Ghost Story, by Peter Straub
This post may contain spoilers. They won’t likely affect
your enjoyment of the book.
From the cover:
“The scariest book I’ve ever read...It crawls under your
skin and into your dreams.”
–Chicago
Sun-Times
“The terror just mounts and mounts.”
–Stephen King
So. Was is scary? You’d better believe it.
Did it keep me up at night? Damn straight.
My copy of Ghost Story,
by Peter Straub, is 567 terrifying pages long. That’s about 67-117 pages longer
than the romance novels I'd typically devour in a day. I figured I’d be through this in
about that length of time. I wasn’t. This book held me in its
not-very-captivating grip for seven days. I couldn’t stop putting it down. And
the nightmares—I’d startle awake terrified of not finishing my assignment in time
and failing out of my degree program. Did I mention I have a little bit of
school-based anxiety? That was really the source of my panic, and this book,
after eating hours of work time, left me disoriented, disenchanted, and behind
in my other schoolwork. It’s magical in its ability to suck time, while still
not managing to entertain.
The good news: I was able to read even before bed without
being frightened by the plot.
The bad news: I kept falling asleep.
It’s not that the book’s story concept was a failure. It’s
not that the characters weren’t richly developed. It’s not that the prose lacks
poetic or skillful turns of phrase. It’s just that it took Straub so effing
long to get to the point.
Lesson learned and applied to my manuscript, so it wasn’t a
total waste.
When professional writers say, "Don't use a prologue.
Readers skip them," I have difficulty believing them. I'd never in my life
been tempted to skip a prologue. Until this one. It’s monotonous and long, and nothing
much happens.
For 26 pages.
I hoped that by the end I'd have a different opinion and
think it was brilliant, but I'd've set this book down approximately 26 times
before chapter one even commenced if it hadn’t been an assignment.
Maybe it’s evidence of my microwave-generation culture that
I expect to be interested in a book right
away. But I sucked it up and gave this slow-starter a chance. I made it to
Part Two on page 155, at which point I wrote in my notes: Stuff’s happened. People have died. So have the sheep. I'm still having
trouble caring. I mean, if killing off animals doesn't get a rise out of me, someone's doing something wrong.
And by page 290: Oh
look, another character is dead. I have no attachment, therefore no grief, but
also no anxiety or fear. What a let down.
By page 500 so many characters had been bumped off it was
looking like Hamlet or a George R. R. Martin book. I figured they
were all going to die. I still didn’t care. Straub could have used lessons on
tension-maintenance, constructing fear, and maybe some of Heidi Ruby Miller’s
advice on pacing. Perhaps we could send him a copy of Many Genres One Craft. Or perhaps one of us should rewrite it. Wouldn’t
it be interesting to pull a Richard Matheson and revisit this plot—do it right?
Since sexism has been a recurring topic in our books thus
far, I might as well voice my complaint regarding this one. Straub’s portrayal
of women sucks. And if Kristin Molnar and Rasheedah Shahid-Tezak don’t speak
more to this in their blogs, I’ll have to revisit the subject in greater detail in my
comments. They’re more articulate than I about feminism and equality. I’ll say
this though: I was born in 1979 so the year was good to me, but if this book’s
outlook is any indication of American culture at the time, I’m not sorry to
have been more interested in primary colors and milk bottles.
Anyone happen to know the going rate for a Stephen King
endorsement? I mean, he got paid for that, right?
Straub, Peter. Ghost Story. New York: Coward, McCann & Geoghegan, 1979. Print.
Straub, Peter. Ghost Story. New York: Coward, McCann & Geoghegan, 1979. Print.
Kristin. It's like you climbed inside my head and plucked out all my good thoughts. Which is fine, I wouldn't have used them anyway.
ReplyDeleteWhen I first started reading this post, I thought, "did we read the same book?!" But then you flipped it on me.
So I'm going to comment on how we felt exactly the same about things:
1.) Prologues. My wife insisted I skipped it. She never reads them. My school of thought? If it's in the book, it's probably important. Bravo for finishing the book in a week... that's how long it took me to get past the prologue.
2.) Nightmares. I had the same ones. This book fucking haunted me, and not in the way Straub wanted it to.
3.) The Slaughter I Slept Through. I made one final push to get through the last 130 pages in one sitting. I fell asleep a lot in that one sitting, including the laundry list of dead characters. I get it, Straub: she's a bad lady. You made the payoff for the first 500 pages so generic, I am angry not only at you, but at the genre... MY genre!
And King and Straub are besties... it's not what you know, it's who you know.
*Straub is a great writer, but a terrible story-teller.
Omigosh, you're absolutely right. He is a great writer. I dog-eared pages to come back to interesting expressions and character traits, so I learned about the craft of writing. But the book was lame. It was not a story well told.
DeleteKristin, it sounds like you are spot on with my feelings. I will say however that I did read the prologue, and I actually liked it. It was strong enough to draw me in the story, however after a hundred pages or so, it fell flat. It stayed that way until the third part, roughly page 375. That's about where Mis Galli was killed, and the story picked up. The last 150 pages read pretty fast. If nothing else, it was a good lessen for me to not let the middle of my story go flat.
ReplyDeleteKristin, I agreed with all of the points you made. I'm also glad you had the OVARIES to write this review the way you did. I WANTED to, but then my own school-related anxieties kicked in and I chickened out with a quasi-academic tone to my own review. I will say in defense of the prologue that it did lead me to expect any entirely DIFFERENT kind of horror story. (But then imagine my dismay at what I found starting on page 29.)
ReplyDeleteI agree with what you, and others, have said here - Straub is just a terrific writer, but, for genre writing, his storytelling sucks.
I did not hit on the sexism in my blog this time. So I'll do so here. the sexism didn't hit me over the head as hard when I was reading (not like Hell House did), but that is probably because I was actually really into the plot. I even wrote my whole post before I realized that he gave women much the same treatment Mathewson did, just in a less violent way. I figured all along that Eva's death was probably some sort of accident, but did it really have to be while she was half naked trying to seduce five men at one time? *le sigh* And then she becomes an enchanting woman (in various forms and places) to work her magic on the Chowder Society and Don Wanderley. Then there is Stella, who is just beautiful and sleeps with everyone. And everyone's wives sleep with Lewis. At this point, I'm dying to read a horror book that does not rely on the "woman as succubus" trope.
ReplyDeleteI don't think I talked about sexism in my blog, but I have to say I stopped reading and caring about old white men and their stories of guilt and remorse about 15 years before I had to read this book. I am so going to get in trouble for that statement. I really shouldn't watch the Republician debate before I post. Kristian this post was perfect. The problem I had with this book was I honestly did not care. Perhaps that was the horror, that I did not care about the horror that took place. And seriously what is so horrorific about women, or maybe it's sexually liberated woman that's frightening. Either way I just couldn't connect with this story. I think I forgot the plot as soon as I put it down. I'm sure I missed something though because everyone keeps saying what a great writer Struab is, I guess I need to put it aside and try re-reading later. Great post Kristin!
ReplyDeleteThanks, Rasheedah. I agree with you. I couldn't bring myself to care. It reminds me of how I felt when reading The Virgin Suicides--by half way through the book I just wanted them all dead so I could stop reading.
DeleteI guess I'll answer your comment on my post here on your post... Yes, I do think a big take away here is that a (brutally honest) critique group can make a HUGE difference. Imagine if this novel was half the length it is now? If one editor was like, "How about you trim this up a bit?" I think it could've been a much more riveting read. You see this a lot in second novels, especially if the debut hit big. Novel 2 will be twice the length as Novel 1, because the editors that tore the first one apart backed off. And, yes, I think we're maybe getting more snobbish (although I'd maybe spin it as being 'more critical'), but the more we pick apart other works, the more adept we get at picking apart our own works (hopefully).
ReplyDelete