Hi friends, happy Friday! I hope you’re all having a good first week to the year! Today I’m back with another book in my Stephen King Project – Danse Macabre, my first non-fiction read of his, let’s get into it!

I read this from September 18, 2022 – December 25, 2022 (3 months)

The *Book (1980)

*This is the third edition of this novel, published in 2010.

• This opens with not 1 or 2 but 3 forwards. The 1st is from this edition published in 2010 where King goes at length about all the horror films that basically tickle his fancy. The 2nd is from the original 1980 where King talks about the reason for writing this book, which was compelling. The 3rd was from 1983 where someone wrote to tell him what he got wrong & a new edition was born. Great prep for what’s to come.
• Chapter 1 opens with King’s realization of how real world events and fiction are connected and how he saw you can bridge the gap between them. It was a short and snappy intro filled with personal stories as well as his own musings on the horror genre. The reader liked that he referred to it as a dance and how it moves rhythmically through the reader.
• Chapter 2 takes a look at what hooks a good horror story; what does it take for something to be considered horror. It started off good with compelling ideas of what people (Americans) find monstrous or frightening dating back to the 1920s until roughly the 1960s. But King just kind of went on and on about grotesque things that felt very outdated. The reader is still curious what future chapters will hold.
• Chapter 3 goes into great lengths about 3 horror novels that King deems represent the horror genre well. There were moments of great ideas and thought, which the reader enjoyed, but there were also parts where he just went on a complete tangent, leaving the reader question how they got so far from the novel he was talking about. This chapter probably didn’t need to be so long.
• In chapter 4 King takes a break from analyzing horror as a genre and gets personal. It was actually really interesting to learn more about King as a person, a little about his up-bringing and how that played into how he got into horror. When talking about himself, it was so easy to read and didn’t feel bogged down with technical stuff. A really fascinating chapter.
• Chapter 5 takes a short dive into the medium of radio and how the horror genre thrived in this form. King goes on a bit of a tangent comparing radio to TV/movies, but aside from that it was interesting to read as we’re so accustomed to seeing things rather than hearing them – it makes for a scarier story, as you don’t know exactly what is happening; your mind is left to fill in the blanks.
• The first half of chapter 6 takes a look at the horror genre as an art form, taking into account the subtexts of the genre. King has a lot of interesting points that the reader found fascinating, but they lost interest every so often as he’d go down a rabbit hole of information & it felt overbearing to the subject. In the second half of the chapter, the reader hopes will be less daunting to get through.
• In the second half of chapter 6 we got less of King’s tangents and more of actual concepts and thoughts that made it a more pleasant read. He covered the social act of horror (where he talked about his own book Carrie), talked about the horror in fairy tales and ended it on our own fears and how those can be used against us. Super fascinating to read and think about.
• In chapter 7 King talked about bad horror movies and TV shows and why we sometimes love to hate on them and eat them up like candy. It was an interesting chapter where he actually stayed on topic. Half of the movies he talked about, the reader has never even heard of and there’s probably a clear reason as to why, but it still a fascinating read.
• In chapter 8 King talked about the horror genre & how it doesn’t do well on TV. Given this book was written many years ago, his references are a bit out dated & there have been successful horror TV series or mini series since, but the reader appreciates all the examples he pulled out that again haven’t been heard of. He leaned heavily on The Twilight Zone & it’s success & failures which was an interesting read.
• In the first half of chapter 9 King really dived deep into novels of the horror genre that he thought made it what it is (or was in the 80s). He talked about vampires, ghosts & werewolves & really, extensively talked about The Haunting of Hill house. For the most part, it was really fascinating all these theories and thoughts he had, but it got tedious after a while. Interested to see what novel he talks about next.
• In part 2 of chapter 9 King goes on to talk about the urban paranoia and paranoia in general – how the every day can be used as horror, in which King is very good at. He uses a lot of examples to prove his point, which is validating but reading this years after its publication, King could use himself as a reference. It was insightful, if not a little drawn out by his tangents, which he even admits to.
• In the third part of chapter 9 King discusses the sub-genre of fantasy and magic within the horror genre. It was an interesting cross genre and not something the reader truly thought about before this. King pulled up quite a few examples from pop culture and really went on a deep dive on a novel called The Shrinking Man, which this reader hasn’t heard of before but made his point.
• In the final part of chapter 9 King talks about what feels like one of his favourite writers: Harlan Ellison. We’re taken down a rabbit hole of his work which spilled into his views that led back to his fantasy horror writing. It was a lot of weaving and trying to find the connections. It wasn’t a completely boring read but it wasn’t as fascinating as past parts have been.
• In the chapter 10 (and the last) King wraps up by talking about the violence that ensues due to the horror genre in any format. He then talks about his career (at that point up to ‘80) and dives deeply into The Stand. It was an interesting way to end his thoughts on horror; a lot of kinda what he’s already alluded to, but at least he didn’t go on too long.

Final thoughts: Aside from being extremely repetitive at times and throughout multiple chapters, there was some good content that was actually worth reading. His thoughts on the horror genre (once you finally wade through it all) was interesting and reading his thought process on how he feels he fits into the genre was captivating. He leaned into a lot of the different formats and didn’t just stick to books, which led to fascinating discussions that this reader never thought about before reading this. He also gave great examples for readers to check out to back up his points that he talked about. Even if you haven’t read the work he mentioned, he went into great detail so you didn’t feel like you had to read/watch it – it was helpful but also made some of his points hard to get through because it felt like you were wading through long scene descriptions or synopsis. Did this book need to be as long as it was? Probably not, but every once in a while, there was something good to read. He also talked about the different sub-genres of horror, which again, was something this reader never looked at before so there was some good stuff there.
In the end, this reader wouldn’t recommend it to the causal King fan or even a causal horror fan. If you’re really into his work, you will find this compelling to read; otherwise it reads more as a biased look into why one guy loves the genre a lot.

Up Next: Creepshow