Sign up for our newsletters to receive our Best of 2024 ezine!

Summary and Reviews of False Memory by Dean Koontz

False Memory by Dean Koontz

False Memory

by Dean Koontz
  • Critics' Consensus (3):
  • Readers' Rating (30):
  • First Published:
  • Dec 1, 1999, 640 pages
  • Paperback:
  • Jan 2001, 640 pages
  • Rate this book

About This Book

Book Summary

A tale of madness, suspense, love, and terror from a startling and true-life psychological condition so close to home it will stun even his most seasoned readers: autophobia--fear of oneself.

Just when you thought he couldn't top himself, Dean Koontz has done it again with a novel that will chill you to the bone and demonstrate why he has earned the distinction "America's most popular suspense novelist" (Rolling Stone). A Dean Koontz novel is not just an unforgettable read--it is a life-changing experience. As anyone who has ever read one of his novels knows, he creates atmospheric settings, believable characters, and all-too-plausible situations through which he explores the terror that we all suspect lurks just out of sight in our ordinary lives. In this unforgettable novel he weaves a tale of madness, suspense, love, and terror from a startling and true-life psychological condition so close to home it will stun even his most seasoned readers: autophobia--fear of oneself.

Martie Rhodes is a young wife, a successful video game designer, and a compassionate woman who takes her agoraphobic friend, Susan, to therapy sessions. Susan is so afraid of leaving her apartment that even these trips to the doctor's office become ordeals for both women--but with each trip a deeper emotional bond forms between them.

Then one morning Martie experiences a sudden and inexplicable fear of her own, a fleeting but disquieting terror of...her own shadow. The episode is over so quickly it leaves her shaken but amused. The amusement is short-lived. For as she is about to check her makeup, she realizes that she is terrified to look in the mirror and confront the reflection of her own face.

As the episodes of this traumatic condition-- autophobia--build, the lives of Martie and her husband, Dustin, change drastically. Desperate to discover the reasons for his wife's sudden and seemingly inevitable descent into mental chaos, Dusty takes Martie to the renowned therapist who has been treating Susan, and tries to reconstruct/he events of recent months in a frantic search for clues. As he comes closer to the shocking truth, Dusty finds himself afflicted with a condition even more bizarre and fearsome than Martie's.

No fan of Dean Koontz or of classic psychological suspense will want to miss this extraordinary novel of the human mind's capacity to torment-- and destroy--itself. In False Memory, Dean Koontz has created a novel that will stay in your memory long after the final page is turned-- a story not only of gripping fear but also of the power of love and friendship. Once more Koontz reveals why he has, as People put it, the "power to scare the daylights out of us."

On that Tuesday in January, when her life changed forever, Martine Rhodes woke with a headache, developed a sour stomach after washing down two aspirin with grapefruit juice, guaranteed herself an epic bad-hair day by mistakenly using Dustin's shampoo instead of her own, broke a fingernail, burnt her toast, discovered ants swarming through the cabinet under the kitchen sink, eradicated the pests by firing a spray can of insecticide as ferociously as Sigourney Weaver wielded a flamethrower in one of those old extraterrestrial-bug movies, cleaned up the resultant carnage with paper towels, hummed Bach's Requiem as she solemnly consigned the tiny bodies to the trash can, and took a telephone call from her mother, Sabrina, who still prayed for the collapse of Martie's marriage three years after the wedding. Throughout, she remained upbeat--even enthusiastic--about the day ahead, because from her late father, Robert "Smilin' Bob" Woodhouse, she had inherited an optimistic ...

Membership Advantages
  • Reviews
  • "Beyond the Book" articles
  • Free books to read and review (US only)
  • Find books by time period, setting & theme
  • Read-alike suggestions by book and author
  • Book club discussions
  • and much more!
  • Just $45 for 12 months or $15 for 3 months.
  • More about membership!

Reviews

Media Reviews

The Times (London)
Dean Koontz is not just a master of our darkest dreams, but also a literary juggler.

The Times (London)
Dean Koontz is not just a master of our darkest dreams, but also a literary juggler.

Kirkus Reviews
Koontz leaves his competitors buried in the dust.

Reader Reviews

Sherry

Memory Out Done Again
Like always, Dean, you have outdone yourself. The book assuming two people going to the same therapist that are married both end up with mental disabilities just really impresses me. Reading this short writing of what the book is about makes me ...   Read More
Tara

Very Good!
Just read my first Dean Koontz book. I was amazed at how great it was! The twists and turns, and don't forget the ending. Who knew, right? I definitely will be reading more of his books. They are great, and worth reading.
Sky

Great Book-Must Read
As a fan of Koontz for over 10 years, I highly recommend this book..the twists and suspense throughout the story had me reading well into the night wanting to see what would happen next to the characters..The relationship between Skeet and Dusty is ...   Read More
Emily

Oh my God.
Three words to describe how I feel about this book: Oh, my, and gosh. So entertaining; I literally had trouble putting the book down. I'm not even kidding when I say that there were multiple times while reading that I uttered... no, yelled, certain ...   Read More

Write your own review!

Membership Advantages
  • Reviews
  • "Beyond the Book" articles
  • Free books to read and review (US only)
  • Find books by time period, setting & theme
  • Read-alike suggestions by book and author
  • Book club discussions
  • and much more!
  • Just $45 for 12 months or $15 for 3 months.
  • More about membership!

Read-Alikes

Read-Alikes Full readalike results are for members only

If you liked False Memory, try these:

  • Brimstone jacket

    Brimstone

    by Douglas Preston, Lincoln Child

    Published 2005

    About this book

    More by this author

    Featuring bone-chilling suspense and Preston and Child's trademark meticulous research and vivid detail, Brimstone is the duo's—and Pendergast's—most dangerous and gripping adventure yet.

  • The Empty Chair jacket

    The Empty Chair

    by Jeffery Deaver

    Published 2001

    About this book

    More by this author

    This spine-chilling new thriller that pits renowned criminalist Lincoln Rhyme against the ultimate opponent -- Amelia Sachs, his own brilliant protégée.

We have 4 read-alikes for False Memory, but non-members are limited to two results. To see the complete list of this book's read-alikes, you need to be a member.
More books by Dean Koontz
Search read-alikes
How we choose read-alikes
Membership Advantages
  • Reviews
  • "Beyond the Book" articles
  • Free books to read and review (US only)
  • Find books by time period, setting & theme
  • Read-alike suggestions by book and author
  • Book club discussions
  • and much more!
  • Just $45 for 12 months or $15 for 3 months.
  • More about membership!

Top Picks

  • Book Jacket: My Friends
    My Friends
    by Hisham Matar
    The title of Hisham Matar's My Friends takes on affectionate but mournful tones as its story unfolds...
  • Book Jacket: James
    James
    by Percival Everett
    The Oscar-nominated film American Fiction (2023) and the Percival Everett novel it was based on, ...
  • Book Jacket
    But the Girl
    by Jessica Zhan Mei Yu
    Jessica Zhan Mei Yu's But the Girl begins with the real-life disappearance of Malaysia Airlines ...
  • Book Jacket: Patriot
    Patriot
    by Alexei Navalny
    On the 17th of January, 2024, colleagues of Alexei Navalny posted a message to his Instagram account...

BookBrowse Book Club

Book Jacket
The Berry Pickers
by Amanda Peters
A four-year-old Mi'kmaq girl disappears, leaving a mystery unsolved for fifty years.
Book Jacket
In Our Midst
by Nancy Jensen
In Our Midst follows a German immigrant family’s fight for freedom after their internment post–Pearl Harbor.
Who Said...

If passion drives you, let reason hold the reins

Click Here to find out who said this, as well as discovering other famous literary quotes!

Wordplay

Big Holiday Wordplay 2024

Enter Now