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

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Straub also invests so much time in creating the town of Milburn in which this story is located. He vividly paints the chilling winterland in which our heroes find themselves and breathes life into it. All the goings on and dynamics at play amongst the town's inhabitants are brilliantly described. This creates an absolute sense of realism for the reader, right before the carnage starts. It's very reminiscent of Salem's Lot (my favourite horror novel, no wonder I like it so much). The payoff toward the end of this novel is massive and there's so many memorable scenes. Scenes which are intense, dark and absolutely chilling. Peter Straub was born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, the son of Gordon Anthony Straub and Elvena (Nilsestuen) Straub. The simple fact is that for most of us, all the terrorists and all the murderers and all the faultily-constructed planes in all the world are not nearly as likely to hurt us than uncontrolled cell growth within our own bodies. Sure, I get a little jittery when my plane hits turbulence; and yes, I sneak around my own house with a baseball bat every time I hear a bump in the night. But truthfully, the only thing that really scares me is cancer. 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.

Peter Barnes, this badass young man ended up being my favorite character of them all. If it wasn't for him, this book would have gone in a whole different direction! Ghost Story was released on DVD on March 25, 1998, by Image Entertainment. [19] [20] Universal repressed the DVD with an alternate cover art, which was released September 7, 2004. [20] The film received its first Blu-ray release in the United States on November 24, 2015, by Scream Factory. [21] This release featured new bonus material, including an audio commentary with director John Irvin, as well as interviews with Peter Straub, Alice Krige, Lawrence D. Cohen, Burt Weissbourd, and Bill Taylor. [21] See also [ edit ] 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. I won't tell you that, but I'll tell you the worst thing that ever happened to me...the most dreadful thing...”Drew is fond of Hannah because she acts like a boy. They spend most of their time together, and he even climbs trees with her. One day, John shows up in his father’s car and becomes friends with Hannah. Drew feels jealous because he knows that they will eventually marry each other according to Aunt Blythe’s story about the family history. I enjoyed the second reading just as much as the first. Straub was a very underrated writer, and I'm guilty of not reading much of his work. Hopefully that can be remedied soon. 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. Mary Downing Hahn’s novel, A Time for Andrew: A Ghost Story, is about a boy who goes to spend the summer with his aunt. He visits an old house that has shadows and noises but it turns out to be time travel. The boy meets a ghost of another boy who looks like him and he ends up helping him.

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. 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."

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I hate it when this happens. You have a great writer. You have what is allegedly his magnum opus. You have a decent movie adaptation, which, though flawed, boasts a storyline original and creepy. I won't tell you that, but I'll tell you the worst thing that ever happened to me...the most dreadful thing... This felt just as dead and cold as the dreary Milburn town in which it was set. Even when the story becomes more suspenseful - scenes such as Peter and Jim sneaking into Eva Galli's house - the pace is just way too drawn-out, resulting in the simple trespassing of a house being stretched into three damned chapters. But let's put the infuriating slowness aside. Let's talk about what ruins this book even more. Frankly, it's the fact that when all the long-winded build-ups finally do pay off, they all do the equivalent of a mentally-unstable cashier throwing hundreds and hundreds of notes at you, crying "You want this? Take it! Take it all!!" when all you asked was to break a fiver. The protagonists in this one are also fantastically detailed and it so refreshing to get a group of elderly gents as the main charactes, as oppose to a bunch of young whipper snappers. Each one is expertly detailed, and very distinct and endearing. Superb character development. Secondly, it is a pretty complicated story: dense and epic. It’s a story about terrible things that happen to people and the secret lives people lead. The cast is also fairly big. Think you know what's going on around here? Think again.

The reason I always liked the first Friday the 13th film is because it recognized this distinction. The whole movie was people being watched and stalked by something faceless and nameless and left to our imaginations. There is very little running through the woods, which is good, because chase scenes aren’t scary. In the 7,000 sequels that followed, the distinction was lost; the killer was known, was given shape and form, and all that was left was to run. I can totally see why Ghost Story is seen on lists of the greatest classic horror books. This defied many of my expectations, and pre-conceived notions -- both of the book, and of Peter Straub. While in Florida, Eva emerges from the form of the little girl and attempts to twist Donald's mind. He is able to resist, and kills her after she tries to take the form of a wasp to escape. Donald then prepares to go to San Francisco to hunt down Florence de Peyser. I know that I’m keeping this vague but due to spoilers, it’s best to go into this one not knowing much about what’s evil and why the men of The Chowder Society are haunted. I found some of the stories interesting and there are some disturbing and pervy bits that I found rather comical but the book just went on and on and I felt like I had been reading/listening to it for my entire life. Eventually it did come to an end though and for that I am grateful. My two friends enjoyed this book very much while all I did was complain about the old coots, their roving eyes and their cheating ways and bitch about how confused I was about the time jumps and the plethora of unnecessary characters popping in and out of the story. This may be the last time I’m invited to a buddy read again, lol. So what I’m getting at here is don’t go by my opinion because my taste is atrocious. Also, don’t sleep read your way through this because it will not make any kind of sense.

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Now I will leave you with my favorite quote courtesy of one of the many side characters whose name I have long since forgotten. You could be forgiven for getting a little nervous when you open a novel and discover that the protagonist is driving south with a young girl whom, seemingly, is along for this ride against her will. Especially when the man ties her to him in intricate knots before he’ll allow himself to sleep, and when he insists on keeping his hand clamped around her wrist before he’ll let her pee at the side of the road. The opening lines of Peter Straub's magnificent paranormal horror, Ghost Story. Boy does this one start as it means to go on.