Wow. It’s not right, to be 32 to and to see people who you grew up watching die when they’re only a few years older than you are. Of course I’m talking about Corey Haim, who died yesterday. Why on earth am I bothering to write anything about him when he stopped being so famous a long time ago, and an admission of liking him is probably slightly embarrassing? I guess he is indirectly responsible for my love of books, well certainly my love of Dean Koontz books anyway.
Let me explain. I grew up a loner, I spent a lot of time on my own, so I spent a LOT of time watching films. I got addicted to films with Corey Haim in (look, I was a teenager, it’s probably the same thing with teenagers and vampire films today). So anyway, I ended up watching a very obscure film with him in called Watchers. One thing led to another and a traipse through WH Smiths one Saturday led me to “bumping into” Dean Koontz books. The rest as they say, is probably history. I started reading Watchers and then read just about everything else that I could get my hands on by Dean Koontz, then by other similar authors (except Stephen King, don’t like his books for some reason).
If I’m being a bit nostalgic, (which clearly I am as I’m listening to Pearl Jam, REM and Stone Temple Pilots), then it’s worth recalling that I ended up reading a lot of books that films were based on. Mainly for the reason that we had no cinema in the town where I grew up, and no video rental stores, you either bought it, or relied on Sky. So I read things like, Silence of the Lambs (great book, well written, the film is very close to the story), What’s Eating Gilbert Grape (the book was OK I seem to remember, but it’s the only film I’ve seen with Leonardo DiCaprio in, he’s a terrible actor), Pride and Prejudice (OK, so I loved the TV series, we did have TV, it wasn’t that archane in Somerset growing up), and Sleeping with the Enemy (great book, great film).
Anyway, it’s just quite sad that he’s died really, he clearly didn’t have a fantastic life, probably a typical sad story of the wasted youth of a child star. I guess hats off to him for giving me my love of reading the genre I like to read. I hope he has a better afterlife.
