Ghost Story

"Ghost Story" is Peter Straub's 1979 horror novel, the book widely credited with launching the modern American supernatural tradition that Stephen King, Clive Barker, and Anne Rice would carry forward. Set in the fictional upstate New York town of Milburn, the novel follows the Chowder Society — four elderly men who gather to swap ghost stories — as a half-century-old secret tied to a young woman named Eva Galli returns to settle accounts.

Straub blends classic gothic atmosphere with American small-town realism. The narrative weaves between past and present, drawing on Hawthorne, Henry James, and the New England ghost-story tradition while staying grounded in the social fabric of a snowed-in town watching its oldest residents die one by one. Critics still cite it as the high-water mark of the late-1970s horror revival, and Stephen King called it one of the finest horror novels of the twentieth century.

Readers who love "Salem's Lot," "The Shining," "The Haunting of Hill House," and Dan Simmons's "Summer of Night" tend to put "Ghost Story" on the same shelf. The 1981 film adaptation with Fred Astaire and John Houseman is closer to a sketch of the book than a faithful version — the novel is denser, slower, and considerably more frightening.

Search-friendly notes: "ghost story peter straub book review," "is ghost story by peter straub worth reading," "ghost story 1979 novel summary," "books like ghost story peter straub." Best read in winter, ideally during a long cold snap.