Episode Forty-Two - Stand By Me w/James Michels (writer 'The Melody of Shattered Gold')

The Constant Reader Podcast - The Canon of Stephen King

Welcome back to the Constant reader Podcast, and thanks for bearing with us during our long hiatus. We have gathered up quite a few of our favorite repeat guests for 2025 though, so i am sure you will forgive us. We have lined up Kim C from the year of underrated Stephen King podcast with another step towards the Dark Tower. The gentlemen from King Con will be giving a report on how their convention on Stephen King, the first of its type, went back in October, and what you might expect from them in the future. Plus Andy Stanton will be back to help me sort out the End of the World As We Know It, the upcoming short story collection based in the world of King's The Stand. Plus we have some new guests, including some big names I can’t reveal just yet.

Today’s guest is one those old friends, James Michels. James was on the show a couple of years ago to talk about The Shawshank Redemption, his own work in the prison industry, and his career as crime writer. We discussed a series of short stories, Life’s Dark Corners, that i urge you to seek out. Today however, he is here to discuss The Melody of Shattered Glass, an ambitious epic novel that depicts the fates of the Oro crime family, one of the last bastions of a mafia that is struggling to identify exactly what it is, and what it stands for in the 21st century. But first, James wanted to talk about Stand by Me, Rob Reiner’s adaptation of King’s novella The Body. It features an incredible cast, a killer soundtrack, a sharp script and has meant a lot of things to a lot of people.

I refer to his new book as The Melody of Shattered Glass, when it is, in fact The Melody of Shattered Gold. A thousand apologies to James for misnaming this book, which has an incredible ending and unforgettable characters.....