This week I was a guest on the “Stephen King Podcast” talking about King’s short story The Ballad of the Flexible Bullet and my upcoming book. You can listen here.
I approached the host, Lou Sytsma, about coming on the show as part of my book promotion because I wanted to talk about how deeply the story influenced my understanding of the madness running through Sherry Shriner’s cult.
If you haven’t read the story, it is worth your time, but the upshot is that what looks like madness from the outside is held together by strong and logical connections inside.
Learning to see it that way, I followed the premise a little further, and came to see how easily people are drawn into the conspiracy world one reasonable premise at a time. My working analogy is that they’re like intellectual gondoliers, pushing themselves forward one fact at a time and paying little notice to which fact got them where they are. Facts of the past don’t matter, only the facts of the present.
Book News
Episodes 1 and 2 of the documentary are on ViceTv.com. I had a couple of people who didn’t know that this was a series ask why the documentary was so short. There will be six episodes, which means four more Mondays’ worth of shows. The book itself is locked and loaded. I should have different signings locked in for the summer in the next 10 days or so.
The book launch will be 11 a.m.-2 p.m, Saturday, June 5 at the Greyhound Bookstore in Berlin. Pre-orders are now available from Secant Publishing and we hope to have a “signed copy” option in the coming weeks.
If you’re in a book club, I’d be happy to come by or beam in (depending upon the whens and wheres). Respond to this email and I’ll get it.
Podcasts
Speaking of the documentary, I actually got a few emails from people who worried I wasn’t kind about Tobyhanna, Pa. I encouraged them (and you) to listen to the Day Drinking on Delmarva podcast because I’m not nearly as nice about Ocean City. Our new tagline is Todd drinks because he gets to live here, Tony drinks because he has to live here.
It’s OK if I don’t like the places you like. Christ, I’m from New Jersey and very few people spare a kind word for the Garden State. I don’t complain, though, I’m happy to let them stay wrong.