Ghost Story by Peter Straub - San Francisco Examiner - April 22, 1979

San Francisco Examiner - April 22, 1979

Peter Straub's fourth published novel, and third involving a supernatural threat, was the one that put him on the popular culture map. I would not read the book, from start to finish, until 1981, or thereabouts. When it was a paperback bestseller for Pocket Books.

I don't think it has ever been out of print.

Ghost Story (1981) - Newspaper Ad

Oakland Tribune - December 16, 1981

Universal Studios released a ghost story for Christmas in 1981. Based on the acclaimed best-seller of the same name by Peter Straub, the film deviates just a tad from the novel's sprawling narrative, but still manages to capture some of its source material's wintery chills. Even if it did choose to downgrade the almost cosmic horror level threat to a woman's spirit seeking revenge upon the elderly men responsible for her tragic death many, many years in the past.

Prime Evil - Edited by Douglas E. Winter - Newspaper Ad [San Francisco Examiner - June 26, 1988[

One of the stories in this anthology, which suffers when compared to Kirby McCauley's far larger and more breathtaking opus Dark Forces, stuck in my memory. David Morrell's Orange is for Anguish, Blue for Insanity. That story managed to wallop me good. I loved it.

I also vaguely remember being somewhat baffled and intrigued by Whitley Strieber's story The Pool. It was the first piece of fiction that Strieber wrote after finishing Communion and the thematic connection between the two seemed clear. Beyond that, I remember feeling lost and confused about what I had just read...

1988 was a long time ago and I no longer have the book close at hand. But I was able to track down its table of contents, so I could check to see if anything else in the book might jog a memory. Only two did.

First would be Stephen King's The Night Flier, which contains a bathroom scene that is equal parts gruesome, goofy, and, being Stephen King, pretty darn scary. Have not seen its movie adaptation, yet.

Then there is Peter Straub's The Juniper Tree, which I must admit to having no memory of reading in this anthology, but when I read it in a collection of Straub's fiction, it really knocked me for a loop. Maybe my psyche was ready for just how close to home this story hits.

There is also a Clive Barker story in the anthology, titled Coming to Grief, but I have no recollection of it whatsoever. Perhaps it is time for a refresher?