According to his New York Times obituary, Straub "brought a poet's sensibility to stories about ghosts, demons and other things that go bump in the night."[2]
Early life and education
Straub was born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, the son of Gordon Anthony Straub and Elvena (Nilsestuen) Straub.[3][4] At the age of seven, Straub was struck by a car, sustaining serious injuries. He was hospitalized for several months and used a wheelchair until he had re-learned how to walk. Straub has said that the accident made him prematurely aware of his own mortality.[5]
Straub read voraciously from an early age, but his literary interests did not please his parents; his father hoped that he would grow up to be a professional athlete, while his mother wanted him to be a Lutheran minister.[6] He attended Milwaukee Country Day School on a scholarship, and, during his time there, began writing.[6] In high school, he "discovered Thomas Wolfe and Jack Kerouac, patron saints of wounded and self-conscious adolescence and also, blessedly, jazz music, which spoke in utterance of beyond any constraint: passion and liberation in the form of speech on the far side of the verbal border."[7]
Straub attended the University of Wisconsin–Madison where he discovered "the various joys of Henry James, William Carlos Williams, and the Texas blues-rocker Steve Miller, a great & joyous character who lived across the street."[8] He earned an honors BA in English in 1965 and an MA at Columbia University a year later. He briefly taught English at Milwaukee Country Day, where he "enjoyed a minor but temporary success as Mr. Chips-cum-jalapenos, largely due to the absolute freedom given him by the administration and his affection for his students, who faithfully followed him as he struck matches and led them into caves named Lawrence, Forster, Brontë, Thackeray, etc., etc. On his off-hours, he fell in love with poetry, especially John Ashbery’s poetry, and wrote imitations of same. Three years later, fearing to turn into a spiritless & chalk-stained drudge, he went to Dublin, Ireland, to work on a Ph.D., secretly (a secret even to him) to start writing seriously."[8]
Career
After mixed success with two attempts at literary mainstream novels in the mid-1970s (Marriages and Under Venus), Straub dabbled in the supernatural for the first time with Julia (1975).[9] He recalls that "The reason I chose to write scary books was because, at the time, there were three horror novels that had been enormously successful: The Exorcist, Rosemary's Baby and The Other. But there were only three of them, so it looked to me as though there was plenty of room for newcomers. And if I wrote in the horror genre, I knew I could do anything. I could experiment."[10] He followed Julia with If You Could See Me Now (1977),[11] and came to widespread public attention with his fifth novel, Ghost Story (1979),[12] which was a critical success and was later loosely adapted into a 1981 film starring Fred Astaire.[13][14] In 1980, he published the fantasy Shadowland.[15] After returning to America, he wrote Floating Dragon, which won the August Derleth Award.[16] He said "I knew that this book would be an at least temporary farewell to the supernatural material that had been my daily fare."[17] He coauthored the horror-fantasy The Talisman with his longtime friend Stephen King.[18]
Straub at the 2010 Brooklyn Book Festival for a panel on how far a writer can go between reality and fantasy.
After a fallow period, Straub re-emerged in 1988 with Koko, a non-supernatural (though horrific) novel about the Vietnam war.[19]Koko was followed by Mystery (1990) and The Throat (1993). The three novels comprise the "Blue Rose Trilogy", which extended Straub's experiments with metafiction and unreliable narrators.[20][21]
In 1990, Straub published Houses Without Doors, a collection of short fiction including the shorter version of the novella Mrs. God. In 1996, he published the mainstream thriller The Hellfire Club.[22] In 1999, Straub published Mr. X, a novel with a doppelgänger theme. The novel pays homage to H. P. Lovecraft, as the eponymous character writes in a similar style.[23][24] In 2001, Straub and King rejoined forces for Black House, a loose sequel to The Talisman which tied that book in with King's The Dark Tower series. 2003 saw the publication of Lost Boy, Lost Girl, followed a year later by the related In the Night Room. Both won the Bram Stoker Award.[25]
Straub published several books of poetry.[28]My Life in Pictures appeared in 1971 as part of a series of six poetry pamphlets Straub published with his friend Thomas Tessier under the Seafront Press imprint while living in Dublin.[28][29] In 1972 the more substantial chapbook Ishmael was published by Turret Books in London.[28][30] Straub's third book of poetry, Open Air, appeared later that same year from Irish University Press.[28][31] The collection Leeson Park and Belsize Square: Poems 1970 – 1975 was published by Underwood-Miller in October 1983. It reprinted much of Ishmael along with previously uncollected poems, but none of the poems from Open Air.[28][32] He also sat on the contributing editorial board of the literary journal Conjunctions, and he guest-edited Conjunctions #39, an issue on New Wave Fabulism.[33]
Straub's final novel, A Dark Matter, was released in February 2010.[35]
In 2013, Straub appeared on the Code Street podcast with fantasist John Crowley.[36]
In 2016, co-author Stephen King said that he and Straub had plans to write a third Talisman book in the future. King says that the collaboration for the series was "natural," and that the two were excited to work together. In a 2021 appearance on the Dead Headspace podcast, Straub said that due to his health, it was unlikely that he would co-write a third Talisman with King.[37]
Reception and influence
A critical essay on Straub's horror work can be found in S. T. Joshi's book The Modern Weird Tale (2001).[38]At the Foot of the Story Tree by Bill Sheehan discusses Straub's work before 2000.[39][40]John C. Tibbetts wrote a book-length study, The Gothic Worlds of Peter Straub.[41]
Of Straub's contribution to horror King says, "he brought a poet's sensibility to the field, creating a synthesis of horror and beauty" and "he writes a beautiful prose line that features narrative clarity, sterling characterization, and surprising bursts of humor."[43] King told The New York Times that "He was not only a literary writer with a poetic sensibility, but he was readable. And that was a fantastic thing. He was a modern writer who was the equal of, say, Philip Roth, though he wrote about fantastic things." King added that "he was a better and more literary author than I was."[2]
Neil Gaiman paid homage to Straub, writing “One of the best writers I’ve read, one of the best friends I’ve known. Always kind, funny, irascible, brilliant."[44]
Songwriter Nick Cave alludes to Straub's work in "The Curse of Millhaven" and "Do You Love Me (Part 2)".[45] Straub said "Naturally, this pleased me enormously. It is a great honor to have your work alluded to in that way by another artist. I love the whole idea. Nick Cave is a talented, compelling performer and I could see that some of my work would fall very neatly within the territory that interests him. Eventually we wound up e-mailing each other, and he sent me a very nicely signed copy of one of his CDs. It would be nice to meet him one day."[46]
Personal life and death
In 1966, Straub married Susan Bitker.[47][48] They had two children, Benjamin, and Emma Straub, who 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.[49]
Straub was a jazz aficionado, and saxophonist Lester Young features in his novella Pork Pie Hat. Per WBGO, "He discovered jazz as a boy growing up in Milwaukee in the late 1950s. He gravitated toward Dave Brubeck & Paul Desmond, Clifford Brown, Bill Evans and Miles Davis."[50] In addition to jazz, he was "intensely interested in opera and other forms of classical music."[51][52]
Straub died on September 4, 2022, aged 79, from complications of a broken hip.[49][18] At the time of his death, he and his wife lived in Brooklyn.[49]
Stephen Edwin King is an American author. Although crowned the "King of Horror", he explores other genres, among them suspense, crime, science-fiction, fantasy and mystery. Though known primarily for his novels, he has written approximately 200 short stories, most of which have been published in collections.
The Bram Stoker Award for Best Novel is an award presented by the Horror Writers Association (HWA) for "superior achievement" in horror writing for novels.
The Bram Stoker Award for First Novel is an award presented by the Horror Writers Association (HWA) for "superior achievement" in horror writing for an author's first horror novel.
The Bram Stoker Award for Short Fiction is an award presented by the Horror Writers Association (HWA) for "superior achievement" in horror writing for short fiction.
The Bram Stoker Award for Best Screenplay is an award presented by the Horror Writers Association (HWA) for "superior achievement" in horror writing for best screenplay.
Michael Easton is an American film, television and voice actor, writer, and director. Although the Emmy-nominated actor may be best known for his work on the series Ally McBeal, VR.5,Total Recall 2070, One Life to Live and General Hospital, he is also the author of several critically-acclaimed novels, including the trilogy Soul Stealer, and is an accomplished director whose films have earned multiple independent film awards.
The Bram Stoker Award for Poetry Collection is an award presented by the Horror Writers Association (HWA) for "superior achievement" in horror writing for a poetry collection.
Gary A. Braunbeck is an American science fiction, fantasy, mystery and horror author.
Nancy Holder is an American writer and the author of several novels, including numerous tie-in books based on the TV series Buffy the Vampire Slayer. She has also written fiction related to several other science fiction and fantasy shows, including Angel and Smallville.
Cemetery Dance Publications is an American specialty press publisher of horror and dark suspense. Cemetery Dance was founded by Richard Chizmar, a horror author, while he was in college. It is associated with Cemetery Dance magazine, which was founded in 1988. They began to publish books in 1992. They later expanded to encompass a magazine and website featuring news, interviews, and reviews related to horror literature.
John Connolly is an Irish writer who is best known for his series of novels starring private detective Charlie Parker.
Yvonne Navarro is an American author who has published over twenty novels. Of those twenty, the titles AfterAge, deadrush, Final Impact, Red Shadows, DeadTimes, That's Not My Name and Mirror Me were solo novels, or fiction created solely by her. Her most recent works Highborn and Concrete Savior are also solo novels and are part of The Dark Redemption Series. She lives in Sierra Vista, Arizona and was married to author Weston Ochse.
Jonathan Maberry is an American suspense author, anthology editor, comic book writer, magazine feature writer, playwright, content creator and writing teacher/lecturer. He was named one of the Today's Top Ten Horror Writers.
Joseph Hillström King, better known by the pen name Joe Hill, is an American writer. His work includes the novels Heart-Shaped Box (2007), Horns (2010), NOS4A2 (2013), and The Fireman (2016); the short story collections 20th Century Ghosts (2005) and Strange Weather (2017); and the comic book series Locke & Key (2008–2013). He has won awards including Bram Stoker Awards, British Fantasy Awards, and an Eisner Award.
Paul Gaetan Tremblay is an American author and editor of horror, dark fantasy, and science fiction. His most widely known novels include A Head Full of Ghosts, The Cabin at the End of the World, and Survivor Song. He has won multiple Bram Stoker Awards and is a juror for the Shirley Jackson Awards.
The Bram Stoker Award for Best Young Adult Novel is an award presented by the Horror Writers Association (HWA) for "superior achievement" in horror writing for young adult novels.
The Bram Stoker Award for Best Graphic Novel is an award presented by the Horror Writers Association (HWA) for "superior achievement" in horror writing for graphic novels.
Eric J. Guignard is an American horror, dark fantasy, and literary fiction anthologist, editor, and author. He is a lifelong resident of Southern California, and teaches Technical Writing through the University of California system.
Mr. X is a 1999 horror mystery novel by American writer Peter Straub. The book won the 1999 Bram Stoker Award for Best Novel and was a 2001 August Derleth Award nominee.
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