On the night that Jimmy Tock is born, his paternal grandfather, Josef, is in the same hospital, dying of a stroke.
A storm rages outside as Jimmy's father, Rudy, moves between the expectant father's waiting room and his dying father's bedside.
At the peak of the storm, Josef suddenly sits up in bed and, though aphasic since his stroke, regains his ability to speak.
He describes in very particular detail his baby grandson—Jimmy—who is at that moment being born in another ward. Then,
with great urgency, he imparts five dates to Rudy, five dates in the life of Jimmy. Although Josef is not entirely coherent,
he makes it clear as he dies that each of these dates will be a dark one in the life of his grandson, a day of terrible events for
which Jimmy must prepare himself.
All the particulars Josef has provided about his infant grandson prove to be precisely accurate, solidly establishing Josef's bona
fides as a deathbed clairvoyant. What terrifying events await Jimmy Tock on those five days in his life? The first is to occur in
his 20th year; the second in his 23rd year; the third in his 28th; the fourth in his 29th; the fifth in his 30th. LIFE EXPECTANCY
unfolds over the course of these five shattering days, as the breathtaking narrative picks up Jimmy at each of these crisis points in
his life and carries the reader along on a thrilling journey that defies all expectation, along a twisting, terrifying, and ultimately
triumphant course that only Dean Koontz could devise.
