13 - Craig DiLouie and the Cult of the Shredder

Things get a little cultish this week on Talking Scared. Our guest is Craig DiLouie, author of the brand-spanking-new creepy commune novel, The Children of Red Peak – released November 18th from RedHook Books. It’s a tale of crazy goings-on in the desert, of ritual mutilation and lasting trauma. All that fun stuff!

Craig immediately has me in his thrall, even without the Kool-Aid. (interesting fact, it was actually Flavour Aid that the Jonestown cultists drank). We talk about the difference between a religion and a cult, how to capture the spiritual essence of music in prose, and we also get deep into what is so scary about religion and faith tipping over into something darker.

On top of that, Craig confronts us all with one of the big moral questions – how many arms would YOU feed to a shredder if you had to?

Along the way we mention some other books, including: 

• It (1986), by Stephen King
• Kin (2011), by Kealan Patrick Burke
• Last Days (2012), by Adam Neville
• Suffer the Children (2014), by Craig DiLouie
• Hater (2006), by David Moody
• The Power (2016), by Naomi Alderman

Come talk books with us on Twitter @talkscaredpod, on Instagram, or email direct to talkingscaredpod@gmail.com.

Thanks to Terry Smith Audio for sound editing.