The Bad Weather Friend

Content Warning: This section of the guide includes discussion of addiction and child abuse.

Dean Koontz is a best-selling American author who has published over 100 novels, both under his own name and under several pen names, including Brian Coffey and Leigh Nichols. He was born and raised in rural Pennsylvania, where he survived the abuse of his father, who had an alcohol addiction (Carroll, Jerry. “Dean Koontz Fears Nothing / Memories of Abuse Feed His Scary Novels.” SF Gate, 23 Feb. 1998). Koontz has stated in several interviews that his painful upbringing influenced much of his writing, including aspects of Benny Catspaw’s traumatic childhood in The Bad Weather Friend. His wife, Gerda Cerra, and his memories of his childhood experiences collectively inspired him to convert to Catholicism, about which he once said, “[The religion] permits a view of life that sees mystery and wonder in all things” (Drake, Tim. “Chatting With Koontz About Faith.” National Catholic Register, 6 Mar. 2007). After college, Koontz worked as a high school English teacher and wrote his first novel, Star Quest (1968). Over the next decade, he wrote and published over a dozen novels, but his first real breakthrough came with his thriller novel Whispers (1980).