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Title
Publisher Price Publication Date |
Hung
Cameo Press $ 1.95 1970 |
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Title
Publisher Price Publication Date |
Hung (Reprint)
American Art Enterprises $ 3.95 1989 |
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One of the "lost" pseudonyms has been found! Thanks to David Humphrey, we
have been able to prove conclusively that "Leonard Chris" is one of the
pseudonyms we've all been searching for. David sent me scans and segments of
the book, and from that material it has been proven, without question, to be
one of the unacknowledged pseudonyms. All "Hung" page references below refer to
the 1989 American Art Enterprises reprint edition.
1. The title is the same. 2. The original copyright date is listed as June 1970. This is the roughly the date of the original Cameo Press release as reported on page 477 of Katherine Ramsland's "Dean Koontz: A Writer's Biography" (Harper/Prism 1997) and on page 86 of "Dean Koontz: A Reader's Checklist and Reference Guide" (Checkerbee Checklist 1999). 3: On page 142 of Katherine Ramsland's "Dean Koontz: A Writer's Biography" (Harper/Prism 1997) "Hung" is described as "...another of his attempts to extrapolate from Marshall McLuhan's philosophies about global compression. Along with the sexual content, he had wanted to show how a war as far away as Asia had caused, through the media, an immediate moral impact on the culture." On the first page of the author's note of "Hung" (pseud. Leonard Chris, Cameo Press 1970, American Art Enterprises, 1989) you will see the following sentence: "In the McLuhan Age, sex is becoming a major form of communication." 4. Also on page 142 of Katherine Ramsland's "Dean Koontz: A Writer's Biography" (Harper/Prism 1997) "Hung" is described as a novel that "...exploited the lusts of young men at a small college...". Obviously that matches the content of "Hung", as it involves three male students of Bedford-Eddington University. 5. As noted in the first quote from the Ramsland book, the subject of the novel also concerned Vietnam, and on page 22 of "Hung" Ben Porter says, ' "I go for my draft physical this Saturday. Since there's nothing wrong with me, I might pass." ' Based on these five comparisons (not to mention my being treated like a leper by many serious Koontz collectors) there remains no doubt that this is a missing Koontz novel. Koontz disputes authorship of this novel, claiming the publisher took liberties with the manuscript, and to date has refused to acknowledge the "Leonard Chris' pseudonym. If you have any additional information regarding this book, please contact me so that I may update this page. Continuing research has revealed that there are as many as 13 other erotica titles written under as many as 5 other pseudonyms. As soon as I can verify their existence and authorship, I will add them to the site.
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