Episode 33: Daniel Kraus

In episode 33, show host Phil Morehart from the American Library Association speaks with author Daniel Kraus about his latest book, “Partially Devoured: How ‘Night of the Living Dead’ Saved My Life and Changed the World.” Filmmaker George A Romero’s 1968 horror masterpiece, “Night of the Living Dead,” was a cultural and artistic gamechanger. It gave the world the modern zombie—the slow, shambling, reanimated corpse with a hunger for human flesh. It also changed the nature of independent cinema, especially horror, showing what can be accomplished with little money but massive amounts of talent, support, and luck. And it’s incredibly frightening. In “Partially Devoured: How ‘Night of the Living Dead’ Saved My Life and Changed the Word,” Kraus (author of “Whalefall,” “The Shape of Water,” and the winner of the 2026 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, “Angel Down”) examines Romero’s film with an unparallelled precision, dissecting it scene-by-scene, minute-by-minute, second-by-second, and sometimes frame-by-frame to uncover its secrets. Kraus dives into the film’s actors and their histories and tragedies, copyright woes that plagued “Night” after its release, the socio-political and racial realities of the 1960s that are reflected in the film, and so much more. “Partially Devoured” also details how “Night of the Living Dead” has carved a place into Kraus’s life; how it’s been a constant companion through joys and sadness since childhood, helping him become who he is today. Kraus joins the show to discuss “Partially Devoured” and its writing, revelations about “Night of the Living Dead,” the power of discovering and embracing horror at a young age, and how he libraries.