GROUP DISCUSSION #1 - “Dolan’s Cadillac”

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cat in a bag

Well-Known Member
Aug 28, 2010
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I thought Dolan was a mob guy too - a John Gotti type of guy.

Is the movie being shown on a common network? I havn't seen it either.

There are a couple radio stations in the Dallas area with call letters beginning with a W. They're both old stations so maybe that's why. All the newer stations have call letters beginning with a K.
The Movie Channel is showing it several times over the next few weeks.
 

AnnaMarie

Well-Known Member
Feb 16, 2012
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I now know why the story seemed unfamiliar when I watched it. I have never read this book.

I had assumed the movie was just sooooo different I wasn’t recognizing it. But it is actually a good adaption of the actual story....that I had never read. Lol
 

GNTLGNT

The idiot is IN
Jun 15, 2007
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Cambridge, Ohio
The Cask of Amontillado sprang to mind for me, too. A lot of similarities and I think they were purposeful. I grew up in Vegas so I am very familiar with the area. SK did a great job of setting and place. The story is paced well - you never feel rushed or like it's being dragged out. Ghost story? Mayhap. I guess that's up to us.

I did pick up an unusual mistake. When the protagonist tunes into the radio, he tunes in to an impossibility. There is no WKXR in Vegas, nor could there ever be. Radio and TV station call letters west of the Mississippi River start with a K, not a W. A rare flub from Uncle Stevie. ;)
....you are correct to a point about the call letters...WKXR is in Asheboro, North Carolina-however, check this out.....
kwtoday.gif
-usual Federal bureaucracy booger ups.....and some special requests by station owners....originally, the plan was to have all the K calls East of the Big Muddy and W calls West......
 
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Scratch

In the flesh.
Sep 1, 2014
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I don't think it's so much a nod to Poe as it is a damn near direct imitation of John D. MacDonald. His style is stamped deep on this one. Even the method of tricking someone on the phone for information is a thing done often in his books. I should say I think it is an homage though. King loved MacDonald's books and spoke of him in the introduction to one of his. I can't recall which one. I agree with King though, John was one hell of a writer of such tales. Stephen did him proud.
 

GNTLGNT

The idiot is IN
Jun 15, 2007
87,651
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Cambridge, Ohio
I don't think it's so much a nod to Poe as it is a damn near direct imitation of John D. MacDonald. His style is stamped deep on this one. Even the method of tricking someone on the phone for information is a thing done often in his books. I should say I think it is an homage though. King loved MacDonald's books and spoke of him in the introduction to one of his. I can't recall which one. I agree with King though, John was one hell of a writer of such tales. Stephen did him proud.
...agreed, but the Poe touch is there as well....
 

Marty Coslaw

Low-BDNF Gork
May 19, 2018
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DC
Yes! Thank you lol
Yup, Tell-Tale and Cask are essential Poe reading, right up there with The Raven and The Fall of the House of Usher. The thought definitely occurred to me reading this story, and an homage is probably an element of it, but it brings to mind Christopher Moore's The Serpent of Venice--the Cask of Amontillado reference there is much more explicit and intertextual. Might be worth checking out.
 

Marty Coslaw

Low-BDNF Gork
May 19, 2018
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I didn't actually get that idea until the end when she left Robinson's mind, then I thought back and got the idea she was the motivator.
I wondered about that too; her no longer speaking, I mean. I guess I thought it was sort of a commentary on memory. Keeping someone alive in your memory, kind-of-thing, and how real that connection can be, how it can affect a person. I loved how the inner dialogue lets the readers decide whether Dolan really deserves to die like this, and by the end, I think we're convinced.
 

Marty Coslaw

Low-BDNF Gork
May 19, 2018
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DC
I love that King doesn’t make it obvious one way or the other. I lean toward the narrator imagining Elizabeth talking to him, goading him on, but a case could certainly be made for it being a ghost story.

I do think this story is a bit of a practice run for later novels like Insomnia and especially Bag of Bones — the ‘losing one’s spouse and dealing with grief’ motif, but of course this story has a brilliantly sinister obsessive streak running through it.
I felt the same way. I haven't read those two but it reminded me of his portrayal of parental grief in Pet Sematary and Roadwork. Very powerful.