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Product Description
It began shortly after the party at which one of their members, Edward Wanderley, had died or was killed. The Chowder Society, who for years had met in customary evening dress with the object of telling each other tales of every kind, now found themselves drawn towards the supernatural. It was some sort of solace for Edwards loss. They began to tell ghost stories, extraordinary ghost stories . . . ghost stories that did not always stop when the teller finished speaking . . . Then came the dreams, shared simultaneously by the Chowder Society members, forecasting horrors the four ageing men can scarcely bring themselves to discuss. And now they are about to learn what happens to those who believe they can bury the past and get away with murder.

About the Author
Peter Straub is the author of fourteen novels including The Talisman (with Stephen King), Koko, The Hellfire Club and Mr. X. His latest novel is Black House, the much-anticipated sequel to The Talisman, also written with Stephen King. He has won the British Fantasy Award, three Bram Stoker Awards and two World Fantasy Swards. He lives in New York City.

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Customer Reviews

9 Reviews

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(1)
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3.9 out of 5 stars (9 customer reviews)

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6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Spooky, But Not Straub's Best Novel, 28 Feb 2005

By	Jana L. Perskie "ceruleana" (New York, NY USA) - See all my reviews (TOP 50 REVIEWER) (REAL NAME)

This review is from: Ghost Story (Paperback)

In October 1929, three weeks after Black Monday, when the stock market collapsed, five of Milburn, New York's finest young men murdered an attractive and exotic young woman. There was no premeditation involved. In fact her death was an accident, although her burial was non conventional, to say the least. The event has been kept a secret for half a century. Is it coming back to haunt them and the town where she died? Now, fifty years later, the same men, much older and still residing in Milburn, find themselves terrorized by prophetic nightmares. In the dreams several of them die. And terrible things are happening in their small, sleepy town.

Edward Wanderly, one of the quintet died the year before under tragic circumstances, which lead the others to believe that foul play had been involved. He appears to have died of fright. After their friend's death, the group of four begins to meet weekly, calling themselves "The Chowder Society." They dress formally for the occasion, drink fine brandy, smoke the best cigars, and proceed to tell each other haunting stories about their past, although they never mention the murder. They all seem to be in denial about the possibility that the dead woman has come back to haunt them. One of the members begins a particular story, and a pertinent one by saying, "I won't tell you the worst thing I ever did, but I'll tell you the most dreadful thing that happened to me in my life, or it didn't happen and I imagined it all. Anyway, it scared the pants off of me. This is the worst story I know."

Desperate for answers, the group writes to Ed Wanderly's nephew, Don, an author, and ask him to come to Milburn. Don published a novel called "The Nightwatcher," about shape-shifting supernatural predators. Unbeknownst to any of our protagonists, the novel has much in common with their reality. Nightwatchers, sometimes called Shapeshifters, are quasi immortal, demonic creatures who are able to assume human or animal forms or disguises. They are evil pranksters who despise humankind and derive a sadistic enjoyment from toying with their victims, often driving them to despair, madness and even suicide. Don returns as much for his own personal reasons as because of request of the Chowder Society members.

This is a spooky tale of supernatural revenge that can, at times, rivet the reader to the page. It is difficult to evaluate the book because many of the sections are above average, certainly as far as plot goes. Also, quite a few characters are sympathetic and interesting. However, the narrative frequently plods, and large portions of the plot are predictable. I found myself, both in the beginning and toward the end, skipping pages. I hate to do that but Straub becomes extremely repetitive. I found myself saying out loud, "Get on with it -move on!" The author's earlier book, "Floating Dragon," has a somewhat similar storyline.

I am not sorry I read "Ghost Story." I would certainly recommend it to fans of the horror genre. Peter Straub has written far better novels, however, and I have read far better ghost stories.
JANA

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11 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Tops on my Straub List, 1 Dec 2002

By	Bruce Kendall "BEK" (Southern Pines, NC) - See all my reviews (TOP 100 REVIEWER) (REAL NAME)

This review is from: Ghost Story (Paperback)

This is the best book I've read in the contemporary Horror genre. I've been buying Straub's later books in hopes that he can repeat the performance he carried off in this one and have been dissapointed with the results (Shadowland was a fun read, however).
Actually, in terms of sheer good writing, I would have to rank one of his earliest novels, Julia, as the most comparable. This book really got under my skin and even pervaded my unconscious while I was reading it. I found myself dreaming in Straub's cadences. This is a tour-de-force horror story, and yes, does rival James' The Turn of the Screw in terms of aritistry. Hopefully, sometime Straub will turn out another one of this calibre.

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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars The Beauty of Lies, 8 April 2009

By	Steve Jensen - See all my reviews

This review is from: Ghost Story (Mass Market Paperback)

"What's the worst thing you've ever done?"

"I won't tell you that, but I'll tell you the worst thing that ever happened to me...the most dreadful thing..."

So begins Peter Straub's landmark horror novel `Ghost Story'. Straub throws the reader from the very beginning, as it seems that his hero, Don Wanderley has kidnapped a very young girl, tied her up and forced her to accompany him as he travels throughout the South of the US. He spends sleepless nights, debating whether to kill her.

Then Straub takes us to a small, timebound town in New York called Milburn. Among Milburn's residents are two lawyers, Sears James and Ricky Hawthorne, a doctor named John Jaffrey, and an entrepreneur, Lewis Benedikt. These old men tell each other horror stories on the nights when they meet as The Chowder Society; this is quite literally telling because they share a horrific secret, one which has haunted them since their youth and which is now poised to return, seeking vengeance.

Half a century ago, the four friends plus another companion, Edward Wanderley, had been responsible for the death of a young woman, Eva Galli, with whom they had all been in love. In grief-stricken panic, they had decided to dispose of her body by placing her in a borrowed car, which was then pushed into a deep pond. Thus the five young men not only safeguarded their future prospects of business success and avoided ruinous scandal, but they also hid their shameful secret away, supposedly forever.

But Eva was not dead...she was only stunned by her injuries, and as the car sank slowly into the depths, the youngsters saw her looking desperately, beseechingly, through the rear windscreen. But despite their frenzied grief, none moved to save Eva Galli. Unfortunately, Eva Galli was no ordinary, mortal woman, but rather an ancient archetype, who loved to corrupt the innocent, as had succeeded in doing by making the naive young men into murderers; now she would return, in differing guises, to haunt them unto death and marr the lives of their friends and families.

Don Wanderley, a writer working on a horror story, returns to Milburn after the mysterious deaths of his brother and uncle. It seems that both Don and brother David had shared the affections of an enigmatic woman named Alma Mobley. Don is troubled by the strange circumstances of David's death, and as he arrives in Milburn, he finds that John Jaffrey has just been buried, after seemingly killing himself by leaping from a bridge. Don's uncle Edward died after a party heralding the arrival in town of a beautiful actress. The three remaining Society members had written to Don, and now they ask him to help them investigate the spate of deaths; eventually, they tell him the terrible story of how Eva Galli met her end.

This is an imperfect book. The novel is a heady mix of excellence and confusion. It appears that Straub is celebrating the work of some of America's greatest authors (James, Hawthorne et cetera), paying homage to the traditions of macabre storytelling, while disorientating the reader by having us believe that Don Wanderley's horror novel is impinging on real-life Milburn, which is of course both a genuine location, and a fictional creation. One also feels that Straub is somehow looking for validation from these dead literary masters as he writes `Ghost Story'.

But despite my guarded criticism, I must admit a certain identification with Straub's mischief-making here in that the author is touching on one of the themes of my own writing, the theory that fiction writers do not have to `play by the rules', as most novelists do - writers can challenge the reader, make them think about the nature of fictional storytelling where the stories are `lies', truth is only a product of imagination, and the heroes, villains and mere `bystanders' of a novel are actually, fundamentally, the reader himself.

As Oscar Wilde wrote in `The Decay of Lying': `One of the chief causes that can be assigned for the curiously commonplace character of most of the literature of our age is undoubtedly the decay of Lying as an art. The ancient historians gave us delightful fiction in the form of fact; the modern novelist presents us with dull facts under the guise of fiction.' Peter Straub tries to bring his mischief home to the reader by having Eva, the ghost, in her many guises, answer to the question: `Who are you?' by responding `I am you`; in other words, `Not only am I the embodiment of your fear, your dread of mortality, your lust and your sins, but I am your soul too; I am a reflection of you...'

Thus, when the reader seeks thrills, scares, adventures and experiences of other lives by reading the novels which authors create, they become the novel's characters; in effect, they write the story, on the blank manuscript page of imagination; the author, whether he is a genius or an also-ran, merely sets the stage for the reader to play upon. Straub willingly presents us with the author as trickster; the best storytellers should always have a touch of the charlatan about them...

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Most Recent Customer Reviews

5.0 out of 5 stars A literate, intelligent and atmospheric horror novel
I came to read Ghost Story not expecting too much. The blurb on the back described old men -The Chowder Society - telling each other ghost stories, and a old murder. Read more

Published 1 month ago by J. Baxter

3.0 out of 5 stars AMAZING BEGINNING BUT END DISAPPOINTS
I just finished reading this book, and for the first 300 pages I was absolutely addicted. It was genuinely frightening, and I found myself rushing to bed at night to read some... Read more

Published 2 months ago by Miss Corleone

4.0 out of 5 stars intellectual vampire story
This book, first published in 1979, is a Gothic horror story. It starts with an anonymous male aimlessly driving a 10 year girl around America. Read more

Published 17 months ago by David Wright

4.0 out of 5 stars a strange book
OK. I bought this book a few years ago and started to read it........and quit. I just found it too dense and a really hard to get into read. Read more

Published 18 months ago by froggy

2.0 out of 5 stars oh god
The most overrated horror novel of all time from an author that sets out to to impress literary fiction snobs, in order to be taken seriously, instead of entertaining a horror... Read more

Published 21 months ago by Ludovic Noir

5.0 out of 5 stars A warm tall of ghosts and acient evil
This riveting story will leave you alone, feeling you have lost friends. It begins with our main character Don Wanderly escorting a child to some unknown destination. Read more

Published on 25 Sep 2000

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