Straub, Peter (born 1943) Similar in prominence to Stephen King in the ’70s and ’80s, Straub wrote big, fat books that became big, fat paperback best sellers, and he blurbed plenty of other horror writers. He began his career writing literary fiction but started writing horror with his third book, the ghost story Julia (1975); and his fifth book, Ghost Story (1979), was a huge hit. The massive sales are unusual for an elegant, understated writer whose prose is some of the most polished in horror fiction.
