ghost story – Nocturnal Revelries

Ghost Story – Peter Straub
Pocket Books – 1980 (Originally published 1979)

I have heard a lot of good things about Peter Straub, and I knew that Ghost Story is considered to be one of his best books. It was the last book I read of the 10 discussed in Stephen King’s Danse Macabre, and it was also the last book of my summer vacation. (That might give you an idea of the backlog of posts I have.) I had high expectations for this book, and it did not disappoint.

This is a very long novel, but its influences are the short stories of Edgar Allan Poe, Ambrose Bierce, M.R. James, Arthur Machen, Nathaniel Hawthorne and Henry James. With the exception of Hawthorne, I have tracked down and read all of the supernatural fiction by these authors, so it’s not super surprising that I enjoyed this. (I read Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter and Twice told Tales years ago but none of his later short fiction. I’ll have to see if there is a dedicated collection of his ghost stories out there.) While this book wears its influences on its sleeve, it has in turn become very influential on modern horror. One of the stories in Ryan Harding’s Genital Grinder uses this book’s opening line as homage.

There’s a part in Stephen King’s Danse Macabre where King discusses how the unknown is perhaps the most potent element of horror. The scary thing behind the closed door is always scarier when that door remains closed. Regardless of how terrifying the menace actually is, by making itself known it loses some its power. (Sure it’s scary, but it’s teeth and claws could always be a little bit longer.) In short, the question is scarier than the answer.

I reckon the first half of Ghost Story is one of the greatest set-ups in all horror fiction. The mystery, atmosphere and tension are magnificent. What the hell is happening here? Why has this man kidnapped a child? Who or what is picking off the small group of old men in Milburn? What’s the unspeakable event that occurred between these old men and the mysterious Eva Galli in the past? How are the answers to these questions linked?

The problem with this book is that those questions have to be answered. As King notes, the answers are doomed to fall short of the horror of the questions themselves. The ending of this book is fine. The characters remain interesting, and there’s plenty of creepy bits, but for my money, the malevolent supernatural force at the heart of the story is just a little bit too complicated for the second half of the book to live up to the first.

Maybe that sounds like a jerk thing to say. There’s literally no way to keep this kind of tension consistent until the end of a story, so this critique isn’t really fair. At least Straub tried. Most writers wouldn’t be able to come anything close to what he has achieved in this book. There are some seriously creepy moments in here. Even thinking of one particularly skillful use of foreshadowing near the beginning of the book makes me shudder, months after finishing the novel.

Jesus she moved she can’t she’s dead.

I really enjoyed Ghost Story, and I recommend it to any fan of horror. Straub has written a bunch of other novels too, including two with Stephen King. I am entirely certain I’ll be reading more of him in the future.

The Bride of Christ and Other Fictions – Montague Summers
Snuggly Books 2020

I have a collection of books by and about Montague Summers. A few years ago, somebody found a bunch of his writing that was long believed lost. It contained an unpublished collection of ghost stories that was finally put out last year. This collection was really, really cool. The publisher, Snuggly Books, announced that they had enough material for a second collection of unreleased fiction. It was to be titled The Bride of Christ. I ordered a copy as soon as it came out.

In his introduction to the text, Daniel Corrick notes that the pieces in this collection can be divided into four categories: the ghost stories, the Uranian pieces, the society pieces and the titular novella. I’m going to stick with these categories in my discussion too.

The ghost stories are very short little things. They’re not awful or unpleasant to read, but they’re not particularly memorable.

The Uranian pieces are mostly uninteresting. One of them, “The Parting of the Ways”, is ok. It’s a story about a lad falling in love with a lad who falls in love with a woman. It’s not a great story, but it is actually a story which is more than can be said about the other two Uranian “pieces” in here. I was going to say that it’s a bit odd that a self proclaimed Catholic priest would write stories about romantic affairs between teenage boys, but I guess that’s not really true at all.

The “society pieces” are boring garbage. Both are opening chapters to books that Summers never bothered to finish. These are boring stories about rich old British women trying to impress their friends. I read one, but couldn’t bring myself to finish the other. Pure crap.

The Bride of Christ, the longest piece in this book, appears at the start of the collection, but I was excited to read it, so I saved it for last. I was disappointed. It’s the story of a nun who falls in love with Jesus. The priest at her convent tells her this is not good. Just as the story seems to start, it ends. There is supposedly some debate over whether or not this work is complete. If this is the final product, it’s absolute shit. There’s simply not enough in here for it to be interesting. I’m giving Monty the benefit of the doubt and assuming it’s unfinished.

I understand why a publisher would choose to release two books of Summers’ fiction rather than trying to stick it all into one together, and as a collector of his work, I am pretty happy to own this collection of rarities. Honestly though, there isn’t going to be much of interest in this book to anyone other than Summers enthusiasts. I think taking the two ghost stories out of this one and adding them into Six Ghost Stories as an appendix would have made the best book. The leftovers aren’t really worth reading.