Peter Straub, RIP 1943-2022 (37)
Rainy most of the day. Our high as 84˚F, with the heat index at 89˚F.
I got the news just a little while ago that Peter Straub died on Sunday. I don't know that I have the words at the moment to write all the things I would like to write about Peter. He saved my life, more than once, in more ways than one, and I was never able to pay him back. A great author, a gentle, brilliant man. He was the sort of person that I longed to be, but never have been and never will be. Urbane, genteel, charming, funny, amazingly generous.
If not for Peter Straub, you would not know who I am. It's as simple as that. And Harlan is gone, and Melanie, and now Peter. The list of giants who let me stand upon their shoulders grows very, very, very short.
"What was the worst thing you've ever done?"
"I won't tell you that, but I'll tell you the worst thing that ever happened to me...the most dreadful thing..." ~ Ghost Story (1979)*
Perhaps only the opening lines of Shirley Jackson's The Haunting of Hill House provide a more chilling beginning to a novel, instantly setting the tone. And speaking of Shirley Jackson, one of the most precious gifts anyone has ever given me - and here I mean tangible, material gifts - is a copy of the first edition of my favorite novel, We Have Always Lived in the Castle, that Peter gave me in June of 2013. The copy was inscribed by Jackson to Bernard Malamud in September 1962, and Malamud eventually gave it to the Bennington College Library. Though there is no evidence the book was ever actually discarded by the library, it somehow wound up on the rare book market, and Peter decided it ought to be mine.
I do not love many people. I just don't have it in me. But I loved you, Peter, and I will miss for whatever remains of my life.
Novelist, teacher, editor, poet, jazz enthusiast and clarinetest (with Woody Allan's jazz band), transplanted New Yorker, actor (a recurring role on One Life to Live, just because he loved the show), father, and husband. I think Peter fit three lifetimes into one. Neil Gaiman once said to me, "I think he is the best of us." Yeah, I think he was.
Later Tater Beans,
Aunt Beast
Photo by Kyle Cassidy
* Despite a great cast, it was a wretched movie that entirely missed the point of the novel. Read the book.
I got the news just a little while ago that Peter Straub died on Sunday. I don't know that I have the words at the moment to write all the things I would like to write about Peter. He saved my life, more than once, in more ways than one, and I was never able to pay him back. A great author, a gentle, brilliant man. He was the sort of person that I longed to be, but never have been and never will be. Urbane, genteel, charming, funny, amazingly generous.
If not for Peter Straub, you would not know who I am. It's as simple as that. And Harlan is gone, and Melanie, and now Peter. The list of giants who let me stand upon their shoulders grows very, very, very short.
"What was the worst thing you've ever done?"
"I won't tell you that, but I'll tell you the worst thing that ever happened to me...the most dreadful thing..." ~ Ghost Story (1979)*
Perhaps only the opening lines of Shirley Jackson's The Haunting of Hill House provide a more chilling beginning to a novel, instantly setting the tone. And speaking of Shirley Jackson, one of the most precious gifts anyone has ever given me - and here I mean tangible, material gifts - is a copy of the first edition of my favorite novel, We Have Always Lived in the Castle, that Peter gave me in June of 2013. The copy was inscribed by Jackson to Bernard Malamud in September 1962, and Malamud eventually gave it to the Bennington College Library. Though there is no evidence the book was ever actually discarded by the library, it somehow wound up on the rare book market, and Peter decided it ought to be mine.
I do not love many people. I just don't have it in me. But I loved you, Peter, and I will miss for whatever remains of my life.
Novelist, teacher, editor, poet, jazz enthusiast and clarinetest (with Woody Allan's jazz band), transplanted New Yorker, actor (a recurring role on One Life to Live, just because he loved the show), father, and husband. I think Peter fit three lifetimes into one. Neil Gaiman once said to me, "I think he is the best of us." Yeah, I think he was.
Later Tater Beans,
Aunt Beast
Photo by Kyle Cassidy
* Despite a great cast, it was a wretched movie that entirely missed the point of the novel. Read the book.