Peter Straub

The American writer Peter Straub was walking through London in the early 1970s wondering what do next. His first novel passed with little notice and his ...

Despite the success of Mr. “One’s own style is achieved at some cost,” he said. Yet he also enjoyed the outlandish twists and turns of daytime soap operas. [Wisconsin Alumni Association.](https://www.uwalumni.com/news/daa_straub/) “Also, telling stories and writing fiction is a way of managing and exploring my own impulses and emotions. He is survived by his wife of 55 years, Susan Bitker Straub; son Benjamin Straub; a daughter, novelist Emma Straub; and three grandchildren. In 1969 he started work on a doctorate at the University College in Dublin, but he did not finish. Peter Francis Straub was born March 2, 1943, in Milwaukee and earned a degree in English from the University of Wisconsin in 1965. Straub — who collaborated with King on “The Talisman” (1984) and a sequel “Black House” 2001 — said he long resisted being categorized as a horror novelist. But made peace with it after deciding it gave him ample room to dig into timeless emotions and fears — including even his whodunit Blue Rose trilogy published between 1998 and 1983. [“If You Could See Me Now”](https://read.amazon.com/kp/embed?asin=B00N6PEND6&preview=newtab&linkCode=kpe&ref_=cm_sw_r_kb_dp_54JQ586MX6N21FPFKFP2&tag=thewaspos09-20) (1977) and the best-selling “ [Ghost Story](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZDrcfkypjcI)” (1979), which became a 1981 film and cemented his reputation as a master of horror. Mr. [“Julia”](https://read.amazon.com/kp/embed?asin=B00J1ISJIW&preview=newtab&linkCode=kpe&ref_=cm_sw_r_kb_dp_RD5MC3CK8JTC1TX7P132&tag=thewaspos09-20) (1975), about a woman haunted by a malevolent supernatural presence that could be her dead daughter.

A fan of Henry James and John Ashbery, he brought a poet's sensibility to stories about ghosts, demons and other things that go bump in the night.

Mr. King, Mr. King and Mr. Though he was hardly as prolific as Mr. “I like its acknowledgment that life is a dodgy and uncertain business, and a monster with a smiling face may live or work right next door to you,” Mr. It was Mr. He had to learn to walk again, and the experience left him with a pronounced stutter that he overcame but did not entirely vanquish, so that even later in adulthood it crept back whenever he grew excited. And by the time we got back to our house, we were both really excited, because we knew that this was really sort of a masterwork.” “We got it at the post office,” Mr. Like James and Edgar Allan Poe, another of his influences, Mr. “He was not only a literary writer with a poetic sensibility, but he was readable. Novels like “Julia” (1975) and “Ghost Story” (1979) helped revivify a once-creaking field, even though he insisted that his work transcended categorization and that he wrote how he wanted, only to watch readers and critics pigeonhole him as a horror novelist.

The horror writer behind Ghost Story and Julia, and who co-wrote The Talisman with Stephen King, has died.

It was around that time in the ‘70s that Straub became friends with another hotshot writer who was helping to redefine and repopularize the horror genre: Stephen King. Straub’s final novel, A Dark Matter, was published in 2010 and won a Bram Stoker award from the Horror Writers Association. Club in 2010](https://www.avclub.com/peter-straub-1798219097) that it was “full of adolescent errors and real aimlessness” and that he has never allowed it to be republished because of that. Straub was born in Milwaukee in 1943, and as a kid he developed a stutter and had to relearn how to walk after being hit by a car and nearly killed. With his third novel, Julia, Straub began to play with the supernatural, and though he didn’t intend it as such, the book was deemed a horror novel simply because it involved a ghost. Full Circle) and Ghost Story was later adapted into a movie starring Fred Astaire.

'Julia' and 'Ghost Story' author Peter Straub has died at the age of 79. He also co-wrote 'The Talisman' and its follow-up 'Black House' with Stephen King.

The Duffer brothers’ television adaption of [The Talisman ](https://www.vulture.com/2021/03/netflix-spielberg-duffer-bros-adapt-stephen-king-talisman.html)was announced for Netflix last year and was created alongside [ Steven Spielberg’s Amblin Entertainment and Paramount Television](https://deadline.com/2022/07/stranger-things-duffer-brothers-netflix-upside-down-pictures-deal-spinoff-series-stephen-daldry-stage-play-manga-death-note-the-talisman-1235058665/). [Peter Straub](https://www.vulture.com/2013/07/emma-straub-rock-the-cradle-mtv-essay.html) has died at the age of 79 on Sunday night, according to [Locus magazine](https://locusmag.com/2022/09/peter-straub-1943-2022/) and [Straub’s family](https://twitter.com/emmastraub/status/1567284488907939840?s=21&t=oSu_4gaAonou7JzRYsXI6w). “This Time Tomorrow was all about him dying, which is a weird thing to give your parent when they are, in fact, still alive, but I am so glad I did,” Emma wrote on His daughter, Emma Straub, remembered her father’s extraordinary life, from his soap-opera stint on [Ghost Story](https://www.nytimes.com/1979/04/08/archives/horror-shocker-shocker.html) became a national best seller and Straub sold the film rights to [Universal Pictures](https://catalog.afi.com/Catalog/moviedetails/56623?sid=87ccfc43-4ab5-4726-9d33-4101d1a0bab7&sr=3.8392906&cp=1&pos=0) for $225,000 a year before the novel came out, anticipating the book’s success. His first supernatural novel, Julia, was published in 1975 at the suggestion of his publishers, who wanted him to try [writing “Gothic fiction” novels](https://web.archive.org/web/20140629114932/http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1G1-124046471.html).

Acclaimed US author of numerous dark fantasies, and collaborator of Stephen King, died on Sunday after a long illness.

Over the course of his career, Straub was nominated for a dozen World Fantasy Awards and won four, as well as 14 Bram Stoker awards, the premier achievement for literary horror, winning 10 times. He turned to gothic fiction at the suggestion of his agent, first with Julia and then his breakout book, Ghost Story in 1979. Born on 2 March 1943 in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, Straub studied English at the University of Wisconsin and earned an MA from Columbia before teaching English at his former prep school for three years.