Episode #153: Jack Ketchum Remembrance
Edward Lee:
“Dallas was drinking Dewar’s, his mainstay, I was drinking Peroni Lager. We weren’t drunks, but we were two guys at home in bars, a trait that seems to be common among novelists...ah, but I digress. You see–as M.R. James would say-- “words come crowding to the point of my pen when I think of Jack Ketchum.”
Dallas was among my best friends in the field, not just my favorite writer, but the first one I’d ever met, and the one who’d done the most for me. His notorious novel OFF SEASON, which I read with dropped jaw in 1981, functioned as a Big Bang in my creative universe. What balls he had writing that way back then! It was THE book that showed me fiction need not be conformist; it showed me that fiction could be quite different from everything we’d thus far conceived of, that fiction could have audacity and brains at the same time.”
Sedan jag sist hörde The Horror Show så har Brian och Dave fått permanent sällskap av skräckförfattarinnan Mary SanGiovanni. Något som lyft podden från det värsta fanboygnidandet till en högre nivå. Showen lider fortfarande av att vara för intern emellanåt, med referenser till mer eller mindre kända branschfigurer och löst prat om diverse konferenser med poänglösa utläggningar av typen: ”Jag mötte henne senast på NecroNerdiCon i Alberta. Jag tror det var där vi åt den skämda äggsalladen?”
Eftersom Mary stod Dallas Myers nära så är hon kanske extra oumbärlig i det här väldigt lyckade minnesavsnittet över Jack Ketchum, som blir något mer än bara lösryckta anekdoter om en saknad vän och mentor. Segmentet om Ketchum/Myers börjar 37 minuter in i sändningen.
