The villains of the piece are while not exactly "new" used in a different way than you'll see elsewhere. It might be said that the book rests on the simple idea that one reaps what one sows...though that is a huge over simplification and doesn't give any inkling as to the amount of sleep you may lose...or how much your electric bill may go up from leaving the lights on all night. Ghost Story is a 1981 American supernatural horror film directed by John Irvin and starring Fred Astaire, Melvyn Douglas, Douglas Fairbanks Jr., John Houseman, Craig Wasson, and Alice Krige. Based on the 1979 novel of the same name by Peter Straub, it follows a group of elderly businessmen in New England who gather to recount their involvement in a woman's death decades prior when one of them suspects her ghost has been haunting him. The opening lines of Peter Straub's magnificent paranormal horror, Ghost Story. Boy does this one start as it means to go on. Mary Downing Hahn’s novel, A Time for Andrew: A Ghost Story, is about a boy who goes to spend the summer with his aunt. He visits an old house that has shadows and noises but it turns out to be time travel. The boy meets a ghost of another boy who looks like him and he ends up helping him.

And yet in this case there’s a very good reason for this unsettling behavior. You just have to let the story unfold—and the story begins with The Chowder Society. Ghost Story takes its time reaching the climax, and this is a good thing. As long as things are still a bit unclear, as long as you can’t quite see around the next corner, the novel retains tension. I’m not saying it will scare you. It won’t make you scream aloud, for the simple reason that, unlike a movie, you can look away at any time and stop the action. However, there are parts that will give you the creeps; and there will be parts where your eyes will try to cheat by skipping ahead; and there is a chance, if you read this before bed and take a slug of Nyquill, you will have odd nightmares.

Firstly - and this is something that plagued 'Koko' too - Straub has a very slow way of unravelling the story. Now please understand that I have a complete respect for that. I admire and appreciate those authors like King, Blatty and Crichton that, unlike less talented writers like Brown and Child (who're all action and no build-up), are comfortable with setting the cards out leisurely, providing us instead with some surprisingly interesting and well-developed characters. Straub is actually very clever in the way he fleshes out his characters, doing so to the point where they actually feel like real genuine people. I hate it when this happens. You have a great writer. You have what is allegedly his magnum opus. You have a decent movie adaptation, which, though flawed, boasts a storyline original and creepy. This is a story about a beautiful town in New York state, how evil can sneak up unnoticed, unseen and unassumed, manipulate and prey upon the inhabitants, and watch the slow descent into madness and chaos. Milburn was fleshed out similar to King's set up of Salem's Lot. Being written in 1979, it shared a similar small-town / historic village vibe. The cars, the town square, the movie theater. Just your perfect up-country New England setting.

The next part of the book tells the story of Donald Wanderley, the child kidnapper from the prologue. He is a nephew of the dead club member of the Chowder Society and an author of a horror novel. On the whole, I can't say this is a terrible book. I had just been expecting so much more, given its exceeding reputation and the fact that Straub is a great writer, I can't help being more unforgiving than usual. It could have been awesome. Somehow, most people still think it is. I just have to say that I am not one of them, and my liking for Peter Straub has sadly diminished somewhat. The protagonists in this one are also fantastically detailed and it so refreshing to get a group of elderly gents as the main charactes, as oppose to a bunch of young whipper snappers. Each one is expertly detailed, and very distinct and endearing. Superb character development. The first half is some of the best horror I´ve read, not much splatter or violence, just the extremely detailed description with some really scary scenes that fuel the readers´ paranoia in the darkness. There are some moments one might not forget so soon, if not even never, but suddenly there is a bit more action and story, which make the terror factor disappear.If you're looking for a slow, yet spooky read to keep you nervous this October, you could do worse than this tense ghost story. I was very impressed by how Straub wrote these characters. This had a pretty sizable cast, from the "Chowder Society" gentlemen, to the colorful town-folk. Going into this book, I wasn't sure how I'd feel about these old men. I've not read much where the main protagonists are elderly folks. (Other than Insomnia, I can't think of any examples). He looked into their cell between the bars. Their bodies were on the hard floor beneath the cot against the far wall, two still white forms. Nothing wrong there. Wait a second, he thought, trying to remember the day he had put them in the cell. Didn't he put Mrs. Barnes on top of the bunk? He was almost certain . . . he peered in at them. Now wait, just hold it up a minute here, he thought, and even in the cold of the unheated cells, began to sweat. A white-covered little parcel that could only be the Griffen baby---frozen to death in his own bed---lay on the cot. "Now just wait a goddamned second," he said, "that can't be." He'd put the Griffen baby with de Souza, in a cell on the other side of the corridor. Ghost Story was released on DVD on March 25, 1998, by Image Entertainment. [19] [20] Universal repressed the DVD with an alternate cover art, which was released September 7, 2004. [20] The film received its first Blu-ray release in the United States on November 24, 2015, by Scream Factory. [21] This release featured new bonus material, including an audio commentary with director John Irvin, as well as interviews with Peter Straub, Alice Krige, Lawrence D. Cohen, Burt Weissbourd, and Bill Taylor. [21] See also [ edit ] I will not go into plot details at this stage, since these can be had by reading the book synopsis. Instead, in general terms, I'll try and explain just why this book should be on the reading list of any self respecting horror fan.

One caveat, don't be put off by the opening scenes in this book (some would be and some wouldn't). They could lead one to believe it's a totally different kind of book than it is... I myself almost put it down getting the wrong impression from the way it opened. I know that I’m keeping this vague but due to spoilers, it’s best to go into this one not knowing much about what’s evil and why the men of The Chowder Society are haunted. Now I will leave you with my favorite quote courtesy of one of the many side characters whose name I have long since forgotten.reddorakeen on Beyond The Exorcist: Five Movies That Explore Possession From Non-Christian Perspectives 6 hours ago Quill on The Secret of the Sul’Dam: Subtle Changes to the Way the One Power Works in The Wheel of Time TV Series 2 hours ago Peter Straub was born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, the son of Gordon Anthony Straub and Elvena (Nilsestuen) Straub. After publication of his book he took a temporary job teaching at Berkeley, there he meets and falls madly in love with a mysterious beautiful girl. They get on famously, make wedding plans and one day she just disappears; next thing he knows she meets his brother David in another town, they fall in love and soon David dies under mysterious circumstances. The girl disappears again.

One of my favorite aspects of Ghost Story is its sense of place. Straub spends a lot of time making the hamlet of Milburn into a character. You get to know its layout, its history, its local hangouts, and you meet dozens and dozens of its denizens. Indeed, you meet so many, you might want to keep a list (this will come in handy when attempting to recall who is sleeping with who, and who just died).

Overall Summary

I won't tell you that, but I'll tell you the worst thing that ever happened to me...the most dreadful thing... Drew is fond of Hannah because she acts like a boy. They spend most of their time together, and he even climbs trees with her. One day, John shows up in his father’s car and becomes friends with Hannah. Drew feels jealous because he knows that they will eventually marry each other according to Aunt Blythe’s story about the family history.