208 – Adam Cesare & Making Scary Clowns Great Again

Talking Scared

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Send in the clowns. Tell them not to forget their crossbows and chainsaws.

This week our guest is Adam Cesare, who’s Clown in a Cornfield trilogy reaches a climax (I won’t say end) in Book 3: The Church of Frendo. I read all three books in one mad rush and they confounded all of my horror-savvy, slasher-weary expectations. These books are a State of the Nation story for the ages – think George Orwell’s Animal Farm, but with fascist clowns rather than Bolshevik swine.

Adam and I have one of those very Talking Scared conversations. We get into the political and the personal, touching on his time as a teacher, the challenge of empathy, the role of guns in fiction and the rural/urban divide in America.

But also… clowns! Horrible face-painted bastards that they are.

Enjoy.

• The Indian Lake Trilogy (2021-2024), by Stephen Graham Jones
• “The Lottery” (1948), by Shirley Jackson
• Influencer (2024), by Adam Cesare
• Rest Stop (2024), by Nat Cassidy

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