Ghost Story: The classic small-town horror filled with creeping dread

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Ghost Story is not a whodunit, but it is not really about ghosts (though a few do show up). The story is quite a complex but not at all hard to follow. A creepy atmosphere pervades the entire book and the reader what is going on with the disappearing girls and the dead people they leave behind. It is meticulously written by Straub. The supernatural element often has a hallucinogenic feel to it and the climax is quite rousing. The characters are well drawn but not particularly memorable. I find that Straub’s storytelling is not as taut as it could be and the pacing drags a little in the earlier parts of the book; too many scenes of the old gents pottering around grumbling. His brand of horror is subtle and often psychological, there is very little in the gore department. One of the things that I did not expect when going into Ghost Story was how involved and complex the plot is with the main characters of The Chowder Society. Straub earned an honors BA in English at the University of Wisconsin–Madison in 1965, and an MA at Columbia University a year later. He briefly taught English at Milwaukee Country Day, then moved to Dublin, Ireland, in 1969 to work on a PhD, and to start writing professionally I have read this book several times now, and I firmly believe it is the The Brothers Karamazov of the horror book world. Suffice it to say, the thing or things that is haunting our four main characters has returned to the small town of Milburn, New York. And it didn’t come for the maple syrup festival.

That kind of fear, though, based solidly in statistical reality, is almost too much to bear. It’s impossible to live your life constantly thinking about that possibility, that probability, lingering up ahead in the future.This is a book that combines the chill of the New York winter with the arthritic helplessness of old man nightmares. It plays shamelessly with reality. The devices Straub incorporated in this book are so subtle that they had to be corrupted or ignored entirely when a movie was made based on this book. In 1966, Straub married Susan Bitker.They had two children; their daughter, Emma Straub, is also a novelist. The family lived in Dublin from 1969 to 1972, in London from 1972 to 1979, and in the New York City area from 1979 onwards. Bravo Mr. Straub. I'm so sorry that you've been taken from this world before I've gotten a chance to become a fan.

Now I will leave you with my favorite quote courtesy of one of the many side characters whose name I have long since forgotten.reddorakeen on Beyond The Exorcist: Five Movies That Explore Possession From Non-Christian Perspectives 6 hours ago When I finished school, I sold my The Shining, my The Stand, all of my horror books except one. There was one novel with which I could not part--Peter Straub's "Ghost Story."

The next part of the book tells the story of Donald Wanderley, the child kidnapper from the prologue. He is a nephew of the dead club member of the Chowder Society and an author of a horror novel. Drew reluctantly enters the house, following his parents and aunt at a distance. He navigates empty rooms by listening to their voices. Drew approaches them unnoticed as his father tells Blythe that Drew is “fearful… nervous… too much imagination.” A woman has come to town, a woman who's been here before, though right now, no one realizes it. She's come to finish what she started, and this time she's brought along a few friends. No one knows it, but she is an evil being who wafts through the centuries, bewitching gullible men with her beauty, before destroying them and those around them, then disappearing in search of fresh prey. This is a story about a beautiful town in New York state, how evil can sneak up unnoticed, unseen and unassumed, manipulate and prey upon the inhabitants, and watch the slow descent into madness and chaos. Milburn was fleshed out similar to King's set up of Salem's Lot. Being written in 1979, it shared a similar small-town / historic village vibe. The cars, the town square, the movie theater. Just your perfect up-country New England setting.DigiCom on Five SF Visions of Society Free From Rules, Regulations, or Effective Government 2 hours ago This is actually one of the "scariest" books I've read so far as atmosphere and actual emotional scare goes. An entertaining horror novel with exceptional frightening factor that sadly loses some potential and momentum towards the end.