Peter Straub

[tylenol4000]

I'd like to add something. I'v read the two novels he wrote with King, and that's all I read by him, other then a short story.

I read Straub's short story 'The Juniper Tree'. I read it in the anthology "Prime Evil", which recently I'v found out is quite a popular collection/anthology.

But 'The Juniper Tree', in my opinon, was terrible. I don't mean the writing, cuz Straub knows how to write. But the subject matter was pedophilia, and it disturbed me quite a bit how he wrote about it (and it takes A LOT to disturb me).

He was so descriptive when it came to the man getting the child to do these things to him. I know what he was trying to do with the story, showing how terrible these people are etc. But I just found it disturbing.

Just wanted to share that... Otherwise, from what i can tell, Peter Straub is a very good writer. I hope someday he and King finish of the tale of Jack Sawyer. At the end of Black House, it seemed pretty clean that there was more story that they were going to tell.

 

[Randy M.]

Hi, Tylanol.

I haven't read "The Juniper Tree," but from what I can find on the web, it's part of his Blue Rose series, which is comprised of the novels Koko, Mystery, The Throat, lost boy lost girl and In the Night Room, and short stories like "The Ghost Village" and "Fee," among others. I highly recommend the novels, though they have their uncomfortable moments, too.

The series deals off and on with child abuse, sometimes more in the foreground, sometimes less. I found "Fee" similarly uncomfortable. I can't speak for Straub, but I suspect he'd be pleased with every reader who found these stories disturbing and disturbed by those who did not.


Randy M.

 

[Lilmizflashythang]

I tried 'Ghost Story' this last week. I couldn't finish the book. It wasn't in chronological order--which will always bug me--and the deaths were just too much. I get that it was a monster tale, but really, did the boy's mother have to be eaten in front of him? Did Lewis really have to take Otto's hound down with him as well? I have a little hound dog now, and that scene just did it in for me. I read the synopsis on Wikipedia, and put the book down.

 

[BAYLOR]

Shadowlands , good stuff.