Dr Kevin McCarron is the author of two previous monographs: William Golding, and The Coincidence of Opposites, and a co-author of Frightening Fiction. He worked as a stand-up comedian for many years. He has published forty chapters in edited collections and nineteen peer-reviewed journal articles on a range of subjects including The Dead Sea Scrolls, university teaching and stand-up comedy, blasphemy, prison narratives, tattooing, prostitution, alcoholism and heroin addiction, begging and homelessness, and the Marquis de Sade.