The Art That Made Me: Peter Straub's "Ghost Story" (1979)

When I tell people I've been a lifelong horror fan, I mean that practically literally. I gobbled up creepy kids' books like Roald Dahl's Witches and I was drawn to Halloween episodes of TV shows from as early as when I started forming memories. I don't recall most of the latter, though, except I loved Garfield's Halloween Adventure and as a wee one I was genuinely scared by the Facts of Life Halloween episode, specifically the scene where Blair is moussed to death (although in the interest of pop culture accuracy I should point out it turns out she faked her death to disguise the fact she was the real killer).

Don't laugh. I had nightmares about that hair and the way her body didn't move when they turned her around on the barber's chair.

In spite of such harrowing traumas, I got hooked on the macabre. It helped that my parents let me check out whatever books I wanted, possibly because, as the youngest, I benefited from the "by this point we just need to make sure they don't set themselves on fire" factor. So, by second grade, I was already getting into the hard stuff and read my first adult horror novel. I even remember what it was: Peter Straub's Ghost Story.

The novel starts on a discomforting note, the full implications of which were beyond my mind at the time. A man named Don is driving around the Deep South with a young girl in tow and is contemplating killing her. However, there is something off about the girl's behavior, ranging from strangely adult mannerisms and speech to just discordant actions and speech. Rather than a victim, she comes across as playing some kind of bizarre game with her apparent captor.

Cut to events the year before: Don has come to the New England town of Milburn after the strange death of Edward, his uncle. Edward had been a member of the Chowder Society, a group of affluent men who met every week to tell each other ghost stories. After another member of the Chowder Society dies by apparent suicide, they reluctantly recruit Don into trying to piece together what or who seems to be after them. They discover a disturbing link between Don's former fiancée Alma Mobley, who left Don for his brother David, after which David suddenly died and Alma disappeared; a woman who had just moved into Milburn, Anna Mostyn; and a crime the members of the Chowder Society committed decades ago when they were young...

I honestly don't remember exactly what drew me to the book and kept my attention all the way through. I'm actually surprised I am certain this was the first horror novel for adults I read. I do at least remember that I was enamored of the idea of men as old as my grandparents getting together to tell scary stories, probably because I was aware enough of the culture around me that I knew about the idea that horror was just kids' stuff.

But what really stuck with me was the book's supernatural threat, who are never really quite named, although in discussions of the book they're often referred to as the "nightwatchers." I don't know what Straub took as his inspiration, but they do remind me a lot of jinn, beings that exist in a form other than biological matter, can manifest with any appearance they choose, and are at least so long-lived they might as well be immortal. Also true to some of the stories about jinn, Straub's nightwatchers share some of humanity's darkest foibles, namely spite and sadism, and view human beings in much the same way as a person views ants. It was a revelation to me that you could write a story around these monsters who weren't vampires or werewolves, and I was drawn in by how Straub revealed just enough tantalizing details about what these beings were while preserving the mystery. Added to that were how their nature and motives were so alien, and yet so human.

When I revisited Ghost Story a a couple of years ago, my fascination returned, preserved after all these years. Based on it and the joy I got from returning to the nightwatchers, I realized that Ghost Story might very well be the key to another mystery, why I love horror. The idea of supernatural beings that could hide in plain sight among people set my imagination aflame. Maybe it is one reason why I'm enchanted with the idea that there is more to the world than just what we see and experience (long-term fans might recall that I confessed that I believe there is something tangible behind at least a few reports of ghosts), even if that "more" is something frightening or beyond our understanding. Sure, that strange, person-shaped shadow you see once in a while in your bedroom late at night might just be a trick of the lights coming in from off the street and through the windows, but what if it was more than that? What would that mean? How would it change the way you look at the world?

I'm undoubtedly biased by nostalgia goggles wielded onto my face when it comes to this book, but I do still recommend Ghost Story to anyone I know who likes horror (although, honestly, I just never got into Peter Straub's other works, unless you count The Talisman, which he co-wrote with Stephen King). Also to this day the book influences how I write about evil in my fiction. The idea of something that has power and knowledge beyond normal people, and yet acts in a way that is quintessentially yet disturbingly human, still intrigues and disturbs me, as does the concept of doppelgangers and changelings who look but don't quite act like a real person. I'm sure it is all because of Alma/Eva.

I've revisited the book relatively recently, but I haven't watched the film adaptation from 1981 in a very long time. It didn't make much of an impression, except I recall I hated how the fascinating and original monster of the book was rewritten to be an inexplicably omnipotent ghost. Still, Alice Krige is fantastic in it, which probably doesn't come as a surprise to any lover of horror cinema.

Much like the protagonists of Ghost Story looking back at the past to understand their present, thinking back to Ghost Story and its place in my mindscape has revealed more than I expected. At the very least, it's taught me to be cautious around strangers, even as an adult. After all, you never can tell who might be human and who might just be wearing a human body.