Ghost Story

2019: “It is always true in personal, if not historical, terms that a golden age's defining characteristic is its dailiness, its offered succession of the small satisfactions of daily living.”

I’ve made no secret of my love for this novel, love so strong that I can in no way review it objectively. I’ve read it every year for nearly 30 years. Maybe next year I’ll figure out how to put my feelings about it down in words.

2018: The Chowder Society is Dead. Long live the Chowder Society.

One of the best books ever written.

This was my Halloween read for 2014. I can appreciate how this novel might have been well received when it first came out, and maybe perspectives on race have changed since the late 80s or maybe I'm just being hard on Peter Straub but ultimately I found it hard to get into a book about old, rich, white men and their skeletons.

This was the first time I've read Peter Straub. This spooky story is written well, has well-developed characters, and keeps moving. I'd picked it up just for fun, as an October read, but I really got into it. And it's long, a little over 500 pages. I particularly got a kick out of small town sheriff Hardesty, who is a drunken incompetent, but can certainly insult people in hilarious ways. He also invents some of the most offensive phrases you'd ever want to hear from anyone. Straub describes Milburn with enough detail, history, and feeling that the reader can picture its quaintness and then shiver during its winters. Good read!