Rising to the Occasion / Peter Straub with Joseph Salvatore

Peter Straub

RISING TO THE OCCASION:
PETER STRAUB with Joseph Salvatore

BIOGRAPHY

By the time I encountered Raymond Carver’s Where I’m Calling From: Selected Stories, in 1989, I’d already seen many of his stories in various magazines, books, anthologies—even on faded photocopies of copies of copies that my fiction teachers regularly taught from in class. He was everywhere in those days, and so one Saturday morning, in a grim second-floor apartment on Harrison Avenue in Salem, Massachusetts, I read cover-to-cover a copy of those selected stories, and was transformed utterly by the work. It sent me back to the bookstore to purchase all the earlier books from which those stories were drawn, wanting more. 

The Kings and the Straubs: All in the Family

 

The Kings and the Straubs: All in the Family

A report from the event at St. Francis College, Brooklyn Heights, April 21, 2015

BIOGRAPHY

Last Tuesday, I attended an event held in Founders Hall at St. Francis College in Brooklyn Heights that featured Stephen & Owen King and Peter & Emma Straub. The event was co-sponsored by BookCourt, a bookstore where Peter Straub’s daughter Emma worked for several years.

Peter Straub / Interview

Peter Straub

Peter Straub

BIOGRAPHY

INTERVIEW

John Langan

October, 2012

Part 1

Peter Straub (b.1943) has been for more than three decades one of the leading lights of horror and suspense fiction. His early successes in the field, Julia (1975) and If You Could See Me Now (1976), were followed by a set of three novels, Ghost Story (1979), Shadowland (1980), and Floating Dragon (1983), that dramatically expanded the possibilities of the horror novel. In 1984, Straub co-wrote The Talisman with Stephen King; the two would return to the material of the novel in 2001, with Black House. Straub’s next solo project after The Talisman, the Blue Rose trilogy (Koko (1988), Mystery (1989), The Throat (1993)), engaged the suspense and mystery genres to construct what might be the central work of his career, one rooted in an obsession with the multifarious ways the violence of the past continues to twist the present. Since then, Straub has written two long novels that continued his exploration of the suspense and horror fields (The Hellfire Club (1996) and Mr. X. (1999), respectively), two short novels that use the tropes of conventional horror narratives to explore the relationship between loss and fantasy (lost boy/lost girl (2003) and In the Night Room (2004)), and a long novel that appeared in a limited edition as he wrote it (The Skylark (2010)) and in a mass market edition as he edited it (A Dark Matter (2010)). He has published several collections of short fiction (Houses Without Doors (1989), Magic Terror (2000), Five Stories (2008)), a collection of essays (Sides (2007)), and has co-written a graphic novel (The Green Woman (2010)). He lives in New York City with his wife, Susan.

Rereading Stephen King: week 18 – The Talisman

For this novel, King joined another master of the horror genre, Peter Straub, to create - a fantasy novel

BIOGRAPHY OF PETER STRAUB

James Smythe

Tuesday 23 March 2013

I couldn't remember a word of this. It was bound to happen sooner or later: a book I'd read which had slipped entirely through my memory. Sometimes I find a book is loose and hazy in my memory – I have a bad memory, and while overarching plots usually stick for everything I've read, details are often significantly more vague – but for The Talisman, I couldn't remember anything. I have the original copy; I know it had a sequel, in 2001's Black House; and I know that, since it was written, it's become more and more entwined within the Dark Tower mythos that runs through so many of King's novels. But everything else? Gone.

FAQ by Peter Straub

 

Peter Straub

FAQ

BY PETER STRAUB

BIOGRAPHY

ARE YOU RELATED TO THE STRAUB BEER FOLKS?

No, but I wish I were. Oddly, the current president of the Straub Brewery is named Peter Straub. I’m happy to say we never get each other’s e-mails.

Peter Straub

Peter Straub's childhood horror: "I knew more about fear and its first cousin terror, and pain, than children are normally expected to know"

BIOGRAPHY

Salon speaks to the veteran horror writer about bullying, H.P. Lovecraft and how dark he'll let his writing get

Scott Timberg
February 15, 2016

Horror writer Peter Straub is far more genial than anyone who writes such frightening and grotesque fiction should be. The Milwaukee native has a friendly Midwestern delivery even as he talks about acts of violence and the pain of his early years.

Peter Straub, an acclaimed author who collaborated with Stephen King
and helped legitimize horror fiction, has died at 79.

Peter Straub, acclaimed horror author and Stephen King collaborator, dies at 79

By Scottie Andrew, CNN

Updated 1455 GMT (2255 HKT) September 7, 2022

(CNN)

Peter Straub, an author who helped usher in our decades-long fascination with horror fiction, had a way of weaving macabre and heart-wrenching prose into one sentence. Even stories about ghostly hauntings, sinister parallel universes or grisly murders could feel mournful, sensitive and cathartic in Straub's hands.

 

Peter Straub

Peter Straub, celebrated horror author, dies aged 79

BIOGRAPHY

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

Adrian Horton

Tue 6 September 2022

“One of the best writers I’ve read, one of the best friends I’ve known,” English author Neil Gaiman wrote in a tweet. “Always kind, funny, irascible, brilliant. Once performed the Crow position in yoga, in a Milwaukee, Wisconsin, men’s room, because he was fearless and proud of his yoga. I’ll miss you Peter.”