John Connolly

The parents are making the decision.

They're private.

Technically, they're monitored.

But when I began writing about...

the school in the book.

One of the wonderful things about Maine is that, because my books are set there, no matter how odd a thing I come up with in my imagination, someone in Maine has done something odder.

There's often a picture of them doing the odd thing.

And there had been a school, a series of schools in Maine called the A-Land schools, and they were set up, I think, at the end of the 70s, and lasted, really persisted until the start of the century.

And were so horrendously, although in theory they were under supervision, were so horrendously run that children died.

One of the modes of therapy was to have boys beat each other in a boxing ring.

And so one boy was beaten to death.

It was a mixed-sex school.

One girl was so distraught she ran away, was abducted by a serial killer and killed.

It was a nightmare.

People should have been buried in unmarked graves.

There was just no supervision at all.

But I find, you know, if there are so many parents listening to your show, there isn't a parent out there who at some point hasn't had to step out of the room with a child and kind of go, I will murder you.

You know, I just need, just keep quiet.

I will go outside.

I am the adult here.