Having rewatched S1 and S2 of Twin Peaks, it was good to finally many years later actually get to The Secret History of Twin Peaks, nicely coinciding with the personal development of accounting for how much Mark Frost was quietly responsible for a lot of the things people love about Twin Peaks, even though David Lynch was the more public facing of the two. The Secret History is fascinating in how it both indulges and refuses to indulge the desire for explanation of the lore. It would be, in some way, easy to put together a book that puts it all out on the page. And, yes, there are some sections like the one documenting the history of Big Ed, Hank, and Norma that feel like gap-filling. But on the whole, Frost uses this to vastly expand the scope of the lore, adding more questions than he answers. The Native Americans, the assassination of JFK, UFOs, and more (Donald Trump!) get brought into things, and absolutely fantastically at some point Frost has Richard Nixon uttering “I am not a kook”, so fair enough it’s all worth it for that. Built up of a classified dossier with annotated margins, collecting newspaper clippings, FBI and CIA files, diaries, letters, etc., it’s a formally fun book in that regard. Do not read seeking answers, but to spend more time ensconced in this world. I’m looking forward to getting to The Final Dossier post a The Return rewatch.