Danse Macabre by Stephen King

I just finished reading Stephen King’s non-fiction “overview of the horror genre,” as it says on the book’s cover, originally published in 1981. It’s a very entertaining read, particularly for King fans, and it’s full of great insights about horror and recommendations for good books, shows and movies (from about the 1950s - 1980). It’s quite idiosyncratic, rather than attempting to be definitive, but his ideas are right on the money and sync well with contemporary academic thinkers on horror. And it should be obvious that it’s considerably more fun hearing them from Stephen King.

I only really got in to King in the past decade, having been too afraid to read him when I was younger. By now, I credit him largely with inspiring me to write over the past year. When the pandemic hit, thanks to all of the SK I’ve read in the last decade, I began to feel as if I, too, could put pen to paper. Saying that, it seems like I am insulting him, as if I think his stuff is dreck and if it can get published, I could get published; but this is not it at all. I love his work; the thing that it taught me was that it’s okay to be—in fact, you can only be—yourself when you write. It’s okay, it’s totally okay—in fact, it’s not even for you to judge—for the work not to be literary to some vague standard; just write. Let it out.

I’m not sure why King inspired me in this way—I have always read and loved “great literature,” say, Faulkner or Dostoevsky, and I don’t put King quite at that level. King is more like Dickens, to me; but in any case, King, more than anyone has taught me that these value systems, these labels, are not worth much to writers and that you should, you know, just write. There is a deep love of human beings and a deep humility even in his craziest, most Coke-fueled work (from decades ago), and it has given me the courage to try to tell stories, too.

There’s much similar, continuing inspiration in Danse Macabre. Depending on your interests, too, some parts might get a little dry. I loved the movie section, naturally, enjoyed the TV section a bit, and sometimes had to work through the fiction section. But I also bought a bunch of ebook versions of his fiction recommendations for a summer Read-A-Thon.