Morbid Book Club: Victorian Psycho By Virginia Feito

Spoilers Ahead!!! For this month's BONUS EPISODE it's Book Club time, weirdos! This time we're joined by bestselling horror author Paul Tremblay for a conversation about one of our favorite recent reads: Victorian Psycho by Virginia Feito! We dive into everything that makes this deliciously deranged novel so unforgettable, from its razor-sharp dark humor and gloriously unhinged protagonist to the gothic atmosphere and jaw-dropping moments that had us audibly gasping. So grab your beverage of choice, settle in, and join us for a delightfully creepy conversation with one of horror's finest. And if you haven't read Victorian Psycho yet... consider this your sign, and join the bookclub discussion once you've devoured it!

• 0:08Speaker 00

  Hey weirdos. This episode is brought to you by Ashley. Your home should show off who you are. As the largest furniture store brand in North America, Ashley can help you create a comfortable, functional, and stylish home that you can feel proud of, and in a price range that works for you. With Ashley's lifestyle-driven designs, you don't have to choose between practical and being stylish. Visit your local Ashley store, or head to ashley.com to find your style.

• 0:38Speaker 00

  All right, brothers. We're gonna get into the actual intro, but first, Big Red has something to tell you.

• 0:44Speaker 01

  I do have something to tell you. Today, we have somebody very special on the pod, in the pod lab, the second pod lab.

• 0:51Speaker 00

  Ash Kel's pod lab.

• 0:52Speaker 01

  Ash Kel's pod lab.

• 0:53Speaker 00

  Welcome to the pod lab. It's still a little bit under construction, but we're working on it.

• 0:57Speaker 01

  It's pretty great. We have...

• 0:58Speaker 00

  Whoa!

• 1:01Speaker 01

  Thanks, Mikey!

• 1:02Speaker 00

  That was badass.

• 1:03Speaker 01

  We have Paul Tremblay on the pod today. Paul is the critically acclaimed New York Times bestselling author of Head Full of Ghosts, The Pall Bearer's Club, Cabin at the End of the World, and actually, that one has already been adapted to a film. It's Knock at the Cabin, I believe it's called. So go check that out. And Head Full of Ghosts is gonna be adapted to a movie.

• 1:27Speaker 00

  So cool.

• 1:28Speaker 01

  Wait for that. His newest release, right here, Dead but Dreaming of Electric Sheep, which is an amazing title. It's coming out June 30th. That's wherever you can find books. We have actually already recorded with Paul and had a fucking fantastic time.

• 1:43Speaker 00

  He was so nice.

• 1:44Speaker 01

  He's phenomenal. His books are phenomenal, and I urge you to go check them out. And we're really excited for you to see our conversation with him.

• 1:51Speaker 00

  Woo! Before we get into the episode, we do just have to thank our sponsor one more time. Ashley is such an icon. I'm not talking about myself. I'm talking about this gorgeous furniture that we are sitting on and our feet are upon, and our drank are upon. We got, this is the Revy on Lake sofa that we're sitting on. It's comfy.

• 2:11Speaker 01

  It's really comfy.

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  It's chic. I love the color and it's washable, which is nice. I got the, the love seat over there. And then we have the melee coffee table, which I'm actually ordering another one to put in my living room downstairs because I love it so much.

• 2:27Speaker 01

  I'd like to say really quick that the schweppes on there was a mistake.

• 2:31Speaker 00

  A mistake.

• 2:31Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:32Speaker 00

  Instacart, I'm not talking to you right now. Um, and finally, these are the core stone tables, the end tables. What I love about these is that I feel like I'm like a QVC girl.

• 2:41Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:42Speaker 00

  I love that you can dress them up, like the shelves, you could kind of just like put all your couture mants, all your decor, your, your trinkets, your tchotchkes.

• 2:52Speaker 01

  Yara movies.

• 2:53Speaker 00

  Yahara movies, your Awala, your game that you crafted with your sister and hunt a killer. You can just put anything on the end table. So thank you to Ashley for sponsoring today's episode and for sending us this really cool furniture.

• 3:06Speaker 01

  Cause it's sick.

• 3:07Speaker 00

  And without further ado, let's get into it. Y'all. Hey weirdos, I'm Ash.

• 3:11Speaker 01

  I'm Elena.

• 3:13Speaker 02

  And I'm Grady Hendrix. No, wait, I'm Paul.

• 3:15Speaker 00

  We said, Paul, you can be whoever you want to be today.

• 3:18Speaker 01

  And he chose Grady Hendrix.

• 3:19Speaker 00

  Oh guys, this is morbid.

• 3:36Speaker 01

  This is a very special morbid. We have, and I mean, we already introduced him, but I'm going to introduce him again.

• 3:42Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 3:42Speaker 01

  This is Paul Tremblay. If you don't know him, go figure it out because he, there's a body of work that you need to get into right now. He's an amazing writer and you're missing out if you haven't read his books.

• 3:53Speaker 00

  So get to it.

• 3:54Speaker 01

  And also there's several adaptations that have been happening lately.

• 3:58Speaker 02

  Yeah. Thank you so much.

• 3:59Speaker 01

  You're welcome.

• 4:00Speaker 02

  The most recent would be a head full of ghosts wrapped filming. In the Dublin area, which is where actually Victorian Psycho was filmed in Ireland as well.

• 4:10Speaker 01

  Oh, that's cool.

• 4:11Speaker 02

  Virginia and I talked a little bit about, but anyway, wrapped and probably be out in a year from now. Yeah, super excited.

• 4:17Speaker 01

  I'm really excited for that. That's actually one of my favorite of your books.

• 4:20Speaker 02

  Thank you so much.

• 4:21Speaker 01

  So I'm very excited about that.

• 4:22Speaker 02

  It's gonna be a scary movie.

• 4:24Speaker 00

  Love that.

• 4:25Speaker 02

  They didn't pull any punches. So the directors, as we were talking, my wife and I on the way over, the directors are Austrian niece and nephew, like, like, this is kind of fun that you guys have.

• 4:35Speaker 01

  Oh, my God, that's so cool.

• 4:36Speaker 00

  Oh, that is funny. Like us.

• 4:37Speaker 01

  Like us.

• 4:39Speaker 02

  Or I should say aunt nephew. Yeah.

• 4:40Speaker 01

  Yeah, there you go.

• 4:41Speaker 02

  Right.

• 4:41Speaker 00

  Cool.

• 4:42Speaker 01

  That's so cool.

• 4:42Speaker 00

  That's rad.

• 4:43Speaker 01

  I love that. Well, we mentioned Victorian Psycho.

• 4:47Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 4:48Speaker 01

  That's what we're gonna be talking about today.

• 4:49Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 4:50Speaker 01

  This was actually your pick, which we were very excited. And I had heard about this book. It's by Virginia Feito, excuse me. And I've heard about this book everywhere. Like, I'm on TikTok, like, BookTok, loves it. I've heard about it. So many people have told me you have to read this book. And it's been on my TBR forever. So when you mentioned it, I was like, whoa, perfect time.

• 5:11Speaker 02

  Great.

• 5:11Speaker 01

  I ate this book up in one day, like, one afternoon. Literally, just ate it up. It's so easy to read. It is such a good book. I think it's so unique.

• 5:22Speaker 00

  Yeah, I feel like I've never read anything quite like this, you know?

• 5:25Speaker 01

  Truly.

• 5:26Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 5:26Speaker 01

  And we're gonna get really into it in a minute, but first, I want to talk to you about you.

• 5:31Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 5:32Speaker 01

  Because you guys gotta know who Paul is.

• 5:33Speaker 02

  I'm not Victorian.

• 5:34Speaker 01

  You're not Victorian, not quite.

• 5:36Speaker 00

  Are you a psycho?

• 5:38Speaker 02

  Only one I don't.

• 5:38Speaker 00

  To be determined. We'll figure it out through this. So we were actually just talking about this.

• 5:43Speaker 01

  Congrats on finally becoming a full-time writer.

• 5:47Speaker 02

  Thank you.

• 5:47Speaker 01

  That's incredible.

• 5:48Speaker 02

  I appreciate that. Yeah, it's a little weird, a little daunting. Yeah, I've been a high school math teacher for 30 years, and people usually react more in horror to that than they do to horror writing.

• 5:59Speaker 01

  I was gonna say, that's horror to me, to be honest.

• 6:02Speaker 02

  No, I totally get it. You know, at a small school local to here, and they were always super supportive. Let me be the weirdo horror-writing agnostic math teacher in a Catholic boys' school.

• 6:12Speaker 00

  Oh, hell, yeah.

• 6:13Speaker 01

  That's badass.

• 6:14Speaker 00

  That's awesome. That's so cool.

• 6:15Speaker 01

  That's a story in and of itself that you need to write a thing. That really is.

• 6:18Speaker 02

  Very thankful. They're never, you know, if I missed a day or two to go to, like, a festival or something, they were great.

• 6:23Speaker 01

  Oh, that's so cool.

• 6:23Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 6:24Speaker 01

  That's so rare.

• 6:25Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 6:25Speaker 01

  Yeah, I can see why you stayed there for so long.

• 6:27Speaker 02

  No, it was like, I mean, my artistic writerly safety net.

• 6:30Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 6:31Speaker 02

  Maybe similar to you, like you were just telling me how you kept your job for a long time. I mean, it was, it was just nice to know, hey, I had this job that sometimes paid our shitty health insurance. And then, you know, I could write a book and if it was weird, that's okay.

• 6:43Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 6:43Speaker 02

  If I needed to say no, I could because I didn't have to like do what the publisher said or what people expected.

• 6:49Speaker 01

  I know, and I think that actually makes it better. I feel like you probably were a little able to be more free and creative with that when you have that safety net. Cause when it's all on you, it's like, huh, like this has to work. It has to be what everyone likes.

• 7:01Speaker 02

  No, a hundred percent.

• 7:02Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 7:03Speaker 02

  Always admire friends who make a go of it, you know, full time. And that's how they've been supporting their family for years. I mean, that's a pressure that I'll have to figure out. Though my kids are older now, so they're on their own.

• 7:12Speaker 01

  So whatever. Yeah. So who cares?

• 7:14Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 7:15Speaker 01

  Well, you're definitely like the most successful like part-time writer I've ever seen.

• 7:20Speaker 02

  I appreciate it.

• 7:20Speaker 01

  Like, that's crazy. When I saw, I think I saw you post about it and I was like, wait a minute. Like, he's not full-time doing this? What the hell? But you, you seem to have come to the full-time side of writing at the right time because I feel like horror is having kind of like a cultural renaissance right now. Like we, even like with movies and stuff like Backrooms, Weapons, Sinners, Frankenstein, obsession. Why do you think that's happening right now?

• 7:44Speaker 02

  Yeah, I mean, it's hard to answer.

• 7:48Speaker 02

  I'm not sure. I mean, I think some of it was funny. Let me back up. So Headful of Ghost was the book that sort of made me like, that broke out. And we were, when we were trying to sell that in early 2014, a lot of publishers were like, ah, but it's horror. And like, it was, we eventually did get a, yeah, published, which was amazing, but just, it's not that long ago, like now, like 11, 12 years later.

• 8:10Speaker 01

  No.

• 8:11Speaker 02

  It's like, you know.

• 8:11Speaker 01

  And people are like, oh.

• 8:12Speaker 02

  Publishers Weekly reports and like, oh, the sale, like the, the publisher acquisition of horror novels is up 25% from last year, which was up 25% from the year before. And it's just, you know, the worst case scenario person in me that, you know, powers my books is like, oh no, it's gonna be a bubble that pops.

• 8:28Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 8:29Speaker 02

  Like next week.

• 8:30Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's nerve-wracking.

• 8:32Speaker 02

  But no, I mean, I think it's a healthy place. We're finally getting to see, it's not just. You know, authors who look, you know, white, straight authors who look like me and Grady. It's, you know, we're getting to see way more own voices. And, you know, to me, that's like one of the most exciting parts about what we're seeing, both in film and, and in publishing.

• 8:49Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah, I agree. I think it's like different point of views coming into it. I think finally people are being open to that, which is nice. And I love it. I love seeing that. And I love seeing them like win awards. I love all of like seeing this happen. I'm like, it's time. It's our time.

• 9:05Speaker 02

  No, I mean, the other part of it is I think, you know, well, I mean, I'll talk about Gen X a little bit. Like, I mean, so many of us grew up reading Stephen King and watching the movies. And then, you know, the later half of the previous decade, you know, so many of us were now publishing books like, you know, the children, if not of Stephen King, but of, of that time period.

• 9:23Speaker 01

  Yeah, right.

• 9:23Speaker 02

  Yeah, like I say, there's less of it. There's still a stigma with horror, which I hope never leaves, frankly. I mean, I always want horror. Horror should be poking and prodding at uncomfortable things and on the boundaries. So I hope it doesn't lose that. Yeah. So I think honestly, Get Out has a lot to do with it. Like when that came out, like that was the first time.

• 9:41Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 9:42Speaker 02

  Broader culture, especially academia and mainstream reviewers were like, oh, there were, there were, I remember literal articles in New York Times, like, do we need to take horror seriously because of that movie?

• 9:52Speaker 00

  They were like, yeah, that movie did change the landscape a little.

• 9:55Speaker 01

  That movie is flawless to me.

• 9:57Speaker 00

  I love that movie.

• 9:58Speaker 01

  Flawless. I love that movie.

• 10:00Speaker 00

  So good.

• 10:00Speaker 01

  Now, do you remember the exact moment that you realized that you wanted to write horror?

• 10:05Speaker 02

  Oh, jeez, no. It's hard to explain how I got there. I mean, I'm a lifelong scaredy cat for one. So I've always had like a love terrified relationship with horror.

• 10:15Speaker 01

  That's how I feel.

• 10:16Speaker 02

  Yeah, still, like, if I'm alone in the house, I'm not above sleeping with like a desk lamp on.

• 10:20Speaker 00

  Oh, yeah, same.

• 10:21Speaker 02

  Or, you know, noise machines and still go up the basement steps too quick, just because I'm ridiculous. But I mean, I wasn't even like a huge reader as a kid. Like, I was just sort of like a nerdy math person. You know, loved the Celtics.

• 10:38Speaker 02

  And it wasn't until college where I met my wife Lisa. She bought me, right after I graduated, two things happened. My last, and I hope this isn't too boring, you can cut it.

• 10:50Speaker 02

  I had to take a English requirement. I was in a freshman English class, second semester senior year.

• 10:54Speaker 00

  Oh damn.

• 10:55Speaker 02

  It blew my mind. I had like the stereotype experience and

• 10:57Speaker 00

  Okay.

• 10:58Speaker 02

  The teacher was a big punk music fan and I was too, so we connected. But anyway, one of the stories I read in that class was Joyce Carol Oates's Where Are You Going? Where Have You Been? And I remember reading it and I actually said aloud, I was like, I didn't know people wrote things like this.

• 11:10Speaker 00

  I love that.

• 11:11Speaker 02

  And shortly after that, Lisa bought me the stand after graduation and I hailed that. And I went off to grad school for two years and struggled by the skin of my teeth to get a master's degree. That's when I was reading everything Stephen King wrote and

• 11:22Speaker 00

  Yep.

• 11:22Speaker 02

  From Dance Macabre, I branched out to like Peter Straub and Clive Barker and Shirley Jackson. And then, two years after that, I got my first teaching job and I had the weird itch to try writing a story. Inexplicable. Like, why would I try writing a story?

• 11:33Speaker 00

  I love that though.

• 11:35Speaker 01

  I love that though.

• 11:35Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 11:36Speaker 00

  That's so cool.

• 11:37Speaker 01

  That's how I felt too. When I first started writing, like the, my first book, I was like, I don't know how to write a story. Like, I was like, I can't write a whole book. Like, what am I doing?

• 11:45Speaker 00

  Like, I'll just write this down. Imagine everybody feels that way when they first write something.

• 11:48Speaker 01

  I feel like everyone has to feel that way, you know, in the beginning, being like, I'm not gonna get to the end of this. Like,

• 11:53Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 11:53Speaker 01

  This is gonna be something someone reads.

• 11:55Speaker 02

  Right. I got terrible at writing advice, so I don't give it. The only thing I tell, especially to younger people, it's like, hey, you know, hopefully you come to this realization a lot earlier than I did, but hopefully, you know, you come to the realization that it's okay to like things. And it's getting harder and harder to do that with, you know, obviously, which is, you know, social media life and everyone hates everything.

• 12:14Speaker 00

  Mm-hmm.

• 12:15Speaker 02

  You know, it's okay to like things. That means it's okay to be passionate about it and maybe you want to try it yourself. And I mean, that's such an important, it has to be your first step.

• 12:22Speaker 01

  Yes. I'm so, I'm so glad you said that, because I'm constantly trying to tell my kids that. I'm like, I want to tell you now, when you're young, like, you can be passionately excited about things and not feel weird about it. Like, don't make people feel, like, make you feel like you can't be all in on something.

• 12:39Speaker 02

  Right.

• 12:39Speaker 01

  And want to do it, or want to experience it, or want to learn everything you can about it. Like, I feel like we have got to a place now where like,

• 12:46Speaker 00

  Everybody wants to be the same.

• 12:48Speaker 01

  And everything's cringe. And it's like, that's so cringey that you're into it. It's like, stop. I hate that.

• 12:53Speaker 02

  Unless they like Grady Hendrix books, then we should really stop.

• 12:55Speaker 01

  Then that's cringe. I love Grady.

• 12:58Speaker 00

  Grady?

• 12:59Speaker 02

  Grady's a friend. I just like making fun of him.

• 13:01Speaker 01

  We love Grady. We had him on and we had the most fun with him. He's great.

• 13:04Speaker 02

  It was a fun episode.

• 13:05Speaker 01

  He is so much fun.

• 13:06Speaker 00

  He's so funny.

• 13:07Speaker 01

  He was really fun with the Would You Rather? So, get ready for that.

• 13:10Speaker 02

  I know, it's pressure.

• 13:12Speaker 01

  And actually, like, this kind of leads into my, what I wanted to talk about next. So, speaking of like, a love of writing and getting passionate about things, AI.

• 13:21Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 13:21Speaker 01

  I have to rant with you about it.

• 13:23Speaker 02

  Sure.

• 13:23Speaker 01

  Because I think we feel the exact same way about it.

• 13:26Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah.

• 13:27Speaker 01

  I, it's upsetting me so much that, because like, books like this, like Victorian Psycho, aren't gonna happen with AI. And it's making me crazy.

• 13:36Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 13:37Speaker 01

  That it's become a thing, and I feel like you need to go through the whole, like, being inspired to write something, coming up with the idea, like, working through it, at some point, like, reading your own writing and being like, oh, my God, I'm a genius. And then the next day, reading it and being like, I'm a hack and I should never do this.

• 13:53Speaker 02

  Right.

• 13:53Speaker 01

  And then fighting through that feeling and coming out on the other side, like, you need to have that full experience.

• 13:58Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 13:58Speaker 01

  And I feel like, all of a sudden, we're gonna get these books that don't have that behind it. And I feel like you need that injected into the book for it to be what it needs to be.

• 14:08Speaker 02

  No interest in reading it. I mean, the whole idea, to me, is reading something or watching a movie or any other piece of art, what the connection is, oh, this person felt like I did.

• 14:16Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 14:17Speaker 02

  It feels like I do, too.

• 14:18Speaker 01

  Right.

• 14:18Speaker 02

  And there will never be any of that.

• 14:20Speaker 01

  No.

• 14:21Speaker 02

  You know, with AI, never mind that they steal our books.

• 14:23Speaker 01

  Exactly.

• 14:24Speaker 02

  You know, give, you know, and I was a part of the first lawsuit suing OpenAI on behalf of writers.

• 14:30Speaker 01

  I love that.

• 14:30Speaker 02

  For two years, myself, other horror leading the way. Christopher Golden, another horror writer.

• 14:36Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 14:36Speaker 02

  And Richard Codre, and also weirdly, well, not weirdly, but like, not horror writer, but Sarah Silverman. We were the first four and spent two years as a part of it. They come, there's so many lawsuits, they consolidate it all to one, so that, like, I didn't continue because they also chose different lawyers, it was weird. But, yeah, no, I mean, you know, I'm sorry if it makes people uncomfortable, but like, you're not a writer or a visual artist if you're using it. You're a scab, to use, like, we don't have a union, but I'm gonna use union terms. You're a scab.

• 15:05Speaker 01

  Exactly.

• 15:06Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 15:07Speaker 00

  It's stolen work.

• 15:08Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 15:08Speaker 00

  It just, at the end of the day.

• 15:10Speaker 01

  Makes me crazy. And there's just no humanity behind it, like, AI can't come up. I mean, you see, you can always see it in, like, metaphors and stuff that you'll see written by AI. You're like, that doesn't even make sense. Like, you, because you don't have the capacity as a computer to compare two things. Like, you just don't, like, it doesn't make any sense.

• 15:27Speaker 02

  It's. I mean, in one way, it's like it's helped crystallize like why I'm still passionate about reading and watching movies and viewing art. But it's the connection components. It's like, why do we have to defend this or explain why that this is important?

• 15:42Speaker 01

  Exactly. And it makes it so you have a book coming out on June 30th, and it's Dead But Dreaming of Electric Sheep. I love that title, first of all. Such a good title. Such a good title. And it has some AI components in it, like in the story. It's about that. The plot seems so interesting to me. Can you tell us a little bit about it?

• 16:03Speaker 02

  Yeah, sure. I'm bad at the quick pitch.

• 16:06Speaker 01

  I'm terrible at it, so don't worry. I think that's like a thing across the board with authors.

• 16:10Speaker 02

  How do we have that out of the way? So the main conceit is that there's someone who's like my age and billed working for, well, not Google, because I didn't want to get sued. I think I called them Sicilian, a giant tech company in the Silicon Valley.

• 16:22Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 16:23Speaker 02

  He's working on campus in the mailroom, and he doesn't drop dead, but he has a massive stroke where he can breathe and his heart's beating, but he's not, you know, there's no consciousness. He's in a vegetative state, so they say. He signed his body directly to, over to the company, though, prior to this happening.

• 16:42Speaker 01

  As one does.

• 16:42Speaker 02

  As one does. And they implant AI and nanobots into his brain so someone can remote control him like they're playing a video game.

• 16:49Speaker 01

  That's the creepiest thing.

• 16:51Speaker 02

  So most of that happens off page. The semi-estranged 24-year-old daughter of the CFO, she was an ex-professional gamer, is hired to basically weekend at Bernie's him across the country.

• 17:05Speaker 01

  Oh, my God.

• 17:06Speaker 02

  So I'm hopeful. I hope that a big chunk of this book, maybe the first two thirds of her chapters, Julia's chapters, is definitely satire and hopefully very funny.

• 17:14Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 17:16Speaker 02

  Even though it's ultimately a serious thing. So the book is split between her chapters and chapters are titled you, which is from the point of view of the man with a tech in his head. So he, he is still conscious because of what they've put in his head. He's going through like a phantasmic oracle hellscape. And then the two, sort of the two narratives sort of link up at the end and everyone's happy and hugs.

• 17:37Speaker 01

  Oh, I love this. I love the dual POV. That, that's gonna be good. I'm really excited for that.

• 17:42Speaker 00

  Yeah, I love a dual POV. That's really cool. And to think about just like being unconscious, but conscious at the same time. That's, that's wild.

• 17:52Speaker 01

  That's honestly my worst nightmare.

• 17:53Speaker 02

  Definitely very horrific.

• 17:54Speaker 00

  Yeah, it's very Black Mirror.

• 17:56Speaker 01

  And the control aspect of it is my literal worst nightmare. I am the biggest control freak in the world. The idea of somebody controlling me when I can't.

• 18:04Speaker 02

  Right.

• 18:04Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 18:05Speaker 01

  No.

• 18:06Speaker 02

  One of my, one of my fears writing the book is even though the premise seems absurd, I was like, man, I gotta get this done before it can actually happen.

• 18:13Speaker 01

  I was gonna say before you just went.

• 18:14Speaker 02

  Two weeks ago, there was a story where some company has brains in jars, like some companies do, apparently. Like Futurama. And they were testing either both pain medication or addiction to drugs, testing the brains. And one of the, the spokesperson said, oh, you know, the wiring is almost taken out of what it would take for them to be conscious. Almost.

• 18:37Speaker 00

  Stop. I hate that. You're like speed writing. You get it into your editor. You're like, please hurry. Oh, my God.

• 18:43Speaker 01

  Oh, I hate that.

• 18:44Speaker 00

  I want to go back to something that you said earlier because I related to that so much. I'm such a horror fan, but I'm also such a Freddy cat. And you said the same thing. I wonder, do you have any fears that you've never explored in your writing that you would eventually want to someday?

• 18:58Speaker 02

  Um, that's a great question. No, I don't think, no one's ever asked it in that way.

• 19:03Speaker 01

  All right.

• 19:03Speaker 00

  Look at that.

• 19:05Speaker 02

  I mean, there's some fears that I won't write about just because it's too scary for me. And being just a child, teen of the eighties, like nuclear war stuff, really, anything that brushes up against that is too much for me.

• 19:14Speaker 00

  That's how I feel too.

• 19:15Speaker 02

  I don't write about it, avoid. So I won't watch Oppenheimer.

• 19:18Speaker 00

  Yep.

• 19:20Speaker 02

  I'm sure it's a good movie.

• 19:20Speaker 00

  End of the world stuff to me is like too real.

• 19:23Speaker 02

  Yeah. I don't know. I mean,

• 19:27Speaker 02

  I use so much of my own life, much of the chagrin of my family in my books.

• 19:32Speaker 02

  You know, it's hard to say what's coming next. And I wish I was someone who had like a bullpen of ideas. And for novels, I just go from novel and then I'm like, oh no, what am I gonna do now?

• 19:41Speaker 00

  And then it just comes to you.

• 19:42Speaker 02

  And just try to start from scratch and hopefully there's some inspiration. So.

• 19:46Speaker 00

  Right. That's so interesting.

• 19:47Speaker 02

  I can't say like, oh, I definitely want to try this or that. I don't know.

• 19:51Speaker 00

  Like maybe.

• 19:52Speaker 02

  Totally focused on the thing I'm working on.

• 19:53Speaker 00

  Yeah, that makes sense. You gotta see it through.

• 19:55Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 19:56Speaker 00

  I get that.

• 19:56Speaker 01

  I have the weirdest notes in my note app of like ideas, but they're like.

• 20:00Speaker 02

  I wish I had that. Yeah.

• 20:01Speaker 01

  They're like, sometimes I'll look at them and I'm like, I don't know what I meant with this. Like, I will never go back to that.

• 20:07Speaker 00

  You also have the weirdest dreams that I feel like.

• 20:09Speaker 01

  I do, yeah.

• 20:09Speaker 00

  Like nightmares, I should say. I feel like so many of your ideas come from a little blip in your dream.

• 20:14Speaker 01

  Yeah. Or my kids, weirdly.

• 20:16Speaker 00

  Your kids are scary.

• 20:18Speaker 01

  Where like they'll tell me a little bit of a like nightmare or something that they're scared of. And I'm like, can I use that? Like, is that cool if I put that in a book?

• 20:26Speaker 02

  You even ask them permission?

• 20:27Speaker 01

  Yeah, I'm like, is it good? I know, I should just take, I'm like, I made you.

• 20:30Speaker 02

  My poor children.

• 20:32Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 20:33Speaker 02

  I've done, taken things without permission. Including a head full of ghosts. I scarred my wife Lisa with it because young Mary, the eight year old character was definitely our daughter Emma when she was eight years old. That was her personality. Yeah.

• 20:46Speaker 01

  That's so cool.

• 20:47Speaker 00

  I mean, hey, you have to write what you know, right?

• 20:48Speaker 01

  You do. Yeah. Yeah. I think my youngest had an imaginary friend. Well, Skelton was one, but he's not gonna be in a, in a, in a book.

• 20:57Speaker 00

  The mister.

• 20:58Speaker 01

  The mister? And she named him The Mister.

• 21:01Speaker 02

  That's creepy.

• 21:01Speaker 00

  Which she once told us, he'll always find you.

• 21:04Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 21:05Speaker 00

  So like, she literally sat on a cover.

• 21:06Speaker 01

  She said, don't worry, the mister will always find you. Like, I think it was because they were playing hide and seek, her and my husband. And they were like hiding under a blanket and he was like, who are we hiding from? Like, who's finding? And she was like, the mister. And he was like, I'm sorry, what? And she was like, don't worry, he'll always find us. And he was like, I hate this. What does that mean?

• 21:25Speaker 02

  That's terrifying. That's a heroic title. The mister will always find you.

• 21:28Speaker 01

  The mister will always find you.

• 21:29Speaker 00

  I like it.

• 21:30Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 21:33Speaker 00

  Going back to scary memories or anything like that, do you know, or can you think of the first story that ever scared you so badly that it's still with you to this day? Maybe you read it or you heard it.

• 21:43Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah. So I mean, for me, it was all movies. I mean, I think. I'm trying to think age wise, there was, I mean, in this, when I say this year, I don't want to give away where you guys live, but in the New England area.

• 21:52Speaker 01

  Sure.

• 21:53Speaker 02

  I was, I'm old enough that it was a program called Creature Double Feature that played, man, this was like late seventies or early eighties.

• 22:00Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 22:00Speaker 02

  On Saturday. So they showed two movies. The first movie was always like Godzilla or Gamera Kaiju movie. And that's what drew me in.

• 22:07Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 22:07Speaker 02

  The second movie was a horror movie, like a Hammer horror movie or Black and White.

• 22:11Speaker 01

  Love this.

• 22:11Speaker 02

  You know, some of the like just dumbest horror movies that get, eventually were on Mystery Science Theater.

• 22:16Speaker 01

  Right.

• 22:16Speaker 00

  Oh, hell yeah.

• 22:17Speaker 02

  Those gave me nightmares. I had a Attack of the Killer Shrew nightmares.

• 22:21Speaker 01

  Oh my goodness.

• 22:22Speaker 02

  I still remember. It's such a bad movie. Um, I had nightmares from the movie Alien before seeing it because I was listening to my parents, my aunt, talk about how scary the movie was.

• 22:29Speaker 01

  Oh my God, I love that.

• 22:30Speaker 00

  That used to happen to me when I was little all the time. In fact, I remember you were there at one of my uncle's houses and all of you guys were talking about it. And I just heard like the tail end and like little bits of your conversation and I was afraid of whatever it was. I didn't even know what it was, but I was so scared of it for like months.

• 22:49Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah.

• 22:49Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 22:50Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 22:51Speaker 02

  By far Jaws gave me the most nightmares by far.

• 22:53Speaker 00

  Jaws is such a foray into horror, isn't it?

• 22:56Speaker 02

  Yeah. I really started at my high school, which is weird. When I was like in fifth grade, they just, they were showing summer movies at the high school because they had like an auditorium.

• 23:03Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 23:04Speaker 02

  And my dad took me and he, he pitched the movie to me this way. He's like, oh, there's a scene in this movie that captures of what it feels like to catch a fish. That moment right when you catch it on the hook.

• 23:14Speaker 01

  And you're like, awesome, I'm in.

• 23:15Speaker 00

  Yeah, watch that.

• 23:16Speaker 02

  I mean, yeah, that scene where Quint catch, you know, hooks him.

• 23:18Speaker 01

  It's there.

• 23:19Speaker 02

  It's there, but you could have told me some other things about that movie.

• 23:22Speaker 01

  You left out some bits.

• 23:23Speaker 00

  Little different feelings, you know?

• 23:24Speaker 02

  So like I, it's one of my favorite movies. I've seen it 50 times since, but I still cover my eyes when Quint gets, sorry for the spoiler, but.

• 23:31Speaker 01

  Spoiler alert for Jaws.

• 23:33Speaker 02

  When Quint get bit, when he gets bit in half.

• 23:35Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah.

• 23:36Speaker 02

  That broke my little 10 year old brain.

• 23:37Speaker 01

  I'm sure.

• 23:37Speaker 02

  And I'm not exaggerating. I had 10 years of shark nightmares after that movie.

• 23:40Speaker 01

  Oh, I believe that.

• 23:41Speaker 02

  So I've seen the movie. I've watched with my kids and we'll ceremoniously put the pillow over our faces when the scene comes.

• 23:46Speaker 01

  I love it.

• 23:47Speaker 02

  I've seen way more Gory or stuff. I'm just like.

• 23:49Speaker 01

  That one just has something.

• 23:50Speaker 02

  Afraid that my brain will return to the 10 year old brain.

• 23:52Speaker 01

  It probably would.

• 23:53Speaker 00

  It could. It's a core memory, you know?

• 23:55Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 23:56Speaker 00

  Want to see Jaws so badly. So now we're going to rethink that one.

• 23:59Speaker 01

  And they're my oldest are 10, they're 10 year old twins and they want to see it so badly. So I've been like easing them in by being like, here's a picture of Bruce the shark as a robot. Like, it's not real. I'm trying to be like, here's the behind the scenes of all of it. So hopefully it'll help, but I'm like, I don't know.

• 24:15Speaker 02

  You have a pool or friends with a pool and put the TV and be on floats while you're watching.

• 24:18Speaker 00

  I want to do it so bad. That would be so good. I would. We have the projector too. We do need to do that.

• 24:24Speaker 01

  You know, they're so brave, like they're so brave at first about horror things. So like, I can do this. Let's do it.

• 24:29Speaker 00

  But then the nighttime rolls around.

• 24:31Speaker 02

  Be brave during the day, for sure.

• 24:32Speaker 01

  And we regret it immediately.

• 24:33Speaker 00

  That's how I am still.

• 24:34Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 24:35Speaker 00

  Very brave during the day. And then at night I'm like, this is so scary.

• 24:37Speaker 01

  And I don't want to ruin horror for them. So I'm trying to like ease it in. I'm like, I don't want to give you trauma right off the bat.

• 24:44Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 24:45Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 24:46Speaker 02

  Gremlins? Have you seen, have they seen gremlins?

• 24:48Speaker 01

  They haven't yet.

• 24:49Speaker 00

  We were just calling them gremlins.

• 24:50Speaker 01

  I was gonna say, I refer to them as gremlins a lot because at nighttime, they always have like an assortment of ailments and nightmares and eating. I'm like, I can't feed you after midnight. Get you wet.

• 25:02Speaker 02

  Can't cut him wet.

• 25:03Speaker 00

  Straight up gremlins.

• 25:04Speaker 01

  Very precarious.

• 25:06Speaker 00

  I do wonder, going back to your writing process, what's the strangest place that you've gotten inspiration from a book that you can think of?

• 25:13Speaker 02

  There was a moment of like panic when I was on a train in England.

• 25:18Speaker 00

  Okay.

• 25:19Speaker 02

  I was doing a, an amazing book tour over there for the cabin at the end of the world.

• 25:23Speaker 00

  Okay.

• 25:24Speaker 02

  And I knew the next book was due in less than a year at this point. And the novel I was imagining doing was going to take, was going to be a big one and it was going to take way longer than a year. I'm like, oh no, what am I going to do? I gotta come up with an idea. And I had this weird what if for a zombie that I don't want to say necessarily because it spoils the book.

• 25:42Speaker 00

  Okay.

• 25:43Speaker 02

  So that was sort of like forced. Yeah, I guess.

• 25:47Speaker 01

  Panic induced inspiration.

• 25:49Speaker 02

  The other ways, it's just fun. Like where it comes from and you never know, like. My book horror movie came from friend and amazing writer, sorry to name drop it. I've already mentioned Grady, but Stephen Graham Jones, you know, amazing guy.

• 26:00Speaker 00

  Right.

• 26:00Speaker 01

  An amazing.

• 26:01Speaker 02

  He's like, hey, you should watch this YouTube. My friend Walter Chow is this, you know, great critic and he hosts these matinees and then talks about the movie. So basically it was an hour of Walter and writer musician John Darniel talking about Texas Chainsaw Massacre, which was a movie that I didn't, I wasn't brave enough to watch until I was in my late 30s.

• 26:20Speaker 00

  I love that.

• 26:21Speaker 02

  But since I've seen it, I love that movie.

• 26:23Speaker 00

  Such a good one.

• 26:24Speaker 02

  Their discussion sent me into a rabbit hole that became horror movie. So, I don't know, it's just, you never know where it comes from and just try to be open to it.

• 26:30Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 26:31Speaker 01

  Nice. I'm actually, I am in the middle of reading horror movie right now and I love it. So there's that.

• 26:38Speaker 00

  That's on my TBR list. You're, you're coming up close. Once you read it, I'll just steal it from you.

• 26:43Speaker 01

  Yeah. I'll hand it over. So in going with the writing process still, do you have, do you start with an ending in mind? Or you, do you just kind of like torture it out of your characters and see what happens?

• 26:55Speaker 02

  I like the way you put that.

• 26:58Speaker 02

  I typically have some notion of the ending. Sometimes it's really foggy. Sometimes it can be, this is the last line. I have to earn my way there.

• 27:05Speaker 01

  Oh, I like that.

• 27:06Speaker 02

  So I'd say most of the time it's, obviously I have a beginning in a vague or sometimes the end in mind. And it's like, the hard part is all the stuff in between.

• 27:15Speaker 00

  Me in the middle.

• 27:15Speaker 02

  It's getting there. Yeah.

• 27:16Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 27:17Speaker 01

  Yeah. And you're kind of, so you're like kind of the king of ambiguous endings. I feel like that you have to figure it out. You get to decide kind of.

• 27:24Speaker 02

  Yeah, I've done that a few times.

• 27:25Speaker 00

  That's fine.

• 27:26Speaker 01

  I don't know if you've heard that or not, but do you always know the true ending? Or are you kind of feeling that way too?

• 27:34Speaker 02

  It depends on the, I guess it depends on the story. So a head full of ghosts, in my mind, there's no true ending. And I think, you know, when I wrote it, I had to purposely divorce myself from thinking there was a true ending. So I thought. Then a true, like, the true ending would have leaked through, and I didn't want that. Like, I want a head full of ghosts, if it was scary at all, to be scary precisely because we didn't know and have that. You know, to me, that's just the scary part of life.

• 27:58Speaker 01

  I like that.

• 27:59Speaker 02

  We have beliefs, but ultimately, we just don't know. And anytime you use ambiguity, it helps trigger that a little bit, which, you know, helps maybe scare people if it works that way.

• 28:10Speaker 01

  I like that.

• 28:11Speaker 02

  You know, the cabinet at the end of the world, I way underestimated how many people are gonna be upset not knowing if the world was ending or not. Because to me, the story became not about that. It became about the two, the two, the husbands and what they were gonna decide. To me, that was the story. But something like the pallbearers' club, you know, it plays with ambiguity, but yeah, I'm pretty sure she's a vampire at the end. If you don't wanna believe she is, that's fine, too.

• 28:32Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 28:33Speaker 02

  I would not, you know, I definitely wouldn't wanna, like, spoil someone's reading experience, but, uh...

• 28:38Speaker 01

  But she's a vampire.

• 28:40Speaker 00

  I mean, that's fun. Who wouldn't want that to be the ending?

• 28:42Speaker 01

  I think so, too. I like that. I think it, I think it's more fun that way. Because it lets somebody, it like stays with someone longer when they have to sit there and think about it and wonder and go through the different...

• 28:53Speaker 02

  I hope it's never, I never want it to be like a cheap, like, twist. You know, twists are fun, but like, I don't want that to be just like a gimmick, like...

• 29:00Speaker 01

  Yeah, you don't want that to be like...

• 29:01Speaker 02

  I, you know, even if, you know, anyone out there has read it and doesn't like it, just, I don't know if this is as sure as you or makes you feel better, but like, I thought hard about it. It's like, if I'm gonna do this, I know I'm asking a lot to read 300 pages and then maybe having open-ended stuff, but, I don't know, I try to write books that I wanna read.

• 29:16Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 29:16Speaker 02

  And like, I like, I like having sort of the questions linger afterwards.

• 29:20Speaker 00

  Yeah, I like that, too. I think it's scarier, like you said. One last question for you about your writing process or just writing in general. If readers can take one thing away from your work beyond the scares, what would you want that to be?

• 29:32Speaker 02

  Oh, wow.

• 29:35Speaker 00

  I know, we're ending on a heavy question.

• 29:36Speaker 02

  Yeah, that's hard.

• 29:39Speaker 02

  Well, especially with the novels, what I typically lean towards doing is I'm trying to make it feel like as realistic as possible. This is what it would feel like if there was a maybe demon possession, or this would, this is what it would look like.

• 29:52Speaker 00

  Okay.

• 29:53Speaker 02

  And maybe just hopefully, people take away like the characters, like there, I can really only think of, prior to the novel that's coming out, like one mustache twisting villain in all my prior books in Cabin. You know, there's one character might be villain, but everyone else I want people to, again, some of the horror, I think, is these people are doing terrible things. I write them in such a way, hopefully that you still understand why they did it, and maybe recognize like, oh, if not but for other circumstances in my own life, and the luck that I've had and the privilege, that maybe that would be me. You know, and that's a scary sort of realization.

• 30:26Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 30:28Speaker 02

  But yeah, I mean, but, you know, it depends on the story. I mean, these are just the things that I write. Like, in the book that's coming out, you know, the AI in the book is definitely not to be sympathized with in any way.

• 30:49Speaker 00

  All right, guys, we're taking a quick break so that we can talk about one of our most favorite sponsors, Ashley. I am obsessed with Ashley, and they were nice enough to send us this gorgeous furniture that you see me sitting my little bum on. And we got a coffee table, we got this gorgeous sofa, we got the love seat over here. We'll show you all these different pieces. It was so important to me when I was updating my studio that I really wanted like, a timeless, almost kind of like vintage feel. I love really rich dark woods, which you can see, this is the Core Stone End Table. One, I love, again, the rich dark wood, but also the fact that you can kind of dress up the bottom shelves, or like the little shelves right there, with your decor style. This is the Revy on Lake

• 31:32Speaker 00

  sofa and the matching love seat over there. One, I love that it goes really well with what we have already for Morbid Decor. And two, I just feel like the color fits so well with the paint color and the overall vibe that we have in here. So, thank you so much to Ashley. We are obsessed with this furniture. Your home or your pod lab should show off who you are. Ashley has styles that balance timeless appeal and modern trends to bring your personal look home. Ashley is dependable with a modern feel, offering well crafted, as you can see, affordable pieces built to stand up to real life and with great looks that are made to last. Plus, Ashley provides fast, reliable white glove delivery right to your room of choice. Visit your local Ashley store or head to ashley.com to find your style.

• 32:21Speaker 00

  All right, so let's talk about your book club pick, Victorian Psycho. Excellent, excellent pick, top notch.

• 32:27Speaker 01

  Such a good pick.

• 32:28Speaker 00

  This book is little, but she is fierce.

• 32:30Speaker 01

  She is.

• 32:31Speaker 00

  To quote, who is that? Is that Shakespeare?

• 32:33Speaker 01

  Sure.

• 32:34Speaker 00

  Mighty, I don't know. So let's talk about moments that made us cringe throughout the book. Because I cringed throughout this entire thing.

• 32:42Speaker 01

  It was a lot of cringe.

• 32:43Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 32:43Speaker 01

  I tabbed the hell out of this book. I could not stop.

• 32:46Speaker 00

  Also, can I just say, like, I love Winifred. She's awful. But she's hilarious.

• 32:52Speaker 01

  I loved her.

• 32:53Speaker 00

  Rooting for her in a weird way. You know?

• 32:55Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 32:56Speaker 00

  I was like, yeah, kill that family.

• 32:58Speaker 02

  Like, I was laughing and gasping.

• 32:59Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 33:00Speaker 02

  Less cringey, like, I couldn't, you know, so we're gonna get spoilery. This is good.

• 33:04Speaker 01

  Yeah, we're gonna get spoilery. It'll be in those notes too, so you guys know.

• 33:07Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 33:07Speaker 01

  We're gonna be talking about the book.

• 33:09Speaker 02

  Yeah, no, for sure. I mean, I was sent, I was lucky to be sent like an ARC and I happened to have the time to, you know, to be able to read it. And I was a little nervous going into it, only because, like, anytime, like, and I know this firm experience, like, using a title that references like a famous work.

• 33:28Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 33:29Speaker 02

  You know, we'll see. American Psycho, which I've read, and actually, you know, you know, it's pretty awful. You know, I really do like that book.

• 33:37Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 33:38Speaker 02

  So I was like, all right, we'll see what happens. But man, she had me, at the end of the first chapter, Mrs. Abel, I muse as a woman who has never held a penis. It was just the timing of it. She was describing, you know, like, I'm so bad at remembering the character names, but describing the woman who was in charge of like the house and everything. It's just like, you were not expecting. That line, there were so many lines that you were just not expecting or just said so plainly.

• 34:02Speaker 00

  That's what I loved. She was just so funny. And like the little asides that she would make to the reader.

• 34:06Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah.

• 34:07Speaker 00

  Funny. I felt like we were like friends throughout the reading process.

• 34:10Speaker 01

  Cause she would say something like, like, dear reader or something. And I was like, I know, girl. Like I was, I was like, we're in this together.

• 34:15Speaker 00

  Yeah, you're right. Yeah.

• 34:17Speaker 01

  And I love that she had like, it was like the little asides that you didn't see coming where she was like, I teach them history and arithmetic and what corpses smell like and French. And I was like, wait, what? Back up. That's part of it. And they're just sprinkled everywhere in this book.

• 34:32Speaker 00

  They really are.

• 34:33Speaker 01

  She surprised me everywhere.

• 34:35Speaker 00

  She did.

• 34:36Speaker 01

  Yeah. Also, like with the like cringey moments, I felt like there was so many genuinely hilarious moments that I felt guilty laughing at at times.

• 34:46Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 34:46Speaker 01

  Like, um, there was a point when she, this is awful, but with like, uh, original baby, when she's like,

• 34:53Speaker 00

  Original baby and new baby took me out.

• 34:56Speaker 01

  Was killing me the entire time. And when she says, I spit out the blood and see as so often happens when one slits an infant's carotid artery, that the baby is dead. I was like, why is that funny and awful? Like, the way she said that.

• 35:09Speaker 00

  Going into it because one of my friends read this before me and she was like, just so you know, there's like, yeah, kid death and like, she like kills babies. And I was like, I don't know if I'm gonna like that. And then she's like, you know, as so often happens when you kill a baby. And I was like, why is that hilarious?

• 35:23Speaker 01

  No, I don't know how that is.

• 35:24Speaker 02

  Yeah, I knew nothing going in that. That was so shocking. That was like a gasp.

• 35:28Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 35:29Speaker 02

  And, and again, laugh despite yourself.

• 35:31Speaker 01

  Yeah, I was like, I shouldn't be laughing at this, but this is hilarious.

• 35:34Speaker 02

  It's one of the magic tricks of, of, of Winnie is and, you know, Virginia is manipulating the reader.

• 35:40Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 35:40Speaker 02

  Like to, you know, to get you to be somewhat on her side. And I think people, based on what I see online, have like false memories of this book because they want to root for her and they assume, oh no, she's only killing bad people. Like, yeah, she's killing the patriarchy and, and she's killing like, you know, the rich people. She's kind of killing everybody.

• 35:59Speaker 00

  Killing babies a lot.

• 36:01Speaker 02

  Nobody is spared.

• 36:02Speaker 00

  No, no. She's an equal opportunist killer.

• 36:04Speaker 02

  Which I really admired about her approach because it could have been like,

• 36:09Speaker 02

  I mean, it makes us feel good, but it could've been like, yeah, like superhero, like she only kills the bad people. And like, I don't know, I only get so much mileage out of some of those stories because it doesn't feel like real life.

• 36:18Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 36:18Speaker 02

  Like, when I read like happy, not all happy endings, but like when I read stuff like that, like I actually feel worse because it's like, oh, that made me feel good, but that's not the way it is.

• 36:26Speaker 01

  But that's not real. Yeah.

• 36:27Speaker 02

  And even though as wild and fantastical in some ways that this book is, it just feels like, oh.

• 36:33Speaker 01

  She just went for it.

• 36:34Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 36:34Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 36:35Speaker 01

  I love that. Yeah, because she says like the dead babies in the boxes that she sent to the nuns with like the sorry, here's another one note. I was like, I'm sorry, what?

• 36:43Speaker 00

  Here's one more. And they kind of like touch on that earlier. I think when she's sitting down with them and she's like about to eat and kind of interview with them, like they're like, oh, that's so awful that that's happening. And in the back of your mind, you're like, is that her doing that?

• 36:55Speaker 01

  Are you doing that?

• 36:56Speaker 00

  And then she's like, can confirm.

• 36:57Speaker 01

  Yeah, can confirm. Just with the note, sorry, here's another one. I was like, what?

• 37:02Speaker 02

  And just like breaking out of sort of the Victorian speak.

• 37:05Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 37:05Speaker 02

  A little bit too.

• 37:06Speaker 00

  Yeah, there was a few times she did that for sure.

• 37:08Speaker 01

  And it worked so well. And I think just like at one point she says, reader, she doth make a fine point about Priscilla. And I was like, she does.

• 37:15Speaker 00

  She really does.

• 37:16Speaker 01

  I'm with you on this.

• 37:17Speaker 00

  I know.

• 37:18Speaker 01

  When she found the tooth in her mouth that wasn't hers and then it just never was explained again.

• 37:23Speaker 00

  Whose tooth was that?

• 37:24Speaker 01

  Whose molar was in her mouth?

• 37:25Speaker 00

  And like, did that hap- there were so many things that happened that I was like, did that happen?

• 37:30Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 37:30Speaker 00

  Like, um, I think when she's really starting to unravel, she walks by one of the rooms and there's a bunch of like plague doctors.

• 37:36Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 37:36Speaker 00

  And you're like, they're not there. It's Christmas. Like, what?

• 37:39Speaker 01

  But they're all just like, shh.

• 37:40Speaker 00

  And then they just close her out of there.

• 37:42Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 37:42Speaker 00

  Or when Original Baby just talks to her out of nowhere.

• 37:45Speaker 01

  That's how Original Baby got got.

• 37:46Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 37:47Speaker 01

  When she started talking.

• 37:48Speaker 00

  I loved that.

• 37:48Speaker 02

  Yeah. On my second read, you know, to prepare for this, because I wrote it, I read it like, you know, two, two and a half years ago at this point, because I got the early, early copy. Yeah. I was like, oh, maybe this is a little bit more, way more ambiguous than I thought. Even like, because it's written in present tense and there's some times where I forget the end of one chapter was like, You know, it's not like, will they survive the night? And then she says, they don't.

• 38:11Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 38:12Speaker 02

  It breaks from present tense, you're wondering about the state of these people in the house to her saying, no, they don't.

• 38:17Speaker 01

  Like, no.

• 38:18Speaker 00

  Right.

• 38:19Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 38:19Speaker 02

  So, I mean, her as a storyteller is a part of it. It could just be explained away as it's a choice of how she's telling it because, you know, by the end, you know, when she's on the gallows, sort of explaining things like, it made me think, how am I, how am I learning the story? Like, how, how are we hearing this? And she even like says, you know, sometimes I'm not right in the head.

• 38:38Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 38:38Speaker 02

  Not in those words exactly, but.

• 38:40Speaker 00

  Yeah. She's truthful.

• 38:41Speaker 01

  She is.

• 38:42Speaker 02

  Which I, I love because that was like, oh, this is a book that I could read multiple times and still, you know.

• 38:47Speaker 01

  And still wonder.

• 38:48Speaker 02

  Still even though like, I won't have the shock of the baby that he killed.

• 38:50Speaker 01

  Right.

• 38:51Speaker 02

  And replaced with some poor farmer's baby that she just plucks from the.

• 38:53Speaker 01

  She just runs down the street.

• 38:55Speaker 00

  Who's gonna have a different nose later on. I loved that.

• 38:58Speaker 02

  There's still so many other pleasures to, to get from this when you.

• 39:01Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah.

• 39:01Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 39:02Speaker 01

  And I like that she foreshadows the gallows a couple of times for you where you're like, I'm sorry, what? Like, you're just like, okay, you're gonna get caught after this? Like, this isn't the end. I loved that.

• 39:11Speaker 00

  Mm hmm. That was really cool.

• 39:12Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 39:14Speaker 00

  Do you think Winifred, do you think of her as a psychopath, a villain, or the most honest person in the room?

• 39:20Speaker 01

  Or all of the above?

• 39:21Speaker 02

  Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I gotta be all three, I guess. I mean.

• 39:24Speaker 00

  Yeah, that's what I think.

• 39:25Speaker 02

  Do that to a baby.

• 39:25Speaker 01

  Yeah, I feel, I feel that's.

• 39:27Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 39:27Speaker 01

  That's it.

• 39:27Speaker 02

  The baby line. But, you know, the rest of the people in the house are.

• 39:31Speaker 01

  Awful.

• 39:32Speaker 02

  Probably as bad as she, or as bad as she is in different ways.

• 39:35Speaker 00

  I think so. I think so for sure.

• 39:37Speaker 01

  Mrs. Pounds.

• 39:38Speaker 00

  I hated Mrs. Pounds.

• 39:40Speaker 01

  I was ready.

• 39:41Speaker 00

  From the jump, too.

• 39:42Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 39:43Speaker 02

  And the green dress she gave her, that was probably poison.

• 39:45Speaker 01

  It was like arsenic.

• 39:46Speaker 02

  I missed that on the first read somehow.

• 39:47Speaker 00

  Oh, yeah.

• 39:49Speaker 02

  On the second read, there was more time spent with that. And, you know, that could be messing with her brain and, yeah.

• 39:54Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah. Cause they used to make those, we looked it up. They used to make those dresses out of like arsenic. So like, they would wear them a few times and then start dying.

• 40:01Speaker 02

  The death dress.

• 40:02Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 40:02Speaker 00

  Literally.

• 40:03Speaker 01

  Damn.

• 40:03Speaker 00

  They put it in wallpaper, too. Like, any vibrant green thing back in the day was placed with arsenic. Wild. What was the first scene that made you realize this book was gonna be feral? Was it the one that you already read?

• 40:15Speaker 02

  I think it was probably, yeah.

• 40:16Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 40:16Speaker 01

  Yeah. It was like the, when she's, I think it was like the first chapter at the end when she says, in three months, everyone in this house will be dead.

• 40:24Speaker 00

  Yup.

• 40:24Speaker 01

  I was like.

• 40:26Speaker 00

  I took notes, a couple of notes, and that was the first thing I wrote down. I was like, oh, okay.

• 40:30Speaker 01

  That was the first one I tabbed. I was like, damn.

• 40:31Speaker 00

  And she's, I think she starts it off by being like, yeah, it's gonna be like really cold and it's gonna get colder and then everyone's gonna die.

• 40:37Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's crazy.

• 40:38Speaker 00

  Okay.

• 40:39Speaker 01

  Wow.

• 40:39Speaker 00

  All right.

• 40:40Speaker 01

  I'm into it.

• 40:41Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 40:41Speaker 01

  And again, I feel like we just were all, I was rooting for her pretty early on and I, which I was shocked by. Cause at first, when I read that, I was like, oh no, like she's gonna be, is she gonna be irredeemable?

• 40:54Speaker 00

  When she's gonna kill like a whole family.

• 40:55Speaker 01

  And she is irredeemable. That's the weird thing is like, she's completely irredeemable. But like, why did I like her? I was like, that is so hard to write a character that way.

• 41:04Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 41:04Speaker 01

  And have it work.

• 41:05Speaker 00

  Yeah, it's impressive.

• 41:05Speaker 02

  Yeah, it's like, the voice is just so humorous and inviting and like, and she's letting you in on it. So eventually that sort of like gets you over to her side.

• 41:14Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 41:15Speaker 02

  She is, you know, these people are pretty terrible, right? Like.

• 41:19Speaker 00

  Don't you think?

• 41:19Speaker 02

  Except, you know, they're the, who aren't so terrible who are also getting it.

• 41:23Speaker 01

  It's true. She's equal opportunity.

• 41:25Speaker 02

  Now, the scene in the book also, like you were thinking, the feral scene, what comes to mind to me is the, the decayed crow pudding.

• 41:33Speaker 00

  Oh my god, when she was away at school.

• 41:35Speaker 02

  All those kids, oh my god.

• 41:36Speaker 01

  Clergy daughter's school or whatever.

• 41:38Speaker 00

  That actually made my stomach turn when I was reading it.

• 41:41Speaker 02

  That was gnarly.

• 41:42Speaker 01

  That was gnarly.

• 41:42Speaker 00

  She's like covering it up like with the maggots and everything. I was like, oh my god.

• 41:47Speaker 01

  That was, I, yeah, that was a lot. That's, I think, when she, one of the first mentions of like, and I will be hung at some point during this. I was like, yeah, probably, girl. That's not good.

• 41:57Speaker 00

  But then I also felt like weirdly bad for her because they were so mean to her, she was saying. And that was the one time that like they needed her.

• 42:04Speaker 01

  I know.

• 42:05Speaker 00

  It reminded me, have you seen Yellowjackets?

• 42:07Speaker 02

  I haven't, sorry.

• 42:08Speaker 00

  Oh, okay, that's all right. It kind of reminded me of Misty, one of the characters who like, she's a psychopath, but she like wants to be needed so desperately.

• 42:16Speaker 01

  And she's like bullied and kind of pushed around a little bit.

• 42:19Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 42:19Speaker 01

  Yeah. So when she's needed, she like, she makes a situation where she is needed.

• 42:24Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 42:24Speaker 01

  Essentially.

• 42:25Speaker 00

  It felt very much like that.

• 42:26Speaker 01

  And that's what she. She made a situation where she was.

• 42:29Speaker 00

  She's like, it's the only time that they ever were like, nice to me.

• 42:31Speaker 01

  It made me sad. And I, I like too, that like, like we were just saying, we don't know who the worst person in the book is. Like Winnie, Winifred is the worst person in the book.

• 42:41Speaker 00

  Probably.

• 42:42Speaker 01

  There's other people that you're like, these people are also really terrible. Like Mr. Pounds is gross.

• 42:47Speaker 00

  Mr. Pounds is really gross.

• 42:48Speaker 01

  Like all those people at the dinner party, like the Dowager.

• 42:52Speaker 00

  I hated the Dowager.

• 42:53Speaker 01

  Such a bitch.

• 42:54Speaker 00

  With her cane just hitting people.

• 42:56Speaker 01

  When she finally got got with that cane, I was like, all right, I'm into that.

• 42:59Speaker 00

  That was the perfect way to take her out.

• 43:01Speaker 01

  Yeah, it really was. And I mean, she, the thing with Winifred is she exists in this like weird space in the book. And I think it makes it really interesting because she's a governess. So she's in charge of the kids and she, she's not, she's not known to be family in the beginning. She's not one of the servants technically, and she's also definitely not an equal.

• 43:23Speaker 00

  No, not at all.

• 43:24Speaker 01

  But she's like, she has this unique ability to be able to like wander around the house and sit at the table and have more access to places and people without getting the same kind of respect that someone would. And I feel like that helped tell the story really well.

• 43:38Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 43:39Speaker 01

  Because she has all this access, but she's treated so poorly.

• 43:42Speaker 02

  Right.

• 43:42Speaker 01

  You know, and I really liked that. I thought that made it unique for sure.

• 43:46Speaker 02

  Absolutely.

• 43:47Speaker 01

  And I think there's a lot of, obviously the Victorian high society is like a character in this book.

• 43:54Speaker 00

  Yeah, the setting like it does become a character.

• 43:56Speaker 01

  In and of itself. And I think it's like kind of flipped on its ear here because a lot of people think of Victorian high society as like, you know, fancy and like gilded and like everything was so like, you know, like they're elite, they're this, but she portrays them as disgusting.

• 44:13Speaker 00

  Filthy.

• 44:14Speaker 01

  Disgusting. Like the Victorian elite are just foul.

• 44:18Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 44:19Speaker 01

  And I loved that. It was like little things, like when she's going upstairs and looking in all of their rooms. And she mentions the earwax on the pillow at some point. I was like, oh, like, and like just little thing, like lard was in one of their hair to keep their hair back.

• 44:33Speaker 00

  The scene where they're all eating.

• 44:35Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 44:36Speaker 00

  That I think Mikey had warned you beforehand because Elena has misophonia. So like hearing things, I swear you could hear it as you were reading.

• 44:44Speaker 01

  It was foul.

• 44:45Speaker 00

  That scene was gross.

• 44:46Speaker 02

  That was like, almost like a nice counterbalance to the crow.

• 44:49Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 44:50Speaker 02

  Meal. Like that meal was just as disgusting, even though these were things that were specially prepared.

• 44:55Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 44:55Speaker 02

  Yeah. And how they were eating it.

• 44:57Speaker 00

  Oh, I know. They're just like.

• 44:58Speaker 01

  Oh, it's horrifying.

• 44:58Speaker 00

  Like gouging it into their faces. It's so gross.

• 45:01Speaker 01

  And I think it's, I love that they presented it that way, that like, these people like may have all this money and they're, they have all the power. They are just as disgusting, if not more.

• 45:13Speaker 00

  Than everybody else.

• 45:14Speaker 01

  Yeah. Like, I loved that.

• 45:15Speaker 00

  I know. It was almost like the, like the servants in the house were like higher society, the high society people.

• 45:21Speaker 01

  They had it more together, I feel like.

• 45:23Speaker 02

  And the high society parents of other baby, you never even notice.

• 45:27Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 45:27Speaker 02

  They're not even.

• 45:29Speaker 01

  Blew my mind.

• 45:30Speaker 02

  Like attuned to like their own kid that.

• 45:32Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 45:33Speaker 01

  Oh.

• 45:34Speaker 00

  And the fact too, that Winifred knew that that wouldn't be an issue. She's like, oh, yeah, I feel like she had done that before. You know?

• 45:41Speaker 01

  And I was wondering too, when she brought new baby in, I was like, what's gonna happen here?

• 45:47Speaker 02

  Right.

• 45:47Speaker 01

  Cause in my head, I'm like, of course she's gonna know.

• 45:49Speaker 02

  That seemed like a corner impossible to write out of.

• 45:51Speaker 00

  It did. It really did.

• 45:53Speaker 02

  Cause she really was just like, eh, you're not gonna notice.

• 45:55Speaker 01

  I love it.

• 45:56Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah.

• 45:56Speaker 01

  Like that's, and it was part of the whole, like, look how disgusting these people are. She doesn't even know her own child.

• 46:01Speaker 00

  Right.

• 46:02Speaker 01

  Like even, and it wasn't like, oh, I picked a baby that's like the same size. It seems, she was like, this doesn't look like this baby at all. And not only that, it's like, it's not as big as this baby. It doesn't look like this baby has a mole that that baby doesn't have.

• 46:14Speaker 02

  And she scrapes it off.

• 46:16Speaker 00

  I'm also like, is the baby bleeding when you return it? Like what?

• 46:20Speaker 01

  Like that outfit it was wearing was like covered in blood, but she's like, ah, I don't know, like babies, they grow up.

• 46:25Speaker 00

  Well, she said, she's like, I've learned through experience that like mess looks like blood. It's fine.

• 46:30Speaker 01

  It's the same. And I was like, and she, and it worked. They just showed up the next, at the next thing being like, here's the baby.

• 46:37Speaker 02

  And at the next thing with the baby a little older and looking even less.

• 46:39Speaker 01

  Even less like it should have looked. And I loved it because she was like, its nose is gonna look different and that's gonna be a conversation later. I was like, I thought that was so funny. But yeah, it was. And it what's, what's cool too is she obviously like did a lot of research about Victorian times and like weird Victorian customs because they were nuts. Like that whole mummy unwrapping part, I was like, what is this? And in my head, I was reading it and being like, this is crazy. And then I looked it up and I was like, oh, that was a thing. Like they actually like wealthy Victorian families would go to Egypt, they would buy an entire mummy as a souvenir,

• 47:19Speaker 01

  bring it home, have a party, and then they would all just unwrap the mummy. And I was like, what?

• 47:26Speaker 00

  That's the weirdest.

• 47:28Speaker 01

  I'm sorry, what?

• 47:29Speaker 00

  We're a, we're a strange society.

• 47:30Speaker 01

  And like, for what purpose? I don't understand the pride. Why are we doing this?

• 47:36Speaker 02

  Forward, rich and pure lists.

• 47:37Speaker 00

  Because we can, very much that.

• 47:39Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 47:40Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 47:40Speaker 01

  And we were reading more like they were, you know, they were talking like when she's dressing Drusilla and getting her ready and like all these like features that they find to be desirable are all like features of like tuberculosis. Like that's, and that was considered desirable back then. It was like being super pale and like super frail and you know, the flush in the cheeks and.

• 48:02Speaker 00

  Like literally looking sick.

• 48:04Speaker 01

  Looking consumptive was the cool thing. And I love that she put it in there. Yeah. Cause it was all very real. Like again, the, the green dress, like that's a thing. I think she mentions the belladonna eye drops. That was a thing to like dilate their pupils and they would just go blind after a while.

• 48:21Speaker 00

  But they'd be gorgeous.

• 48:23Speaker 01

  They'd be gorgeous, you know, big eyes. Like what? But one thing I really liked about this was in the end, when Drusilla joins in and is all like doing all the things for days. They're

• 48:37Speaker 00

  The 12 days of Christmas.

• 48:39Speaker 01

  The 12 days of Christmas, where they, and when they set them all up at the table and like, feed them like food, like they're just like having a whole feast with them. I was like, this is the most fucked up thing I've ever read and I love it. But do you think that Drusilla actually was taking part in that? Or do you think she was chained up the whole time?

• 48:59Speaker 02

  Yeah, it's a great question. I was

• 49:00Speaker 00

  I loved this.

• 49:01Speaker 02

  I was gonna ask what you thought about Drusilla at the end, too.

• 49:04Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 49:05Speaker 02

  To go back to like, you know, how much is this? How much more of this is ambiguous than maybe we think? There's a line really on the book where I think, you know, Winnie is confessing stuff. You know, she says, "I fear I am succumbing to elaborate flights of fancy."

• 49:21Speaker 02

  You know, this shan't be like other times or something, you know?

• 49:23Speaker 00

  Yep. So she's like, this is happening.

• 49:25Speaker 02

  So, yeah, I don't know. I mean, I, I think just because it's so weird to say that you enjoy your time with Winnie, that you want to think all of this happened.

• 49:34Speaker 00

  Yeah, just as she says.

• 49:35Speaker 02

  That you're there, just as she says, and that you're there with her at the end. And so you actually, we feel, or as the reader, I felt betrayed by Drusilla.

• 49:41Speaker 00

  Yes, I did too, yeah.

• 49:42Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 49:43Speaker 00

  Which is so weird.

• 49:44Speaker 02

  And, you know.

• 49:45Speaker 00

  Yeah. Like, why do I feel this way?

• 49:47Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 49:47Speaker 00

  When I got to the end, I was like pissed at Drusilla. I'm like, come on, that's your sister. You're supposed to like ride together. But then, once I finished reading, I was thinking about just her being kind of an unreliable narrator. And I was like, maybe, I don't think Drusilla actually did help with all that. And then I think when she sees Drusilla in the crowd at the gallows and she's crying, I don't think Drusilla's crying because they have this killing bond together or anything like that. I think she's crying because of what happened to her family.

• 50:14Speaker 01

  Yeah, like she massacred her whole family.

• 50:15Speaker 00

  I think she was chained up for the whole thing. And I think Winnie just didn't want to be in it alone, maybe.

• 50:20Speaker 02

  Right, because that's a hard switch to flip. I mean, I think there were no clues of Drusilla's

• 50:24Speaker 00

  No, no.

• 50:25Speaker 02

  potential psychotic behavior.

• 50:27Speaker 00

  Right.

• 50:27Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 50:28Speaker 02

  Anywhere else, you know, prior to the, you know, just to the like Caligula sort of 12 Days of Christmas that, you know, she, you know, that Winnie says she took apart in.

• 50:37Speaker 01

  Yeah. And that's the only thing I could think of with that, that I went back to. And I think this was smart of her to plant these little things in there, was like the painter, like the lecherous painter that she was into. And now, you know, the mother got mad and then the father made her hold the locket up and shot it.

• 50:54Speaker 00

  So she had anger toward them.

• 50:55Speaker 01

  So it's like, you planted that, which like, obviously you're not gonna be like, so you should kill your whole family. Like, that's, but you could at least go back to it and be like, did that like break her a little bit?

• 51:05Speaker 02

  That's true. That's a little hardcore, have that shot out of your hands.

• 51:07Speaker 01

  Yeah, like having to hold a locket. Another shot out of your hand.

• 51:10Speaker 00

  Well, and I think the painter said something to her. And again, we can't be sure that he did. But she finds a note when she's putting Drusilla to bed and he says something like, you have weird tendencies. So like, please stop writing me.

• 51:21Speaker 02

  That's right. That's a good point.

• 51:22Speaker 00

  So who knows? Was that real?

• 51:24Speaker 01

  Like, could that be just Winifred trying to justify?

• 51:28Speaker 00

  Exactly.

• 51:28Speaker 01

  The whole thing. Or trying to be like, she's with me. Like, this did happen.

• 51:31Speaker 00

  That's why I think the end is so fun, because you really can't be sure whether Drusilla was part of it or if she wasn't.

• 51:37Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 51:37Speaker 02

  It's strange to me made to want to think, oh, Drusilla's gonna carry on as like the next Victorian cycle to Electric Boogaloo.

• 51:45Speaker 00

  Hey, it leaves it kind of open, you know? Maybe Drusilla's story is next.

• 51:48Speaker 01

  Who knows? And I don't know, like, which, which would you prefer to be? Like, was she taking part in it? Or was she? Would you rather her have been?

• 51:57Speaker 00

  I feel like I prefer her to take part in it, in a weird way.

• 52:00Speaker 02

  Yeah. This is the fun part of me, which I don't let out very often. That is rooting for that.

• 52:06Speaker 00

  Right.

• 52:06Speaker 02

  Yeah, but I think, you know, the more I think about it, I think, you know, it's more, you know, most of the stuff happened, but it's being refracted through Winnie and, and go towards more realistic interpretation.

• 52:18Speaker 01

  Yeah, she was probably chained up there. It makes sense.

• 52:23Speaker 00

  It does make sense in the end.

• 52:24Speaker 01

  I feel like unless, and again, unless she's like this, like criminal mastermind and she like, partied with her for a few days and then realized they were gonna get caught and was like, well, I'll just quickly do this. No one's gonna believe that her over me.

• 52:36Speaker 00

  They are related. So you do have to wonder, is there something? Are they both missing the same screw?

• 52:41Speaker 01

  But then again, are they related? Because Mr. Pound said, that's not my daughter.

• 52:45Speaker 00

  That's true. I think Mr. Pound's just a piece of shit.

• 52:47Speaker 01

  Wonder too. I'm like, is he just saying that to be an asshole? Or is that really not her daughter?

• 52:52Speaker 02

  Being, she talks at different times about being observed and she's not sure quite by who and maybe it's Drusilla. And for a while, she thought it was Drusilla.

• 53:00Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 53:02Speaker 02

  Yeah, I don't know. Interesting.

• 53:04Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 53:05Speaker 00

  There's a lot that you have to wonder.

• 53:07Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 53:07Speaker 00

  From Winnie's perspective.

• 53:08Speaker 01

  There definitely is.

• 53:10Speaker 02

  You mentioned people to hate before, like we haven't, I hate, I hated Andrew the most.

• 53:14Speaker 01

  Oh my god.

• 53:15Speaker 00

  I hate Andrew so much. And I was like, why do we hate this eight year old child?

• 53:18Speaker 02

  Is he only eight? Yeah.

• 53:19Speaker 00

  I think he's literally eight years old.

• 53:21Speaker 02

  He becomes bigger and older, but yeah, he's only eight.

• 53:23Speaker 00

  He wa- he walked in on the first day and he was like, screw you. This is how it's gonna go. My last nanny was better than you. And I was like, you don't run stuff around here, little Andrew.

• 53:31Speaker 01

  And I think he was like licking food off of one of the nurse's fingers. And I was like, no.

• 53:39Speaker 02

  Yeah, just, you know, Mr. Pound in Training, like.

• 53:41Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's exactly what it felt like.

• 53:43Speaker 00

  That's the thing.

• 53:44Speaker 02

  Well, it's funny, you know, thinking of that, because Lisa's a huge fan of like Jane Austen and other Victorian novels. I wonder, are you all Victorian readers, Austen, et cetera?

• 53:53Speaker 00

  I haven't been a big Victorian reader.

• 53:55Speaker 02

  Novel reader, what they would think of, voice of the style of the setup.

• 54:00Speaker 01

  That would be interesting, actually.

• 54:02Speaker 00

  Yeah, I haven't read a ton of that, so.

• 54:04Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 54:04Speaker 00

  I thought it was really fun.

• 54:05Speaker 01

  I know, because I feel like Victorian novels, usually like the ones I've read from like school and such.

• 54:10Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 54:10Speaker 01

  I feel like they do present the Victorian ages like this very like fancy, whimsical and romantic time, which I'm sure it had elements of, but like this one, I was like, oh.

• 54:21Speaker 02

  Yeah, I mean, I do think there's an element of like the manners, you know, Jane Austen, you know, was riffing on like the manners and using that to.

• 54:28Speaker 01

  For sure.

• 54:28Speaker 02

  Using that to represent the difference between the classes as opposed to psychoskilling babies.

• 54:33Speaker 01

  Right, exactly.

• 54:34Speaker 02

  There is that, there is the manners component to it, like, you know, the dinner that we talked about and just how Winnie is treated and, you know, how she'll say things that probably in reality would have gotten her like fired right away, but you know, for our benefit, that that's funny. I don't know.

• 54:48Speaker 00

  Yeah. I loved the couple of times where they'd be like, excuse me, and then she'd say something completely different. That was great.

• 54:53Speaker 01

  Like when she says, are we not allowed to eat the children? Like, she's like licking a calf head on like a, I was like, what?

• 55:01Speaker 00

  I also just love that everything that one ignored that she did, like, uh.

• 55:05Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 55:06Speaker 00

  The even, I think it was like the first day that she was there, she bites into the calf's head.

• 55:10Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's the, that's the part.

• 55:11Speaker 00

  Is that what you're talking about?

• 55:12Speaker 01

  And she's like, and somebody finds her, and she turns around and she's like, oh, we're not allowed to eat the children? I didn't know that. And they were just like, what?

• 55:19Speaker 00

  They're like, okay, you're strange.

• 55:21Speaker 01

  I love her. I like, I just love how like unhinged she is.

• 55:24Speaker 02

  And she's always weirdly ruder to the, like her coworkers.

• 55:28Speaker 00

  She was, yeah.

• 55:28Speaker 02

  Like, you know, she talked at times about like dreaming of being, this is my forever family. Like she said that a couple of times.

• 55:34Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 55:34Speaker 02

  Even though, you know, she has nothing but disdain for.

• 55:36Speaker 00

  She oscillates.

• 55:37Speaker 02

  But there's still like.

• 55:40Speaker 01

  She wants to be part of something.

• 55:41Speaker 02

  I don't know if sometimes if it's humor or her, I don't know. Like, I'm not 100% sure like why.

• 55:46Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 55:47Speaker 02

  That's what I meant like earlier. It wasn't just like, you know, she's just, you know, she's just scything her way through the upper class.

• 55:53Speaker 01

  Right.

• 55:54Speaker 02

  Like, there's no one is spared. Like,

• 55:55Speaker 01

  No.

• 55:56Speaker 02

  Which I think makes her really difficult.

• 55:58Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 55:58Speaker 02

  And even stranger, like, how much we enjoy her.

• 56:00Speaker 01

  I know. Because she talks about having like lined, like shelves lined with dead babies at home.

• 56:06Speaker 00

  As a child, too.

• 56:07Speaker 01

  As a child, and that like she had a full grown woman like outside, dead.

• 56:11Speaker 00

  She couldn't fit her in.

• 56:12Speaker 01

  She didn't fit on the shelf. And it was like, is that real? Like, did you really do that?

• 56:15Speaker 00

  And I think it is.

• 56:16Speaker 01

  I think it might be.

• 56:18Speaker 00

  Yeah. I think one thing that we didn't touch on that I would love to hear, like how you guys felt. Were you absolutely shocked when you found out that Mr. Pounds was her father? And do you believe that he actually was?

• 56:29Speaker 02

  Uh, I'd say yes and yes.

• 56:30Speaker 00

  Yeah, same.

• 56:31Speaker 02

  I think that's very believable, even, you know, of other stuff is of her sort of creation.

• 56:36Speaker 00

  I think the same thing.

• 56:37Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 56:38Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 56:38Speaker 01

  But I was shocked.

• 56:39Speaker 02

  But I was, yeah.

• 56:39Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 56:40Speaker 00

  I got to that point when it was like John Pounds and my mouth literally dropped. And then you have to wonder, you're like, okay, like, is this the Mr. Pounds? So then I kept reading and it was then confirmed. I was like, holy shit.

• 56:51Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 56:52Speaker 00

  I didn't see that coming.

• 56:53Speaker 01

  And she went in there with a mission. So like when it hap- when it was revealed, I was like, oh, like, this makes sense why she went in there with like a mission.

• 57:00Speaker 00

  When she had it like arranged that she got that job too. Yeah.

• 57:04Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 57:05Speaker 00

  Yeah, I thought that was crazy.

• 57:06Speaker 01

  I know. It was wild.

• 57:07Speaker 00

  I thought that was a really good, just like, like, all of a sudden, just like, oh, my God.

• 57:13Speaker 01

  And it was weird, too, like going back to like Drusilla, now that I'm thinking about it. It's weird that Drusilla did survive this whole thing if she wasn't a part of it. Because I'm like, why did you save her? Like, did you see something that you, like, and you kind of see throughout the, the book that she does kind of try to like guide Drusilla a little bit more than like Andrew or anyone else. Like, I wonder what that was, like what that connection was.

• 57:39Speaker 00

  I wonder if it was like the unwanted daughter kind of thing. Because she's an unwanted daughter and then they're always like, whenever she brings up Drusilla to Mr. Pounds, he's like, yeah, whatever, Andrew. Like, he's gonna take over the name, the family name. So maybe it was that.

• 57:53Speaker 01

  And like, he gets all like the classes and all the people coming to teach him things. And, you know, she's just gonna learn needlework.

• 57:58Speaker 00

  And get married.

• 57:59Speaker 01

  Yeah, to get married. So maybe that is it.

• 58:02Speaker 00

  Maybe.

• 58:02Speaker 01

  But I think it kind of lends itself even more to the ambiguity of the whole thing. Because now I'm like, Well, I don't know. Maybe she was chained to that whole thing the whole time, or maybe she was part of it. I don't know. But I also love that this has, like, there were, I was reading it out loud, like, certain parts of it to my husband last night because I was just like laughing at certain parts. He's like, what is this? So I'd read him a line every once in a while and he was like, what is this story?

• 58:26Speaker 00

  What are you reading?

• 58:26Speaker 01

  What is going on? But I think it has such a good mix of like pure horror, like the end is horrific. The baby being killed, horrific. And like them, even them eating.

• 58:37Speaker 00

  But so funny.

• 58:37Speaker 01

  But so funny. It's like, but there's real comedy in there too. It's like such a good mix. And I feel like that's really hard to accomplish.

• 58:45Speaker 00

  A tough balance.

• 58:45Speaker 01

  Because you're either, it's gonna go too horrific and you're gonna be like, the comedy doesn't fit here and it makes it weird. And like, I'm uncomfortable with it. Or it's gonna go too like goofy and then the horror feels goofy too. And neither of these felt goofy. It felt like a perfect mix. And it reminds me that, have you watched Widows Bay?

• 59:03Speaker 02

  Yes. Oh, yes.

• 59:04Speaker 00

  I haven't started it yet.

• 59:06Speaker 01

  I've been, I'm like trying to recruit people to watch Widows Bay now. It gave me the, because I think that show, that's how I've been describing it to people is like, the horror in it is genuinely scary at times, but it is so funny. And the funny isn't overly goofy where it like, you know, waters down the horror of it. So it gave me that.

• 59:25Speaker 02

  I think it's, it's a great point. And I've, in other interviews, I've, I mean, because I love, I like horror comedies, but I think it's really hard to sort of say what you described is not to have the source of the comedy be the horror.

• 59:38Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 59:38Speaker 02

  Like, that's what most horror comedies are. It's really find, hard to find in my mind.

• 59:42Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 59:42Speaker 02

  Horror comedies that are both scary and funny.

• 59:44Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 59:45Speaker 02

  Especially in terms of film. And I agree, this book does it. Widow Bay is, Widows Bay is doing it.

• 59:51Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 59:51Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 59:52Speaker 01

  And I think it's, and I was, when we first started watching Widows Bay, I was like, oh my God, they nailed this combo. And again, like you were saying, you just like, don't really see that work ever. And so I was like, oh, this is like a diamond in the rough. Like, holy shit.

• 1:00:06Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:00:06Speaker 01

  And then reading this right after we started watching this, I was like, how have I come across two pieces of media that have done this so well in the same like two weeks span?

• 1:00:15Speaker 00

  It's the horror renaissance.

• 1:00:16Speaker 01

  It's the horror renaissance. It is.

• 1:00:18Speaker 00

  That's what makes me so excited for this to now be translated into film. I feel like it's gonna be really fun.

• 1:00:23Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:00:23Speaker 02

  I'm nervous.

• 1:00:25Speaker 01

  I know. I'm nervous. I'm scared. I'm excited.

• 1:00:28Speaker 00

  Oh, she's an optimist.

• 1:00:29Speaker 02

  Yeah, I'm pretty optimistic.

• 1:00:29Speaker 01

  But we always, we always have this.

• 1:00:31Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 1:00:32Speaker 01

  If, if the film does not work, we have this.

• 1:00:35Speaker 00

  Well, and the fact that you said she wrote the screenplay, that gives me a lot of optimism.

• 1:00:38Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:00:39Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:00:39Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:00:40Speaker 00

  All right. Now I think we have to get to what I think you might have come for, which is the rapid fire, would you rather?

• 1:00:47Speaker 02

  All right.

• 1:00:47Speaker 00

  Kind of slasher edition.

• 1:00:49Speaker 01

  Yeah, we got a mix.

• 1:00:50Speaker 00

  Yeah, we have a whole mix in here.

• 1:00:52Speaker 01

  Like New England stuff in here.

• 1:00:54Speaker 00

  There is Victorian Psycho. There's some of your, some of your work in here.

• 1:00:58Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:00:58Speaker 02

  All right.

• 1:00:59Speaker 00

  All right. So number one, would you rather be trapped in a mirror, a manor with Winifred for 24 hours? Or trapped in a group chat with every villain character from your novels?

• 1:01:12Speaker 02

  I think I'll go with the group chat, just because I feel like I won't die. I might be really annoyed and disturbed. But like, I think I, I wouldn't last very long with Winifred in the house.

• 1:01:21Speaker 00

  Fair enough. And you can always throw on like, do not disturb, you know?

• 1:01:24Speaker 01

  That's valid. Yeah. I think that's valid.

• 1:01:26Speaker 00

  I think that's what I would do.

• 1:01:28Speaker 02

  I'd be afraid she would kill me and replace me with other Paul and people would be like, oh yeah, that's Paul.

• 1:01:32Speaker 00

  There's original Paul and then there's new Paul.

• 1:01:34Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:01:35Speaker 01

  See, I hate, like, I'm one of those people that people will text me and I'll look at it and be like, I should answer that. And then I just don't for like five days. And then I'm like, I'm so sorry. And it's like, I'm just bad at it and I get overwhelmed and like executive dysfunction. So I feel like being in a group chat.

• 1:01:53Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:01:54Speaker 01

  Is my nightmare.

• 1:01:55Speaker 00

  Well, and the villains in your book might kill you.

• 1:01:57Speaker 01

  They might just, I don't want to listen to them. So I think, and I don't know, I feel like me and Winifred for 24 hours, we might be okay.

• 1:02:07Speaker 02

  Could be a cool hang.

• 1:02:08Speaker 01

  I feel like we might be.

• 1:02:09Speaker 00

  You could have like a Drusilla and Winifred kind of vibe.

• 1:02:11Speaker 01

  Yeah. I have, I just want to believe that.

• 1:02:13Speaker 02

  Would there be other people in the house for her to kill, just in case? Or is it just you? That's a good question.

• 1:02:18Speaker 00

  No, one on one.

• 1:02:19Speaker 02

  One on one.

• 1:02:20Speaker 01

  So you do have to survive that.

• 1:02:21Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:02:21Speaker 01

  Because she is gonna have to go 24 hours without hurting someone.

• 1:02:25Speaker 00

  She started off pretty chill.

• 1:02:26Speaker 01

  She did.

• 1:02:27Speaker 02

  Give her a calf's head.

• 1:02:28Speaker 01

  Yeah, there you go. Let her lick you every once in a while.

• 1:02:30Speaker 00

  Yeah, give her your ear lobe.

• 1:02:32Speaker 01

  That's all you need.

• 1:02:33Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:02:33Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:02:34Speaker 00

  I think it's fine.

• 1:02:34Speaker 01

  You know what? Yeah. I'm in with Winnie.

• 1:02:36Speaker 00

  You're going Winnie? I'm going Winnie.

• 1:02:37Speaker 01

  I mean, I don't want her to lick me, but. All right, so the next one is, would you rather have a ghost follow you forever? Just follow you around? Or a book reviewer follow you forever?

• 1:02:48Speaker 00

  Dun, dun, dun.

• 1:02:49Speaker 02

  Oh, man. I think I'll have to go with the ghost. I mean, that would be very scary at night, though.

• 1:02:57Speaker 02

  But like, I don't know how you do it, but like, I actively avoid reading any Goodreads or Amazon, their lies madness. So, I mean, if you're talking like, oh, like a, I don't know, like a New York Times reviewer is following me around, I feel like they might be a little bit more polite, but I don't know. Maybe they wouldn't hurt me as much.

• 1:03:14Speaker 01

  So let's make it, we're making it a random internet reviewer.

• 1:03:17Speaker 02

  Yeah. If it's random internet, then there's no choice. I would do the ghost.

• 1:03:20Speaker 01

  Yes, 100%. I agree with you 100%.

• 1:03:23Speaker 00

  I'd pick a ghost, too, just because I think that's fun.

• 1:03:25Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:03:26Speaker 00

  And I feel like ghosts have followed me in my life, so nothing new here.

• 1:03:29Speaker 01

  And I feel like you could eventually become friends.

• 1:03:32Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:03:32Speaker 01

  With ghosts, like, you could, you could have a rapport at some point.

• 1:03:35Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:03:35Speaker 00

  You get used to their tendencies. It's like a roommate.

• 1:03:38Speaker 02

  I'm sure I'd annoy them, because I'd start calling them Casper or something, and they'd get pissed off.

• 1:03:42Speaker 00

  And they'd be like, maybe that's your bond, though, you know?

• 1:03:44Speaker 02

  That's true.

• 1:03:45Speaker 00

  It's your bond.

• 1:03:45Speaker 01

  That's your thing.

• 1:03:47Speaker 00

  All right. Would you rather receive one life-changing, terrifying, supernatural visitation, like, earth-shattering?

• 1:03:54Speaker 01

  Just one.

• 1:03:55Speaker 00

  Just one. Or would you rather receive one brutal Goodreads review every morning?

• 1:04:02Speaker 01

  Which is kind of sad.

• 1:04:03Speaker 02

  So I have to review it. I have to read it.

• 1:04:06Speaker 00

  Just one every morning, which is a probably tough way.

• 1:04:08Speaker 01

  But like really brutal.

• 1:04:10Speaker 02

  That's hard to start. Yeah. Geez, maybe, I mean, so like 98% of my day, I'm a card carrying skeptic atheist. Don't believe in anything, but there's like the 2% where I wake up in the middle of the night and I'm totally freaked out. The next day I'm like, Paul, are you such an idiot? So like, you know, I tell people that I don't believe, but I don't want to be proven wrong. So even though I'm leaning towards the first thing, um, because in some way, in some ways that would actually still also be really cool. Like, whoa, there's this.

• 1:04:42Speaker 00

  There it is.

• 1:04:42Speaker 01

  Yeah, there it is.

• 1:04:43Speaker 02

  This exists. So I think I would go with the first. Yeah, it'll probably scare the shit out of me and I'd be like.

• 1:04:50Speaker 01

  Yeah, because it's going to be brutal.

• 1:04:51Speaker 00

  But at least it's just one. It's not a bad review every day for the rest of your life.

• 1:04:54Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:04:55Speaker 00

  You know, that'll get you down.

• 1:04:57Speaker 01

  That's the thing. I can't, I feel like with proper therapy and help, I can get past a brutal supernatural experience that I can't explain.

• 1:05:06Speaker 00

  That's true.

• 1:05:06Speaker 01

  But having it happen, like a brutal Goodreads review every morning for the rest of my life, I feel like that would, that would take years off my life.

• 1:05:14Speaker 02

  It's too close to home, I mean, because I could do that easily.

• 1:05:15Speaker 01

  Yeah. That's the thing.

• 1:05:19Speaker 01

  I could do that, right? I don't want to.

• 1:05:21Speaker 00

  Don't do that, you too.

• 1:05:22Speaker 01

  Yeah, no, no, no. Uh, so this one I'm really interested in. Would you rather be able to write a first draft in one week? Or?

• 1:05:32Speaker 02

  Like Stephen Graham Jones.

• 1:05:32Speaker 01

  Yeah, just like boom, exactly. Boom, here we go.

• 1:05:35Speaker 02

  That's how quickly he writes.

• 1:05:36Speaker 01

  Would you like to be able to revise a manuscript perfectly on one pass?

• 1:05:42Speaker 02

  Uh, I'll do the one pass.

• 1:05:45Speaker 01

  One pass.

• 1:05:45Speaker 00

  One pass on the manuscript.

• 1:05:47Speaker 01

  I was hoping you would answer that because I also feel that way.

• 1:05:49Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:05:50Speaker 01

  Yeah. Cause I'm fine with the first draft taking forever.

• 1:05:53Speaker 02

  Yeah. I mean, as hard as it can be, uh, I love like how life sneaks, sneaks in like it usually takes me 12 to 15 months to come up with a draft. And oh, it's kind of fun. Like the book gets better by. Living with that book for that time.

• 1:06:05Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:06:06Speaker 02

  Things that I never would have, in that week, I never would have come up with. Like, it took that time, so.

• 1:06:12Speaker 01

  I like that.

• 1:06:13Speaker 02

  I'm thinking I'm taking this too realistically, but yeah.

• 1:06:14Speaker 01

  No, it's true, though.

• 1:06:15Speaker 00

  That's a realistic one, you know?

• 1:06:16Speaker 01

  It makes sense, because it kind of like dips into, you know, if like something's happening that week, the writing's going to change a little bit and the story might change with it, or our character might change with it. So I feel the same way. I think, I don't mind like sitting with a draft for a while and like tinkering with it.

• 1:06:31Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:06:31Speaker 01

  But once it comes to like the first passes and edits, that's when I'm like, get through this. Definitely that one.

• 1:06:38Speaker 00

  Me too. Yeah.

• 1:06:41Speaker 01

  You know.

• 1:06:41Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:06:43Speaker 01

  So the next one, this is also a really good one, I feel. Would you rather encounter a ghost from 1692 Salem? Or the ghost of a really salty sea captain from Cape Cod?

• 1:06:57Speaker 00

  We're saying salty personality.

• 1:06:58Speaker 01

  Yeah. And maybe he's salty.

• 1:07:01Speaker 00

  And probably.

• 1:07:02Speaker 01

  As well.

• 1:07:02Speaker 00

  Physically salty.

• 1:07:03Speaker 01

  He's probably physically salty as well.

• 1:07:05Speaker 02

  You know, my knee jerk is to go with the salty person, but I think I would become really annoying because I know I would just start talking like them. It's so bad, like if I talk to British friends for more than five minutes.

• 1:07:15Speaker 01

  Oh, yes.

• 1:07:15Speaker 02

  I start.

• 1:07:16Speaker 00

  I get that way, too.

• 1:07:17Speaker 02

  And I'm not doing it on purpose, and I feel like such an asshole.

• 1:07:19Speaker 01

  It just happens.

• 1:07:19Speaker 02

  It just starts happening.

• 1:07:20Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:07:21Speaker 02

  But I think maybe for the comedy of it, the salty sea captain.

• 1:07:24Speaker 00

  I think that's a fun one.

• 1:07:25Speaker 02

  Because then I would have a new impersonation.

• 1:07:26Speaker 01

  There you go.

• 1:07:26Speaker 02

  Or speech pattern to do.

• 1:07:27Speaker 01

  That you could just slip into every once in a while.

• 1:07:29Speaker 00

  I would pick that, too.

• 1:07:29Speaker 02

  I grew up in Beverly, next to Salem, so I'm like, ah, I mean, I love that area, but like, ah, give me the new, give me the new guy.

• 1:07:35Speaker 00

  Yeah. 1692 ghost just sounds really scary. They probably really like faced a lot in their life, so.

• 1:07:41Speaker 02

  And I wouldn't understand what they're saying, like, how they talk.

• 1:07:43Speaker 00

  Old English.

• 1:07:44Speaker 02

  Have you ever seen the movie The Witch?

• 1:07:45Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:07:46Speaker 02

  You know, I love that movie, but like, I don't know what they're saying.

• 1:07:49Speaker 01

  You'd have to constantly be like, what?

• 1:07:51Speaker 00

  And then you might start talking like that and be yourself.

• 1:07:53Speaker 02

  That's true.

• 1:07:53Speaker 01

  That's true. See, I might. Regardless of all of that, I might pick the 1692 ghost.

• 1:07:59Speaker 00

  That just makes sense for you.

• 1:08:00Speaker 01

  Because I just want to know.

• 1:08:02Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:08:02Speaker 01

  Everything. Like, I think I'd be like, sit down. Tell me it all. Like, what happened here?

• 1:08:07Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:08:08Speaker 01

  I need to know. I want to know everything.

• 1:08:10Speaker 00

  That's fair.

• 1:08:10Speaker 01

  I also want to, I want to know, like, are there still bodies under, you know, Gallows Hill?

• 1:08:15Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 1:08:16Speaker 01

  Aerial Point?

• 1:08:17Speaker 02

  You're still thinking Widows Bay. You want to hang out with Hamish.

• 1:08:19Speaker 01

  Exactly.

• 1:08:20Speaker 02

  The Warren guy.

• 1:08:21Speaker 01

  Yes. I want to know.

• 1:08:22Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:08:22Speaker 01

  Like, tell me, tell me what it is. Like, we haven't used, they haven't figured out if there's still bodies buried in that area. And I'm like, you gotta tell me. So.

• 1:08:30Speaker 00

  You'd ask about, like, Giles Corey.

• 1:08:32Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah. I'd be like, what was he like? He seems kind of, he was kind of a dick.

• 1:08:35Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:08:35Speaker 01

  Like, iconic at the same time.

• 1:08:37Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:08:37Speaker 01

  Yeah. I'd want to know all of that.

• 1:08:39Speaker 00

  I get that. I'm going sea captain.

• 1:08:41Speaker 01

  I get it.

• 1:08:42Speaker 00

  Yeah, just fun.

• 1:08:43Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:08:43Speaker 00

  You know?

• 1:08:44Speaker 01

  That's fine. So I'll get the 1692 person.

• 1:08:46Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:08:46Speaker 01

  You guys can get the salty sea captain.

• 1:08:48Speaker 02

  And we'll sing sea songs.

• 1:08:50Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:08:52Speaker 01

  And we'll all get together and we can learn things.

• 1:08:54Speaker 00

  And pair notes.

• 1:08:55Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:08:56Speaker 00

  All right. This one's kind of heady. Would you rather have definitive proof that ghosts do exist? Or definitive proof that they do not?

• 1:09:04Speaker 01

  Which we kind of touched upon, but.

• 1:09:06Speaker 00

  We did sort of.

• 1:09:07Speaker 02

  Hmm. I think the first, again, the first one would be more fun. Like, like I would say, like, I don't have to prove they don't exist. To me, that's almost like the assumption.

• 1:09:16Speaker 00

  Okay.

• 1:09:16Speaker 02

  You would have to prove the other way, right?

• 1:09:18Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:09:19Speaker 02

  Yeah. I mean, I think you'd be like the most famous person on earth.

• 1:09:22Speaker 00

  That's true.

• 1:09:23Speaker 02

  You'd totally cash in on proving, I'm just thinking, I want money. I'm a full-time writer now. I need money. I'm desperate. So, yeah, let me prove the ghosts and, you know, write for tell-alls.

• 1:09:33Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:09:34Speaker 02

  On it.

• 1:09:34Speaker 00

  Oh, interviews, like.

• 1:09:35Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:09:36Speaker 00

  One-on-one, yeah.

• 1:09:37Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:09:37Speaker 01

  Experience.

• 1:09:38Speaker 00

  I want proof that they exist, simply because that's just, I don't want to live in a world where they don't exist.

• 1:09:43Speaker 01

  That's how I feel.

• 1:09:44Speaker 00

  The fun in that, what's the fun in that?

• 1:09:46Speaker 01

  Because I always say the same thing. Like, I'm a very healthy skeptic at times, but I. I believe, I want to believe more that they do exist.

• 1:09:54Speaker 00

  We've had so many experiences that it's crazy to me that you're still skeptical.

• 1:09:58Speaker 01

  Well, there's, I try, my first knee jerk instinct is to try to explain it with some kind of logic.

• 1:10:05Speaker 00

  Haunted house.

• 1:10:06Speaker 01

  And I try to explain it and sometimes I can, but sometimes I can't.

• 1:10:10Speaker 00

  So many things in that house we grew up in, inexplicable.

• 1:10:13Speaker 01

  Yeah, there's definitely been a lot of things. And that's why I'm moreover on the side of like, okay.

• 1:10:17Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:10:17Speaker 01

  I think there are something, I don't know what, but.

• 1:10:19Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:10:20Speaker 02

  So like to, not to, well, when I'm always posed that question, I feel like I disappoint people. I say, yeah, like, you know, because I've never experienced anything.

• 1:10:26Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:10:27Speaker 02

  And I've always said, I feel like if I were to experience, it wouldn't be like Slimer from Ghostbusters.

• 1:10:31Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:10:32Speaker 02

  It'd be really subtle.

• 1:10:33Speaker 01

  Yup.

• 1:10:33Speaker 02

  And just off and like, as time passes, I would be, I would want to explain it away.

• 1:10:39Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:10:39Speaker 02

  And that would just be the way it would go.

• 1:10:41Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:10:43Speaker 02

  So, but anyway, I don't know if that adds anything. I was just thinking about it.

• 1:10:45Speaker 01

  Yeah. Well, and I had like, like one thing that happened in our house growing up that I, to this day, like cannot explain. And that's the one that really like got me like, oh, what was that? We had like, my house used to be like an old farmhouse. So it's got all this like crazy history and it's super old.

• 1:11:00Speaker 00

  We found like weird shit buried on the property.

• 1:11:03Speaker 01

  Buried there. And the primary bedroom, like they added, my parents added on to the house, but the primary bedroom like used to be my bedroom. And it always had weird shit going on in it. But again, I was like, it's fine. Nothing's weird here. And it became my parents' like art studio when I kind of like got older and I moved into another room.

• 1:11:20Speaker 00

  That room is scary as hell.

• 1:11:22Speaker 01

  And it's scary now. And that we had like, it was when we had which like RIP computer rooms where it was like the room where the computer lived. They used to shut the door every time. And you had to go past the primary bedroom, the old one, to get to the computer room. And one night I was walking past it to go to the computer room. The door was shut and something from behind the door hit the door from inside so hard that I jumped across the hall, like into the wall. My dog like jumped up and was like, what the hell was that?

• 1:11:55Speaker 02

  Whoa.

• 1:11:56Speaker 01

  I think my, my dad heard it and was like, what did you just do? Like, what was that? And I was like, I have no idea what that is. And it was in there. He opened the door and nothing was against the door. It sounded like somebody took fists and slammed them against the door and it was right when I walked by.

• 1:12:10Speaker 02

  That's terrifying.

• 1:12:10Speaker 01

  And that's the one that I'm like, I don't know how that happened.

• 1:12:13Speaker 00

  That's a good one.

• 1:12:14Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:12:15Speaker 00

  That same room, I used to spend the night in that room. It's like, you had people over or something, I would sleep in that room. And I was on an air mattress, like, watching the Disney Channel, probably. I was like, 10 years old. And there was this, like, Tupperware, like, container thing full of old magazines. And it was probably like 2 o'clock in the morning, and it just slid across the room with, like, crazy force. I screamed so loud. My grandparents came running, you came running.

• 1:12:42Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:12:43Speaker 00

  And nobody, there was no way to reenact that or anything.

• 1:12:47Speaker 01

  It wasn't like the house tilted all of a sudden.

• 1:12:48Speaker 00

  No, because it was so forceful.

• 1:12:50Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:12:51Speaker 00

  That room has weird energy.

• 1:12:53Speaker 02

  So see, if you tell me that and then say you have to go stay overnight in that room, I would be like, hell no.

• 1:12:57Speaker 00

  Yeah, I never slept in that room again.

• 1:12:59Speaker 02

  Even though I say I don't believe, like, go stay in this reportedly haunted house. I am not going to do that.

• 1:13:03Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:13:03Speaker 01

  No.

• 1:13:03Speaker 02

  So I guess on some level, I fear I believe.

• 1:13:07Speaker 01

  Yeah, see, you have a healthy fear of them.

• 1:13:10Speaker 00

  I feel most skeptics feel that way.

• 1:13:12Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:13:12Speaker 00

  You know?

• 1:13:13Speaker 01

  Yeah, healthy fears there.

• 1:13:14Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:13:15Speaker 01

  All right, so bringing it back to Bridgewater Triangle.

• 1:13:18Speaker 02

  Hmm.

• 1:13:19Speaker 01

  If you were dropped into the Hockamock Swamp, just right in the middle of it, would you rather find giant cryptid-type footprints everywhere? Or perfectly normal human footprints that should not be there?

• 1:13:32Speaker 02

  I would, uh... I was gonna say cryptid, but then my daughter would just make fun of me because she was, when she was a lot younger, she still loved Bigfoot stuff.

• 1:13:41Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:13:41Speaker 02

  There's no such thing as Bigfoot.

• 1:13:43Speaker 01

  Who doesn't love Bigfoot?

• 1:13:47Speaker 02

  What would I ra... I mean, I guess I would rather see the cryptid. I mean, that would be so cool. Be like, you have to be wrong, be like, oh, wow, there is this weird giant Bigfoot thing that runs around.

• 1:13:57Speaker 00

  And humans are scary. I was gonna say, who wants to come across a serial killer in the woods?

• 1:14:01Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:14:01Speaker 00

  No one.

• 1:14:02Speaker 01

  Like, I don't want to come across a random person in the middle of the Hockamock Swamp.

• 1:14:05Speaker 00

  My worst nightmare.

• 1:14:06Speaker 01

  I'd much rather run into Bigfoot.

• 1:14:08Speaker 00

  Just be one with Bigfoot at that point.

• 1:14:09Speaker 01

  Yeah, truly.

• 1:14:10Speaker 00

  Yeah, like, take on their customs and everything.

• 1:14:12Speaker 01

  I'm ready.

• 1:14:13Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:14:13Speaker 01

  Let's go.

• 1:14:13Speaker 00

  I love it.

• 1:14:14Speaker 02

  Start knocking on trees with rocks to communicate with them.

• 1:14:18Speaker 00

  For a really long, crazy with it.

• 1:14:20Speaker 01

  We could bond.

• 1:14:21Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:14:21Speaker 01

  It would be fun.

• 1:14:22Speaker 00

  That's what I'm doing.

• 1:14:24Speaker 01

  I like it.

• 1:14:25Speaker 00

  All right, would you rather have Winifred plan your wedding or host your funeral?

• 1:14:31Speaker 02

  Oh geez. Well, it seems like family and loved ones are both in danger and jeopardy in both scenarios.

• 1:14:37Speaker 00

  That's true.

• 1:14:37Speaker 01

  That's very true.

• 1:14:39Speaker 00

  At least she doesn't have to be at your wedding.

• 1:14:41Speaker 02

  I'm gonna be really selfish. I'd say plan my funeral because I'm already dead.

• 1:14:44Speaker 00

  There you go.

• 1:14:45Speaker 02

  Like if it was my wedding, there's a chance that I could be one of, one of the people that kills.

• 1:14:50Speaker 01

  That's true.

• 1:14:51Speaker 02

  Right. I want my wedding to be a bummer. My funeral is already gonna be a bummer.

• 1:14:57Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:14:57Speaker 02

  So she could just make it more of a bummer, I guess.

• 1:14:59Speaker 00

  She might liven it up even.

• 1:15:00Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:15:00Speaker 01

  That's true. And you just don't have to deal with the aftermath. So it's nice to not have to clean up after her.

• 1:15:05Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:15:06Speaker 01

  You know, I feel that too.

• 1:15:08Speaker 00

  I feel her wedding plans would be a little too macabre for me.

• 1:15:12Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:15:13Speaker 00

  Yeah. So she can do my funeral.

• 1:15:14Speaker 01

  I agree. So back to some ghosties. Would you rather be haunted by a Puritan ghost who judges everything you do, or a Victorian ghost who constantly corrects your etiquette?

• 1:15:32Speaker 02

  Yeah. You can like go Victorian.

• 1:15:35Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:15:36Speaker 02

  The etiquette stuff doesn't bother me. Probably much of the chagrin of some people that know me.

• 1:15:42Speaker 02

  It'd be easy to laugh off that ghost.

• 1:15:43Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:15:44Speaker 02

  The etiquette ghost.

• 1:15:45Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:15:45Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:15:46Speaker 00

  I feel like ma is kind of an etiquette ghost.

• 1:15:48Speaker 01

  I was gonna say, I think I grew up on the mom. Who is that?

• 1:15:51Speaker 00

  So I'll just take that. I'd be used to it.

• 1:15:53Speaker 01

  Same. Because the Puritan ghost would make me great. Like, again, I'll take the 1692 Puritan ghost that like hangs for a second and just tells me things. You gotta go after that.

• 1:16:05Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:16:05Speaker 01

  You can't stick around.

• 1:16:06Speaker 02

  And I would, I mean, just to take the logic out further, like if the Puritan ghost is telling me not to do things, I'd say, well, if there's a Puritan ghost, maybe, you know, the god is their god. Like, maybe shit, I shouldn't be doing this stuff.

• 1:16:18Speaker 00

  So there you go.

• 1:16:19Speaker 02

  Mess with my head.

• 1:16:20Speaker 00

  That's true. That's a really good point.

• 1:16:22Speaker 02

  I can ignore the etiquette, but like, if the Puritan's like, you're gonna go to hell if you do this, this and this.

• 1:16:25Speaker 01

  You're like, maybe I am.

• 1:16:26Speaker 00

  That just becomes like OCD.

• 1:16:28Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:16:28Speaker 01

  That becomes too existential for me and I would start losing my mind, I think, for sure.

• 1:16:33Speaker 00

  Yeah. Victorian etiquette ghost, for sure.

• 1:16:36Speaker 01

  Yeah. And, and after reading this book, you could just be like, you're gross. So you don't know.

• 1:16:40Speaker 00

  I know about you.

• 1:16:41Speaker 01

  Why are you telling me this?

• 1:16:42Speaker 00

  Did you unwrap a mummy?

• 1:16:43Speaker 01

  Yeah. Unwrap a mummy.

• 1:16:45Speaker 00

  All right. You are dropped into the middle of the Bridgewater, Bridgewater Triangle at midnight. You can choose one companion, a ghost hunter, a cryptozoologist, a priest, a witch, or Stephen King.

• 1:17:00Speaker 00

  Who do you choose?

• 1:17:03Speaker 02

  I've, Stephen and I have exchanged a bunch of emails, but I've never met him in person. It'd be kind of fun to be in the woods with Stephen.

• 1:17:08Speaker 00

  Hell, yeah.

• 1:17:08Speaker 02

  Hope he's okay with that. I don't know if he would.

• 1:17:11Speaker 00

  He gets popped in there no matter what.

• 1:17:13Speaker 01

  Yeah, he's just there.

• 1:17:14Speaker 00

  Yeah. Stephen.

• 1:17:15Speaker 02

  Yeah, me and Stephen.

• 1:17:16Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:17:17Speaker 02

  That'd be, yeah, that's definitely for sure.

• 1:17:19Speaker 00

  Yeah, that's your choice too.

• 1:17:20Speaker 01

  That was my choice. Cause I could be my own ghost hunter. Like, I don't, I don't know.

• 1:17:25Speaker 00

  You've ghost hunted?

• 1:17:26Speaker 01

  With that. A cryptozoologist, I feel like, would just be like, oh, look, that's Bigfoot. And I'd be like, no, I know.

• 1:17:32Speaker 00

  I've done my own research.

• 1:17:32Speaker 01

  That's a pakua G. I know. I've researched this.

• 1:17:35Speaker 00

  I'm from here.

• 1:17:36Speaker 01

  A priest?

• 1:17:36Speaker 00

  No.

• 1:17:38Speaker 01

  No, thank you.

• 1:17:40Speaker 00

  A witch. We are.

• 1:17:40Speaker 01

  Yeah, I was like, I could be my own witch, so that's fine. And then I was like, Stephen King in the middle of the Bridgewater Triangle, or like the Hockamuck Swamp. I was like.

• 1:17:48Speaker 00

  Just start writing together.

• 1:17:49Speaker 01

  I was gonna say, then maybe we could be like, let's come up with a story together.

• 1:17:53Speaker 00

  Yeah, based on your experience.

• 1:17:54Speaker 01

  Yeah, just to have a hang with Stephen King in a weird space.

• 1:17:57Speaker 00

  I mean.

• 1:17:58Speaker 02

  Stephen here's just thinking. He's gonna start writing misery too.

• 1:18:00Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:18:02Speaker 02

  Oh, my God.

• 1:18:04Speaker 00

  We're like, we want to be in the middle of the woods with you, Stephen. God damn it. It's like, oh, help. I love this.

• 1:18:11Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's what, what is yours?

• 1:18:13Speaker 00

  Oh, good call.

• 1:18:14Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:18:16Speaker 00

  I feel the same as you. I don't, I can be a ghost hunter, like all the same reasoning. And I've never met Stephen King, so.

• 1:18:21Speaker 01

  Yeah, why not?

• 1:18:22Speaker 00

  I hang with him. I have a lot of questions. I want to know about Mambo number five.

• 1:18:26Speaker 01

  Yeah, I really want to know about that.

• 1:18:27Speaker 00

  With that song.

• 1:18:28Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 1:18:29Speaker 02

  What if you like tried to be like a real woodsman and was really bad at it? It's like, hey, you know, we can eat this mushroom. Trust me, I'm Stephen King.

• 1:18:34Speaker 01

  It's fine.

• 1:18:35Speaker 02

  Oh, my God.

• 1:18:37Speaker 00

  Like, trust me, I'm Stephen King.

• 1:18:38Speaker 02

  Potential pratfalls to it, I suppose.

• 1:18:40Speaker 00

  There are. It'd be silly.

• 1:18:42Speaker 01

  Cause I might believe him. Like, if he ends the, the thing with, trust me, I'm Stephen King. I might be like, you are right. So you are Stephen King.

• 1:18:49Speaker 00

  Well, then you'd just be tripping in the woods. That's kind of fun.

• 1:18:51Speaker 01

  With Stephen King?

• 1:18:52Speaker 00

  Yeah. Who can say they did that?

• 1:18:53Speaker 01

  There we go.

• 1:18:53Speaker 02

  Definitely would choose him over Grady Hendrix. Like, Grady would be useless in the woods.

• 1:18:57Speaker 00

  Of course. Grady, we're not plopping you in the woods.

• 1:18:59Speaker 02

  He's complaining about like bugs.

• 1:19:02Speaker 02

  Ask you to hold his blazer.

• 1:19:03Speaker 00

  I know.

• 1:19:04Speaker 01

  He's not used to New England.

• 1:19:05Speaker 02

  Like his lime colored blazer might help us see.

• 1:19:07Speaker 01

  There you go.

• 1:19:08Speaker 02

  We're working our way through.

• 1:19:09Speaker 01

  It could be like a flare.

• 1:19:10Speaker 00

  That could be advantageous.

• 1:19:12Speaker 01

  That could.

• 1:19:13Speaker 00

  You know?

• 1:19:14Speaker 01

  He's gonna be, he's gonna listen and be like, damn, I thought we had fun on that.

• 1:19:17Speaker 00

  I guess I won't be joining them again.

• 1:19:19Speaker 01

  Yeah, real nice.

• 1:19:20Speaker 00

  Barring them for my next event.

• 1:19:22Speaker 01

  Well, speaking of Grady.

• 1:19:24Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:19:24Speaker 01

  Last question. Would you rather fight one Stephen King clown? So Pennywise, essentially?

• 1:19:30Speaker 00

  Yep.

• 1:19:31Speaker 01

  Or one Grady Hendrix possessed Ikea product? Or horror store product?

• 1:19:38Speaker 02

  Ah, I think I'd go with the horror store. I don't know, I think the clown is, you know, too morphy.

• 1:19:43Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:19:44Speaker 02

  I've read horror store, it was a while ago, I don't have as much of memory as what they could do. Besides like suck me into the store and like the other dimension. I don't know, but I could, I feel like I could fight a bookcase name. What's it called, like Benny?

• 1:19:56Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:19:56Speaker 02

  Or something like that?

• 1:19:57Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:19:57Speaker 02

  Yeah, it's hard to be scared of.

• 1:19:59Speaker 01

  Of Benny?

• 1:19:59Speaker 02

  Of Benny.

• 1:20:00Speaker 01

  That's true.

• 1:20:01Speaker 02

  If that's my, I have some of those at my house.

• 1:20:03Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:20:03Speaker 02

  Now I'm gonna look at them askance.

• 1:20:05Speaker 01

  Put your dukes up.

• 1:20:06Speaker 00

  Ask her up.

• 1:20:07Speaker 01

  I see that, I thought this was easy. And I think it's still kind of is.

• 1:20:11Speaker 00

  Oh, it's easy for me.

• 1:20:12Speaker 01

  Like Pennywise is too much like every fear of yours he can just become. So like, no. And especially like the big spider, no thank you.

• 1:20:19Speaker 00

  Oh.

• 1:20:20Speaker 01

  But I'm also like, it's also one of my biggest fears to be locked in an Ikea. Like when, when you get lost in that loop and you can't find the right way.

• 1:20:28Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:20:28Speaker 01

  That's horror.

• 1:20:29Speaker 00

  See, for me, I'm gonna find the meatballs.

• 1:20:32Speaker 01

  You are gonna find the meatballs.

• 1:20:33Speaker 00

  So I'll survive.

• 1:20:34Speaker 01

  That's actually smart.

• 1:20:35Speaker 00

  Thank you.

• 1:20:35Speaker 01

  They have cinnamon buns too, I think.

• 1:20:37Speaker 00

  You do.

• 1:20:37Speaker 01

  So that, okay.

• 1:20:38Speaker 00

  Yeah, they have good stuff.

• 1:20:40Speaker 01

  I'll fight Grady Hendrix's products.

• 1:20:42Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:20:42Speaker 01

  Yeah, that is survival.

• 1:20:43Speaker 00

  Yeah. It scares their, Pennywise scares the shit out of me, so.

• 1:20:47Speaker 01

  I think it's colloquially, I think it is it.

• 1:20:50Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:20:50Speaker 01

  I think everybody thinks of it as it.

• 1:20:51Speaker 00

  I know, it's so true.

• 1:20:53Speaker 01

  But yeah, that's our would you rathers.

• 1:20:56Speaker 00

  You survived it.

• 1:20:56Speaker 01

  You killed it.

• 1:20:57Speaker 02

  Yeah, I think I got too mathy with it with my logic.

• 1:21:00Speaker 01

  No, I like that.

• 1:21:01Speaker 00

  You're a math teacher.

• 1:21:01Speaker 01

  That's smart.

• 1:21:02Speaker 00

  You're only recently retired.

• 1:21:03Speaker 02

  That's right. I haven't gotten rid of it.

• 1:21:05Speaker 01

  It's gonna leach out every once in a while. And honestly, Grady got very into it as well. He thought through them.

• 1:21:10Speaker 02

  I know, I heard him. He asked for extras.

• 1:21:12Speaker 01

  Yeah, he was like, let's go.

• 1:21:13Speaker 00

  We had to get them on the fly.

• 1:21:14Speaker 01

  I know, we were like, oh, my God.

• 1:21:15Speaker 00

  Oh, shit, we have more, all right.

• 1:21:16Speaker 01

  I was like, shit. But I think that went well. I think we all survived that.

• 1:21:20Speaker 02

  Thank you. Yeah, no, this was, that was a blast.

• 1:21:22Speaker 01

  Thank you for being here.

• 1:21:23Speaker 00

  Thanks for joining us.

• 1:21:24Speaker 02

  My absolute pleasure.

• 1:21:25Speaker 01

  We, this was so much fun. We've been so excited for this and.

• 1:21:29Speaker 02

  Oh, same. Well, thank you.

• 1:21:31Speaker 01

  Thank you. And then, everybody, read Paul's books.

• 1:21:34Speaker 02

  Yes, please.

• 1:21:34Speaker 01

  Go watch the adaptations. They're amazing. And Stephen King, don't send us a cease and desist.

• 1:21:41Speaker 00

  We just wanna be friends, Steve.

• 1:21:42Speaker 02

  Just in the woods.

• 1:21:43Speaker 01

  Yeah, we just wanna hang in the woods with you. That's all.

• 1:21:45Speaker 00

  Okay. You can go anytime.

• 1:21:47Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's all. So before we go. Yeah, The Dreaming of Electric Sheep, coming out June 30th. Go get it. You heard what it's about. It's gonna be awesome. And Paul, if you have anything else to plug or you wanna further plug?

• 1:22:00Speaker 02

  Um, I guess I would just, I don't know when this podcast is gonna run, but on July 2nd, as we mentioned Grady, like he and I will be at The Strand, New York City. Bookstore, you know, trying to sell this book.

• 1:22:12Speaker 01

  Go there.

• 1:22:13Speaker 02

  I've tried to convince him I'll wear the suit and he'll wear a T-shirt with tattoos.

• 1:22:17Speaker 01

  That would be amazing.

• 1:22:18Speaker 00

  You should wear the lime green laser.

• 1:22:19Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:22:22Speaker 01

  I love that.

• 1:22:22Speaker 00

  I love it.

• 1:22:23Speaker 01

  So go check them out. Go see where Paul's gonna be and go get his books.

• 1:22:28Speaker 00

  Or else.

• 1:22:29Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:22:29Speaker 01

  We'll fight you.

• 1:22:30Speaker 00

  All right. Well, guys, thank you for listening. We hope you keep listening and we hope you.

• 1:22:35Speaker 01

  Keep.

• 1:22:36Speaker 00

  It. Weird. But not so weird that you don't go buy Paul's books.

• 1:22:41Speaker 01

  Do it.

• 1:22:42Speaker 00

  You better.

• 1:24:27Speaker 00

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