These psychic and horror fictions--seven of them short-shorts--reveals Straub at his spellbinding best. Two tales (first installments of his Blue Rose trilogy), are linked to Koko and Mystery and exactingly probe the consequences of boyhood clashes with evil. In "Blue Rose," sadistic Harry Beevers, 10, hypnotizes and destroys his younger brother; the tale leaps ahead to the ironic verdict in Harry's court-martial for wreaking atrocities in Vietnam. In the outstanding "The Juniper Tree," a novelist relives a harrowing, seductive summer when, at age seven, he was sexually molested in a movie house by drifter Stan, a seedy Alan Ladd lookalike. "The Buffalo Hunter" fastidiously chronicles the fixations of a 35-year-old who numbs his fear of women by sucking his coffee and cognac from baby bottles. In the ambitious gothic thriller/academic spoof "Mrs. God," a fatuous professor is lured to a creepy English mansion crammed with grisly secrets to research the papers of his poet ancestress; dead babies provide a subtheme. Wry and riveting, "A Short Guide to the City" fuses and parodies two genres: the self-congratulatory tourist blurb with a news alert on the "viaduct killer."
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"Once again, I marvel at Peter Straub's writing. Some of the stories were better than other and some were very good. It is worth the read just to immerse yourself in his style." — James (4 out of 5 stars)
"Once again, I marvel at Peter Straub's writing. Some of the stories were better than other and some were very good. It is worth the read just to immerse yourself in his style."
" A good collection of weird and creepy short fiction. "
" Good compilation of stuff, uneven when combined, well-written individually. Contains stories of men who go crazy, partly because they read too much. Uh-oh... "
" Great introduction to Peter Straub - short story collection. "
" Creepy, but hard to keep everything straight. "
" Not up to his best, by a long shot. Most of these were pointless and went nowhere. Disappointing overall, though much of the writing itself was good. "
" After revisiting (and enjoying) Koko, I re-read some of these short stories. One or two of these stories are OK, but I wouldn't recommend this book for anyone who isn't already a big fan of Straub. "
" I'm not sure what I think. I enjoyed parts of the stories, but wanted more closure. "
" love short story collections - some were good, some didn't blow me away, some were just freakin weird. "
" I don't know why, none of the stories in this book really grabbed me. Good enough to finish, not good enough to probably ever read again. "
" Lake Michigan is on the west side of the state. Michigan is also in the Eastern Time Zone; easy enough things to look up. Disjointed; seemingly without purpose. "
" A collection of short stories, my favourite was definatey the buffalo hunter. "
" I loved these storys - really odd - finished it in 2 days "
" Mrs.God is one I revisit annually. I just finished it, again for the umpteenth time! Always creepier than I remember. "
Peter Straub (1943-2022) was the New York Times bestselling author of more than a dozen novels. He has won the Bram Stoker Award for his two of his novels and a short story collection, 5 Stories; he has also won a World Fantasy Award and an International Horror Guild Award. He received a BA degree in English at the University of Wisconsin–Madison and an MA from Columbia University.
Patrick Lawlor, an award-winning narrator, is also an accomplished stage actor, director, and combat choreographer. He has worked extensively off Broadway and has been an actor and stuntman in both film and television. He has been an Audie Award finalist multiple times and has garnered several AudioFile Earphones Awards, a Publishers Weekly Listen-Up Award, and many starred audio reviews from Library Journal and Kirkus Reviews.
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