As a child, eleven or twelve, maybe even ten, I  was an avid Stephen King fan.  I remember being excited to become a middle school student because the library was connected with the high school library, and there were Stephen King books in there.  I recall signing out Danse Macabre...and being bored to tears.  I hadn't yet discovered the box of yellowed paperbacks in the attic filled with books like Rosemary's Baby, the Omen, Harvest House, and more.  I had no frame of reference for the book, but I trudged dimly through it just so I could say I read it.

            After my first residency at Seton Hill, with about fifteen years of horror reading under my belt, I read it again.  I could read anything Mr. King writes, shopping lists, etc.  His tone when addressing the readers is comfortable, like a warm bath. 

            My favorite part of Danse Macabre is his treatment of modern horror fiction.  I have read most (but not all, not yet) of the books discussed here.  He pulls out some big guns for his list, Ghost Story, Something Wicked This Way Comes, Rosemary's Baby--I adore where King refers to the Exorcist as being a part of the Humorless Thudding Tract School of horror writing and hopes we never hear from Blatty again--Haunting of Hill House and more.                  

            During his chapter on Invasion of the Body Snatchers by Jack Finney, King reflects that the STORY is what it's all about, and I absolutely believe in that.  He says of Moby Dick: "The story still remains--"This is what happened to Ishmael."  He goes on to say "...story, thank God, after a certain point becomes irreducible, mysterious, impervious to analysis."  In the section on Haunting of Hill House/House Next Door, King describes college and university professors as "lepidopterists of literature, who, when they see a lovely butterfly, feel that they should immediately run into the field with a net, catch it, kill it with a drop of chloroform, and mount it on a white board and put it in a glass case, where it will still be beautiful...and just as dead as horseshit."

            Academics, at times, lose sight of a powerful story when they focus their sights on structure, theme, mood, and style.  Most writers, at least the ones I like to read, don't set out to write a mood and wrap their tale to fit it, they start with a story...what happened to Ishmael?  Stephen King very kindly compares Masters Studies in English to the Emperor's new clothes, dealing with imaginary constructions that we pretend are there.

            Between Stephen King’s tone, his easy to read analysis peppered with curse words (I could read anything if it had curse words, I think) and the fascinating subject matter, as an adult I truly enjoy this book.  I want to read all the books he discusses, see all the movies, for a greater appreciation of his analysis.