According to his wife, Susan Bitker, American novelist Peter Straub died from complications resulting from a hip injury. He was 79. Straub, a renowned author of psychological thrillers, literary horrors, and dark fantasies, passed away at Columbia University Irving Medical Center in Manhattan on September 4.
Emma Straub paid tribute to her father on Instagram with a series of images and a touching letter. Like her father, Emma is a best-selling author.
“Peter Francis Straub, 3/2/43 – 9/4/22, was the most intelligent and entertaining person in each room he attended. What good fortune we had. There are not enough words in the world.”
Stephen King and Peter Straub worked together on two works, 1984’s The Talisman and 2001’s Black House. On Twitter, King also paid respect to his former colleague and close friend.
“It’s a dreadful day because Peter Straub, a dear friend, creative collaborator, and business partner, has passed away. It was one of the joys of my artistic career to collaborate with him.
A brief overview of Peter Straub’s distinguished writing career
Straub was born on March 2, 1943, in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. In 1965, he received a bachelor’s in English from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and a master’s in English from Columbia University.
Later, he moved to Ireland with his family, where he began but did not complete his Ph.D. According to Peter Straub’s official website, he developed an interest in storytelling at an early age following a near-fatal vehicle accident.
“Books drew him out of himself, so he read even more than before, an invaluable childhood habit for any author.
And his narrative, despite the fact that he was still a gregarious child with several friends, tended toward the dark and garish, the horrifying and the homicidal. When he realized he could make such situations hilarious, he created his first “effect.”
In lieu of completing his Ph.D., he published two poetry collections, Ishmael and Open Air, in 1972, followed by a novel, Marriages, in 1973. Peter Strub began to write gothic fiction on the recommendation of his agency.
Julia, his debut novel, was published in 1975. In 1979, he rose to notoriety with the publication of his sixth book, Ghost Story. Both of his works have been made into motion pictures.
He has also appeared in the films The Throat, Floating Dragon, The Hellfire Club, and The Ghost Village. In his four-decade career, Peter Straub was nominated for the Bram Stoker Award fourteen times and won ten of them.
Additionally, he was nominated for twelve World Fantasy Awards, winning four. The late author earned the Stoker Award for lifetime accomplishment in 2006 and the Living Legend Award from the International Horror Guild in 2008.
In terms of his personal life, he wed Susan Bitker in 1966. Benjamin and Emma are their two offspring.
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