Writing with Brian Evenson and Peter Straub
I picked up Peter Straub's Ghost Story back in 2008 when a used bookstore in Burlington had it for three dollars. The cover was dog-eared. I didn't know either of these names at the time. Brian Evenson wasn't really on my radar until I tried to track down his early stories in Fatal Dreams and couldn't find a single copy in print outside of a PDF someone uploaded to a forum that got takedowned six months later. They don't really share a direct lineage. Evenson is more aligned with the body horror tradition — Kafka meets Cronenberg, stripped of anything sentimental. Straub came out of the Carter/DeLillo crowd in the seventies, writing literary horror that takes its time. The connection is mostly in how both of them handle dread without relying on monsters. You won't find a werewolf in either of their catalogs. The fear comes from structure, not spectacle. I ran into this when a grad student asked me to put together a reading list on psychological horror for a course. She wanted the "usual suspects" — King, Koontz, maybe some Shirley Jackson throwaways. I suggested Straub's Mr. X and Evenson's Dickson Beach and she looked at me like I'd handed her a menu in a language she couldn't read. That's the problem with both of these writers. They require patience that most modern horror readers don't have.
The practical difference between them
Straub writes long books. Very long books. Ghost Story is nearly a thousand pages. He builds atmosphere through character relationships, social dynamics, small-town politics. The horror seeps in slowly, like water damage in a wall you didn't notice until the ceiling started sagging. His prose is clean, precise. He doesn't waste words on shock value. Evenson does the opposite. His stories are short, often under fifteen pages. He strips away everything unnecessary — backstory, motivation, resolution. Readers sometimes complain that his stories feel incomplete. They're not. The incompleteness is the point. You're supposed to sit with the uncertainty. It's a different kind of discomfort than Straub creates, but it lasts longer after you finish. I remember one night reading Evenson's Paladin at about two in the morning. My roommate was asleep. I couldn't sleep afterward because the story had convinced me that something was moving in the walls of my apartment. It wasn't. Just old pipes. But the story made me check every closet before bed for a week.
Where to actually find their work
Most of Evenson's early short stories are out of print. Surrender the Floor and Getting Home Alive are still available from Trepidatius Publishing, but his collections from the nineties — Fatal Dreams, Open Season, Wrestling with the Devil — you'll need to hunt down secondhand copies or find the rare PDFs floating around. I paid twelve dollars for a near-mint Wrestling with the Devil on eBay in 2019. That's typical pricing now. Straub is easier to find. His backlist is in print through Grove Atlantic. Ghost Story, The Dreaming Place, Mr. X — all available new. The only real problem is that some of his earlier out-of-print titles like Dancing Little Lili have gone for thirty or forty dollars used. I gave up trying to collect those and just read what I could find at the library. If you want to save money, check WorldCat for your local library system. Several universities keep complete Straub backlists in their special collections. The University of Vermont has a decent horror section because of where we are. Don't order interlibrary loan unless you have a month to wait.
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A problem people don't talk about
Both writers handle endings differently, and it trips up new readers. Straub resolves things, usually. Maybe not happily, but his stories come to a point. Evenson often leaves threads hanging. Closing the Ring is one of his best short collections, and nearly every story there ends without satisfying the reader's expectation of closure. Some people return the books. That's fine — horror isn't for everyone. The more practical issue is tone. Evenson's work can feel cold, even cruel. There's no warmth in his narratives, no comfort. I've had readers tell me his stories made them feel worse about being human. That's not a bug, exactly. It's a feature. But it means you shouldn't pick up an Evenson story if you're looking for something reassuring. Straub has the opposite problem sometimes. His early work, especially Tales of the Brethren, can feel overwrought. Too many characters, too much setup before anything happens. It's worth pushing through, but I understand if you can't.
Reading order that actually works
Start with Straub's Ghost Story if you want a full novel experience. It's the book that made him famous. Then move to Evenson's Paladin — it's his earliest full-length work and shows where he was heading. After that, sample his short fiction through Closing the Ring or Surrender the Floor. If you're approaching from the short story side first, begin with Evenson. His shorter pieces are where he's most consistent. Straub's short fiction is scattered — some excellent pieces in Twilight Zone anthologies, some mediocre stuff in various horror annuals. It's not worth tracking down individually. I once tried to introduce someone to both writers simultaneously. Bad idea. They kept confusing Straub's slow-burn dread with Evenson's sudden, clinical horror. One story wouldn't stick in their mind because it felt too different from the previous one. Just read them sequentially. Give Straub a few days between novels. Evenson's stories are better when you read them slowly, one at a time, not in marathon sessions.
