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 idea for the next one was turned down.
He said he feared being that “most pathetic of all creatures” – a one-book novelist. His agent had suggested a stab at gothic fiction as more marketable. “Eventually I had a little idea that scared me,” he recounted in 1984.
The result was “Julia” (1975), about a woman haunted by a malevolent supernatural presence that could be her dead daughter. The book was a hit, inspired a movie starring Mia Farrow and redirected Straub’s career to become one of the most celebrated writers of tales of horror, psychological thrillers and stories that made pulses race and night lights stay on.
Straub, who died Sept. 4 in New York at 79, became part of a literary era in the late 1960s and 1970s that led readers into dark corners of all kinds: Ira Levin’s “Rosemary’s Baby” (1967), William Peter Blatty’s “The Exorcist” (1971), Stephen King’s first novel, “Carrie,” in 1974 and Anne Rice’s “Interview With the Vampire” (1976).
Straub, a published poet, retained his love of literary precision in his stories, turning his tales into taut explorations of the “inner geography of horror, dark fantasy and psychological suspense,” wrote The Washington Post’s Michael Dirda in 2012.
Straub followed up with “If You Could See Me Now” (1977) and the best-selling “Ghost Story” (1979), which became a 1981 film and cemented his reputation as a master of horror. He was the winner of numerous prizes, including the Bram Stoker Award for lifetime achievement in 2006, and was named an International Horror Guild “living legend” in 2008.
“Ghost Story,” tells the story of four men who share ghost stories and find themselves threatened by a vengeful spirit.
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.
“The grown-up point of view was that if the books were horror,” he said in 2016, “then horror covered a lot of ground.”
Peter Francis Straub was born March 2, 1943, in Milwaukee and earned a degree in English from the University of Wisconsin in 1965. He moved to New York for a master’s at Columbia University in 1966 and then returned to Wisconsin to teach English at his former prep school.
At the age of 7, Straub was seriously injured when he was struck by a car. He temporarily used a wheelchair and had to relearn how to walk. Straub has said the injury and long recovery gave him a boyhood awareness of his own mortality.
In 1969 he started work on a doctorate at the University College in Dublin, but he did not finish. He wrote two books of poetry in 1972, “Ishmael” and “Open Air.” His first novel, “Marriages,” about an adulterous affair, was published in 1973.
Straub died at New York-Presbyterian Hospital of complications after a fall, his family said. He is survived by his wife of 55 years, Susan Bitker Straub; son Benjamin Straub; a daughter, novelist Emma Straub; and three grandchildren.
Straub kept up a steady stream of novels and short fiction for decades, including supernatural thrillers such as “Shadowland” (1980) about magician apprentices; fantasy worlds such as “Floating Dragon” (1983); and a tale of evil and obsession in “A Dark Matter” (2010) and novellas including “The Ghost Village” (1992).
“I’ve always liked hearing and telling stories,” Straub was quoted as saying in a story for the Wisconsin Alumni Association. “Also, telling stories and writing fiction is a way of managing and exploring my own impulses and emotions. I’m not at the mercy of my terrors, my shame. I push the dredged-up emotions into shapes that are enjoyable in the end, even if their content seems violent or disturbing.”
Yet he also enjoyed the outlandish twists and turns of daytime soap operas. For his 60th birthday, his wife surprised Straub with a behind-the-scenes tour of the “One Life to Live” set, which opened the door for the author to take on a cameo role as blind detective Peter Braust.
Despite the success of Straub’s collaborations with King, he noted the challenges of a creative partnership that, at times, left them “pretty fed up with each other.”
In a 2001 interview with USA Today, Straub described writing as a “deeply private, intimate activity.”
“One’s own style is achieved at some cost,” he said. “You don’t want anyone else in your workshop, playing with your tools, unless you trust him.”
Straub also said that any worthwhile horror tales must stay connected to the awe and imagination of childhood.
“Novelists must write out of their deepest places,” he said in a 1983 interview, “and a horror novelist had better keep in touch with his fears, his childhood still lives within him.”
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