin and Loretta Fairchild welcome Alida into their home, Bramley Hall, a sprawling mansion near Los Angeles, with a full staff to keep it running. The Fairchilds have made their fortune as movie producers, and Alida quickly wins the hearts of the family, which includes two young girls, a younger boy, and a gentle German Shepherd. Alida is soon adopted into the family and thrives in this supportive home, where she mentors her siblings and discovers a fantastical new ability. Yet she’s haunted by recurring nightmares of Captain Farnam reclaiming her and spooked by the unexplained appearance of dead animals in the children’s bedrooms. Koontz uses portentous dreams, supernatural elements, and slow-burning suspense to keep you mesmerized as you wait for Alida’s good luck to end. A housemaid whom Alida has befriended warns her against complacency, a theme that recurs as the story progresses: “Enjoy life—that’s what I learned. But stay alert. Always trust in the rightness of the world. But stay alert. Never be bitter or despairing. Life is a great gift. Love and mercy are the promise of life. But stay alert. Remember everything we do spins off good luck and bad luck for other people, so don’t do what’s obviously stupid or wicked.”
Alida characterizes the story as a memoir of notable events during her time at Bramley Hall (1930-1944), distilled from her daily diary entries. Koontz writes from Alida’s perspective, a rare first-person viewpoint in his novels, suggesting a strong personal connection to this protagonist. Longtime Koontz fans may bemoan this introspective tale, which reads more like a cozy mystery than a thriller and lacks the intense action, plot complexity, and horror quotient of his earlier works. But I appreciate Koontz’s evolution as a storyteller, the lyrical prose, the emotional depth, and the religious thread that stitches everything together. The historical setting and narrative structure call to mind classic novelists like Robert Louis Stevenson and Mary Shelley, bold writers who imagined fantastical beings to reveal more about human nature than any conventional character could. Dean Koontz has come a long way since The Fun House, but he’s still a master of creepy suspense. If this ends up being the last of his circus-related novels, it will be a fitting capstone.

Review by Kevin Joseph Perpetuity is published by Holand Books