Peter Straub has written at least 87 books. Their most popular book is The Talisman with 208 saves with an average rating of 3.8⭐.
They are best known for writing in the genres Fantasy, Fiction, and Science fiction.
Peter Straub was born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin on 2 March, 1943, the first of three sons of a salesman and a nurse. The salesman wanted him to become an athlete, the nurse thought he would do well as either a doctor or a Lutheran minister, but all he wanted to do was to learn to read.
When kindergarten turned out to be a stupefyingly banal disappointment devoted to cutting animal shapes out of heavy colored paper, he took matters into his own hands and taught himself to read by memorizing his comic books and reciting them over and over to other neighborhood children on the front steps until he could recognize the words. Therefore, when he finally got to first grade to find everyone else laboring over the imbecile adventures of Dick, Jane and Spot (“See Spot run. See, see, see,”), he ransacked the library in search of pirates, soldiers, detectives, spies, criminals, and other colorful souls, Soon he had earned a reputation as an ace storyteller, in demand around campfires and in back yards on summer evenings.
This career as the John Buchan to the first grade was interrupted by a collision between himself and an automobile which resulted in a classic near-death experience, many broken bones, surgical operations, a year out of school, a lengthy tenure in a wheelchair, and certain emotional quirks. Once back on his feet, he quickly acquired a severe stutter which plagued him into his twenties and now and then still puts in a nostalgic appearance, usually to the amusement of telephone operators and shop clerks. Because he had learned prematurely that the world was dangerous, he was jumpy, restless, hugely garrulous in spite of his stutter, physically uncomfortable and, at least until he began writing horror three decades later, prone to nightmares. Books took him out of himself, so he read even more than earlier, a youthful habit immeasurably valuable to any writer. And his storytelling, for in spite of everything he was still a sociable child with a lot of friends, took a turn toward the dark and the garish, toward the ghoulish and the violent. He found his first “effect” when he discovered that he could make this kind of thing funny.
As if scripted, the rest of life followed. He went on scholarship to Milwaukee Country Day School and was the darling of his English teachers. He discovered Thomas Wolfe and Jack Kerouac, patron saints of wounded and self-conscious adolescence, and also, blessedly, jazz music, which spoke of utterance beyond any constraint: passion and liberation in the form of speech on the far side of the verbal border. The alto saxophone player Paul Desmond, speaking in the voice of a witty and inspired angel, epitomized ideal expressiveness, Our boy still had no idea why inspired speech spoke best when it spoke in code, the simultaneous terror and ecstasy of his ancient trauma, as well as its lifelong (so far, anyhow) legacy of anger, being so deeply embedded in the self as to be imperceptible, Did he behave badly, now and then? Did he wish to shock, annoy, disturb, and provoke? Are you kidding? Did he also wish to excel, to keep panic and uncertainty at arm's length by good old main force effort? Make a guess. So here we have a pure but unsteady case of denial happily able to maintain itself through merciless effort. Booted along by invisible fears and horrors, this fellow was rewarded by wonderful grades and a vague sense of a mysterious but transcendent wholeness available through expression. He went to the University of Wisconsin and, after opening his eyes to the various joys of Henry James, William Carlos Williams, and the Texas blues-rocker Steve Miller, a great & joyous character who lived across the street, passed through essentially unchanged to emerge in 1965 with an honors degree in English, then an MA at Columbia a year later. He thought actual writing was probably beyond him even though actual writing was probably what he was best at - down crammed he many and many a book, stirred by
1979 • 115 Readers • 530 pages • 3.9
2009 • 56 Readers • 201 pages • 3.3
25 Readers • 3.6
1982 • 18 Readers • 595 pages • 3
2010 • 18 Readers • 448 pages • 3.5
13 Readers • 3.5
1988 • 12 Readers • 452 pages • 5
12 Readers • 3.2
2003 • 11 Readers • 304 pages • 3.3
2010 • 10 Readers • 397 pages • 2.5
10 Readers • 3.7
1975 • 7 Readers • 304 pages • 3.5
1996 • 7 Readers • 544 pages • 3.5
2004 • 7 Readers • 528 pages • 3.7
10 The Best Horror of the Year
2018 • 7 Readers • 432 pages • 3.5
1998 • 6 Readers • 185 pages • 4.3
4 Readers • 4
2015 • 4 Readers • 384 pages
#1 of 1 in American Fantastic Tales
2009 • 4 Readers • 750 pages
2014 • 4 Readers • 400 pages • 3
2008 • 4 Readers • 534 pages
4 Readers
2000 • 4 Readers • 656 pages
2012 • 3 Readers • 477 pages • 2
3 Readers • 5
3 Readers
#2 of 2 in The Talisman
2001 • 2 Readers • 1,504 pages • 4
1986 • 2 Readers • 299 pages
2 Readers • 3
2012 • 2 Readers • 310 pages
2 Readers • 3
2009 • 2 Readers
Kyle Murchison Booth
2009 • 2 Readers
#1 of 2 in The Talisman
1984 • 2 Readers • 664 pages • 2
2 Readers
2 Readers
1990 • 1 Reader • 3
#1 of 1 in The Beauty of Death
2016 • 1 Reader • 779 pages
2009 • 1 Reader • 713 pages
2013 • 1 Reader • 384 pages
2010 • 1 Reader • 593 pages
1 Reader
1998 • 1 Reader • 368 pages
1 Reader
1 Reader
2011 • 1 Reader • 92 pages
1984 • 1 Reader • 569 pages
1980 • 1 Reader • 417 pages
2010 • 1 Reader • 392 pages • 1
2013 • 1 Reader • 176 pages • 3
2010 • 1 Reader
1995 • 1 Reader • 384 pages
1979 • 1 Reader • 312 pages
1982 • 1 Reader • 277 pages
1 Reader
2011 • 1 Reader
2016 • 1 Reader • 768 pages
1 Reader
1 Reader
1 Reader • 4
1 Reader
1 Reader
#1 of 1 in The Talisman: The Road of Trials
1 Reader • 24 pages
2012 • 1 Reader
2006 • 399 pages
2012 • 558 pages
1979 • 628 pages
2016 • 736 pages
1996 • 512 pages
2002 • 652 pages