28 - Pale Horse, Pale Rider - Katherine Anne Porter

What this episode covers

This past year we’ve all learned about the pandemic of 1918. (By the way, the book to read is The Great Influenza by John M. Barry.) Katherine Anne Porter, a young drama critic in Denver, caught the flu and made it out alive. Her story, Pale Horse, Pale Rider (an allusion from Revelation 6) tells the tale. Barry and Aaron discuss four of her stories, giving you a taste of this incredible author who married at sixteen, divorced at 25, acted in movies, traveled the word, served the Mexican Revolution, married repeatedly, and won a Pulitzer Prize. In all the stories Barry and Aaron talk about, death is central. People don’t talk much about death--even as Covid-19 has taken 400,000 American souls! Barry takes comfort in the stoicism of Marcus Aurelius while Aaron asserts the human soul is eternal. Island Idylls is a podcast about books, life, and sometimes, death.