Customer Reviews

Hanging on

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

When I finally found a copy of this book, I was not disappointed. Different from other Koontz tomes, this novel, set in World War II, has a great cast of characters, and is full of laughs, sex, and zany insights into something (war) that is normally not funny.

Dean Koontz is currently one of the most popular writers in the English language today, with over 300 million books in print. Given this fact, it's hard to believe he spent the first 20 years of his writing career in virtual obscurity. Indeed, most of the novels he wrote before 1975, including all of his science fiction work, is out of print and almost impossible to find at a reasonable price.

In 1973, Koontz wrote HANGING ON, a military comedy in the spirit of books like M*A*S*H and Catch-22. The book flopped, and has been out of print for the last thirty or so years. There is little evidence that Koontz or his publisher will ever re-issue the title. This is unfortunate, because it's a very fine book.

HANGING ON is about a US military unit stationed behind enemy lines in France, during World War II. Essentially, the unit's job is pointless: to keep a bridge open that serves little practical utility. The Germans keep bombing the bridge, and the unit keeps on rebuilding it. In the meantime, the unit tries its best to avoid being discovered by German patrols.

The major point of this book is the humor. All the members of the unit are eccentric, mainly as a way of "hanging on" to their sanity in the face of violence. This leads to a lot of joking, chicanery and casual sex -- with a particular emphasis on the sex. This is easily the raunchiest book that Koontz has written, which may surprise some of his long-term fans. Think of the original movie version of M*A*S*H, and that's the type of graphic humor you will often find in this book.

Overall, HANGING ON is a fine effort and perhaps the best of Koontz's 1970s novels. However, it is nothing like his more famous work -- it is not structured as a thriller or horror story (although suspenseful things do happen). Still, it's a fun read for people interested in a screwball story with a lot of off-color humor. I really enjoyed it.