Wilderness

With a first line like, “My mother claimed that in any mirror I used she could see my face rather than her own, my face, and my singular eyes, and she could not thereafter have the mirror in the house,” how could I stop reading? Addison’s mother couldn’t tolerate the way he looked, even sent him out of the house for a day or two when she couldn’t bare his presence. And he was eight years old during one of the “banning from the house,” times when he saw a stranger in the woods, the first human he has ever seen other than his mother. I’m still trying to figure out what this child must look like going into chapter two. Wilderness, by Dean Koontz. Another what in the world is going on here.