Tag: peter straub

Famous Horror Writers

RIP Peter Straub

Katie Marie

Yesterday we lost Peter Straub.

For those of you who are not familiar with this gentleman by name you may still have read his works, he was a prolific writer of dark fantasy, horror and thrillers.

My favourite of his was Ghost Story, which I have already spoken about on this website and TikTok.

He has been nominated for a dozen World Fantasy Awards and won four of them, as well as 14 Bram Stoker awards. His last novel was A Dark Matter published in 2010, though he published short stories and novellas since then.

He also worked with Stephen King on The Talisman and its sequel Black House.

It was actually Stephen King’s tweet that made me aware of Peter Straub’s passing.

King called Straub a “good friend” and “amazingly talented colleague and collaborator” “Working with him was one of the great joys of my creative life.”

Reviews, Reviews - Books

Review: Ghost Story by Peter Straub

Katie Marie

Stories matter

Today I am writing to talk to you about Ghost Story, a novel by Peter Straub. The book was published in 1979 by Coward, McCann and Geoghegan and was turned into a film in 1981. Today we will be talking about the novel, not the film.

I’ve been struggling to write this blog for a while as I find it tricky to express what it is I liked about this story. I also think its one of those ones that is best experienced first hand rather than second hand after having everything spoiled by me in a review. So, with that in mind, this will be brief.

Summary

Photo by Monstera on Pexels.com

As I said above this is a difficult story to summarise as I really don’t want to spoil it, so I will be brief.

The story is told by five men, all of whom are lifelong friends, Frederick “Ricky” Hawthorne, Sears James, Lawrence Benedikt, John Jaffrey, and Edward Wanderley, who has been dead for one year. They have dubbed their little group the Chowder Society and meet every so often to tell ghost stories.

However, since Edward’s death they have all been suffering from nightmares and fear that their own sordid past is coming to get them. They write to Edwards nephew, Donald, for aid. Donald arrives and tells his own story of a broken relationship and a suspected murder which he cannot prove.

The chowder society reveal their past, a story of Eva Galli, a beautiful woman, who met an untimely fate. Don suspects that she was a shapeshifter and has returned for revenge.

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