Ep. 59 The Ninth Configuration

Martin Kessler, who previously brought books about an immortal
centurion and an omnipotent alien god to the podcast, returns to
discuss The Ninth Configuration by William Peter Blatty. A
reworking of the Exorcist author's 1966 novel Twinkle Twinkle
Killer Kane! and basis for his 1980 movie, Configuration is set at
Center Eighteen, a military sanitarium in an isolated castle deep
in the Washington woods. Rehearsal for Shakespeare plays starring
dogs and the sledgehammering of uncooperative atoms are only some
of the routine events witnessed by the new enigmatic head
psychiatrist, a man determined to learn why one of the inmates
freaked out during a scheduled space mission and refused to go to
the moon. It's a unique and intimate novel full of the kind of
theological discourses Blatty explored in all his best-known work.
Among other topics, Kessler talks with hosts Christopher Funderburg
and John Cribbs about how Blatty's comedy background shaped the
tone of the book, the existential horror of dying in space and the
problem of the world's smartest dog. The Pink Smoke site:

www.thepinksmoke.com Patreon:
 www.patreon.com/thepinksmoke The
Pink Smoke on Twitter: 
twitter.com/thepinksmoke John Cribbs on
Twitter:
 twitter.com/TheLastMachine Christopher Funderburg on
Twitter:
 twitter.com/CFunderburg Intro & outro music by Marcus
Pinn of Pinnland Empire.