The City

Bad things happen, but good things happen, too. That seems to be the message of bestseller Koontz's maudlin account of the life of Jonah Kirk, saddled by his parents with no less than seven middle names, each the last name of a famous jazz musician. The novel, which recounts the consequences of Jonah's encounters with a woman "who claimed she was the city," offers airy optimistic passages that won't persuade anyone acquainted with the harder side of life to always look on the bright side of it: "In fact, time teaches us that the musical score of life oscillates between that of Psycho and that of The Sound of Music, with by far the greatest number of our days lived to the strains of an innocuous and modestly budgeted picture." Jonah's relationships with his gifted, loving mother and with his absent, hustler father are clich%C3%A9s, and the concept that a city, which after all is made "great or not" by its people, takes the form of an attractive woman is too underdeveloped to have any charm. (July)