Stranger Things prequel reveals Eddie Munson’s heartbreaking past

Want to learn more about fan-favorite Eddie Munson? Stranger Things has you covered, with a prequel novel set to reveal more about his heartbreaking past.

Joseph Quinn’s charming metalhead became one of the most loved features of Stranger Things Season 4 – which is why fans were so angry that the Netflix show decided to cut his story short in ruthless fashion. 

So much so that more than 87,000 people signed a petition to see Eddie ‘The Freak’ Munson somehow brought back – and not just as a flashback. 

If you agree with this sentiment, you’ll be pleased to know Netflix announced a prequel novel based on the beloved Hellfire Club leader, with new details emerging this week. 

Stranger Things prequel novel reveals Eddie Munson’s backstory

Stranger Things: Flight of Icarus, written by Caitlin Schneiderhan – who also works on the show – is set two years before the events of Stranger Things Season 4. 

Entertainment Weekly has shared an exclusive excerpt from the novel, which reveals more about Eddie’s love for music and his heartbreaking past with his mom. 

The passage details Eddie walking into a recording studio for the first time, and it’s here he tells Paige about how his late mom inspired his love for music. You can read the excerpt below, starting from Eddie’s reply about why he’s really into this world: 

“My mom.”

I’m not actually sure I mean to say it. It just kind of comes out, murmured into the microphone like I’m in a weird rock-and-roll-flavored confessional. I can imagine the words filling the air in the control room, the same way that Paige’s voice is filling my head, delivered direct to my eardrums by the headphones.

“My dad was the one who taught me how to play guitar, but my mom, uh.” I clear my throat. “She was living in Memphis when she met my dad. She’d grown up there, 19 years surrounded by music, everywhere she went. Country, bluegrass, rock… but her favorite was blues. Like, Chicago blues, the hard kind that gets into your bones, you know?”

Paige has straightened up on the other side of the observation window, pulling out of the light filtering in from the studio. I can’t see her face anymore. It’s just a silhouette that answers me. “Yeah.”

“So – when she left, when she moved up to Indiana, she took the music with her. It’s like a nine-hour drive from Memphis to Hawkins, and she and my dad spent all of that time squeezed into a tiny car with 20 boxes of records. And then when I was born, she started sharing those records with me.” 

I’m still plucking out a tune on this beat-up old Strat, but it’s not Iron Maiden anymore. It’s a Muddy Waters riff, and as it reverberates from the studio speakers, I can hear the static from Mom’s record player fuzzing underneath, familiar and comfortable as an old sweater. “I still have them. I still listen to them. They’re stashed next to the TV. She called them her plane tickets. Even when she was stuck in Hawkins,” waiting on her husband to come home from some dumbass scheme, “that music told stories. It helped her see the world.”

“I didn’t get it, when I was a kid,” I go on. “All I heard on those records were people singing about sadness, about how sh*tty life was. And then, uh. She got sick and died. When I was like 6. I got it then.” I pause. Typically there’s a chorus of sympathetic crooning following that reveal, one that sets my teeth on edge. But Paige is still and silent inside the control room, watching me. Listening.

So I give her something to listen to. The guitar line for Black Sabbath’s ‘Paranoid’ trips off my fingers, half blues and half metal, and it might be my imagination, but I think I can see the shadow of Paige nodding along to the beat.

“I like this music because it’s about sadness and how sh*tty life is. And things are sad, life is sh*tty. It’s real. But also, it tells stories. This music takes you on an adventure, to another world where you’re, like, facing down demons. Traveling into the depths of hell. My mom’s music was plane tickets. I guess that makes my music a portal to another dimension.”

“You like it because it’s badass,” Paige says.

“I like it because it’s really f*cking badass.” I finish the riff and let my hand fall away. “Is that enough copy for you?”

You can read more about the prequel novel here, Stranger Things Season 5 here, and check out some of our other Netflix hubs below:

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