I’ve been reading King’s work since I was thirteen years old. A few years ago, I learned King’s books were connected in a vast multiverse, so in 2019, I decided to re-read all of his work in order of publication. It’s been a slow go, as I get distracted with other books (too many books, not enough time). This review is about Danse Macabre originally published in 1981.
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“King has taken time off from weaving ghoulish yarns – at which he is this decade’s master – to present us with a textbook of the macabre.” – Philadelphia Bulletin
About The Book 📚
Title: Danse Macabre
Author: Stephen King
Publication Date: mass market paperback 1985, first published 1981
Publisher: Berkley Books
Genre: Nonfiction, Essays
Pages: 437
My Review
“The danse macabre is a waltz with death.”
› Danse Macabre is Stephen King’s first nonfiction book. This is a deep dive into horror written by the “Master of Horror”. After reading it I feel like I completed a university course about horror. King knows how to tell a story.
Dedication: “It’s easy enough – perhaps too easy – to memorialize the dead. This book is for six great writers of the macabre who are still alive.
Robert Bloch
Jorge Luis Borges
Ray Bradbury
Frank Belknap Long
Donald Wandrei
Manly Wade Wellman
Enter, Stranger, at your Riske: Here there be Tygers.”
› This novel is a result of a telephone call King had in 1978 with the editor of his first five books, Bill Thompson. Thompson suggested King write a book about horror, and after a lot of thought King decided he would give it a shot. Throughout Danse Macabre, King discusses his memories of watching and reading horror and provides an in-depth analysis. This is dense- there is a ton of information to take in – however, the conversational style increases the readability.
“For me, the terror – the real terror, as opposed to whatever demons and boogeys which might have been living in my own mind – began on an afternoon in October of 1957. I had just turned ten. And, as was only fitting, I was in a movie theater: the Stratford Theater in downtown Stratford, Connecticut.”
› King talks about how they turned off Earth vs the Flying Saucers suddenly to announce that the President of the U.S. had been shot. This moment sealed into his memory and led to his understanding that what’s going on in society impacts the stories that are written. The horror genre experiences an uptick in popularity when our society is experiencing political unrest or severe economic disturbance. We want the horror to help us escape.
“…what it’s looking for is the place where you, the viewer or the reader, live at your most primitive level.”
› The majority of the work King discusses was made from the 1950s to early 1989s, however, he does talk about the origins of horror. Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hide, Dracula, and Frankenstein. They are the foundations of horror: the Vampire, the Werewolf, and the Thing Without a Name. Later, he will add the fourth archetype: the Ghost.
“Probably Ghost Story by Peter Straub is the best of the supernatural novels to be published in the wake of the three books that kicked off a new horror “wave” in the seventies – those three, of course, being Rosemary’s Baby, The Exorcist, and The Other.”
› I think he hits the nail on the head with why people write horror, watch horror, and read horror – to escape the horrors in real life. And horror is almost always an allegory and filled with symbolism. The monster isn’t just a monster.
“More often the horror movie points even further inward, looking for those deep-seated personal fears – those pressure points – we all must cope with.”
› But sometimes horror is “junk food”. We just want to have a good time. We want a jump scare. We want to be told a scary story.
“They are books and stories which seem to me to fulfill the primary duty of literature – to tell us the truth about ourselves by telling us lies about people who never existed.”
› King also talks about Apollonian and the Dionysian literary concepts and how they are applied to horror. “Apollo represents harmony, progress, clarity, logic and the principle of individuation, whereas Dionysus represents disorder, intoxication, emotion, ecstasy and unity.” (source) Apollonian is order, Dionysian is chaos, and the play between the two creates incredible stories.
“we need ghost stories because we, in fact, are the ghosts.”
› There is an appendix with 100 fantasy/horror films that have contributed something to the genre. King has his personal favourites marked with an asterisk. He also included an appendix of 100 books that he thinks are important to the horror genre (and now added to my TBR).
› He talks about other horror authors, some of whom he sent questions and included the answers in Danse Macabre. There are many pictures from movies and in-depth analyses of old horror movies. It’s amazing to me how he talks about so many moments in books and movies at a time when it wasn’t possible to watch any movie you wanted at any time. Does he bring most of these insights from memory? Does he keep detailed journals? Did he re-watch and re-read hundreds of books and movies? I’m sure he had help, but you can see his passion for the horror genre.
› In the past I have given a rating out of ten and converted that to a star rating, but I’m no longer giving a star rating here on my blog. I will continue to do that on Goodreads and The Story Graph.
› Final Thoughts
• Danse Macabre is an insightful exploration of the horror genre. I would love for Stephen King to write an updated version of this that covers horror from 1980 to now. I recommend this to anyone who wants to learn more about the history of horror.
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