“Maybe there is a beast… maybe it’s only us.”
There’s been a wreck. A British aeroplane has crashed on a remote island, leaving the Losers stranded somewhere in the vastness of the Pacific Ocean. Hope is dwindling, but the weather is beautiful, the vegetation is plentiful, and there’s even livestock roaming around. In an effort to establish some kind of order, Caffrey picks up a lone conch in the blistering sand and institutes three rules: to have fun, to survive, and to pod.
What could go wrong?
For those confused, Danse Macabre is a recurring feature of The Losers’ Club that journeys through all the books that influenced Stephen King. (You know, as he listed in his 1981 horror manifesto Danse Macabre; hence the name of this series.) What started last October with Shirley Jackson’s The Haunting of Hill House continues this summer with 1954’s Lord of the Flies by Nobel Prize-winning British author William Golding.
Join Losers Dan Caffrey, Jenn Adams, Rachel Reeves, and Mel Kassel as they discuss Golding’s influence on King’s writing, the history of dark children’s narratives, and the politics of masculinity and violence. They’ll also giggle at Golding’s own version of poundcake, and ruminate on whether the novel inspired King to write Carrie and It (or even The Stand). Fun fact: The Castle Rock name originated within these very pages.
Stream the episode below and stay tuned for October’s Danse Macabre installment on Ray Bradbury’s Something Wicked This Way Comes. For further adventures, be sure to join the Club over long days and pleasant nights via Apple Podcasts, Spotify, RadioPublic, Acast, Google Podcasts, and RSS. You can also unlock hundreds of hours of content in The Barrens (Patreon).