Overview of Cecil and Kevin perform more from The Nudge, by Night Vale co-creator Joseph Fink
This episode is a promotional reading from Joseph Fink’s horror novel The Nudge, featuring audiobook performers Cecil Baldwin and Kevin R. Free. The intro plugs the book’s release, the audiobook and illustrated hardcover editions, and Fink’s California launch tour. The excerpt itself is a moody, unsettling scene built around travel, memory, marriage, and a strange hotel-like setting where the narrator reflects on his wife Sharon and the fragility of safety.
Joseph Fink’s Intro and Book Promotion
- Joseph Fink introduces himself as:
- Co-creator of Welcome to Night Vale
- Creator of Alice Isn’t Dead
- He describes The Nudge as:
- A horror novel in the vein of Stephen King and Shirley Jackson
- Likely appealing to fans of Welcome to Night Vale and Alice Isn’t Dead
- He notes there are two versions:
- An audiobook performed by Cecil Baldwin and Kevin R. Free
- A hardcover edition with illustrations by Night Vale artist Jessica Hayworth
- He promotes a California book tour, including:
- A launch event in Pasadena at Vroman’s Bookstore
- An in-conversation appearance with Mara Wilson
- Stops in San Francisco, Santa Cruz, Santa Barbara, and San Diego
- His main call to action: buy The Nudge wherever books are sold
Excerpt Summary
A Stranger’s Walk Through a Strange Place
The reading opens with a conversation between two people moving through what seems like a large hotel or house. One character has been driving for a long time, and the other offers to guide them. The setting feels quiet, old, and slightly off, with portraits on the walls and a winding route to a room.
Reflection on Safety and Loss
The narrator briefly comments on safety as something people barely notice until it disappears. That idea sets an ominous tone and hints at the novel’s horror atmosphere.
Sharon and a 20-Year Relationship
The central emotional thread is the narrator’s relationship with Sharon:
- They have been together for 20 years
- The narrator describes their bond as stable and deeply built, like “a bridge over a cold and deep river”
- He has been thinking about her constantly while traveling alone
How They Met
The narrator tells the story of meeting Sharon on the last day of college at a small liberal arts school in Ohio:
- They had somehow never noticed each other before graduation
- Their first exchange is awkward but immediate and intense
- Their connection continues through the ceremony, party, and bar afterward
- The narrator feels the beginning of falling in love right away
Sharon’s Mysterious Choice
Sharon does not give him her number, but kisses him and suggests they may find each other again. The narrator treats this as his first truly meaningful kiss. The moment is romantic, strange, and deliberate—Sharon seems to be testing fate.
Separation and Regret
The narrator spends years hoping to run into her again:
- He searches passersby and walks around town looking for her
- He eventually moves away, first to Nevada and then San Francisco
- He assumes she will become one of life’s lingering regrets
Life as Improvisation
He reflects on early adulthood as a temporary, improvised stage of life, only to realize later that all of life is improvised and understood only in retrospect.
The Hotel’s Unsettling Routine
The final exchange shifts back to the present setting:
- The place has a nighttime routine of waiting
- If someone is needed, it usually means someone has died or something is on fire
- The hotel has burned down twice This ending reinforces the eerie, unstable atmosphere of the story.
Themes and Takeaways
- Safety is fragile: The excerpt repeatedly emphasizes how quickly security can vanish.
- Love is tied to memory and chance: Sharon’s relationship with the narrator begins with an almost supernatural sense of timing.
- Regret and longing: The narrator’s search for Sharon becomes a meditation on missed chances and the way people carry the past.
- Ordinary life feels haunted: The story blends domestic reflection with uncanny, horror-adjacent unease.
- Fate vs. improvisation: The excerpt suggests that both romance and life itself are shaped by accidents, not clear plans.
Notable Impression
- The reading is intimate and reflective, but with a creeping dread underneath.
- It showcases Joseph Fink’s style: emotionally grounded storytelling wrapped in unsettling, atmospheric details.
- The final mention that the hotel has burned down twice hints that the setting is not just unusual, but actively dangerous.