#1 New York Times bestselling author Peter Straub’s classic tale of horror, secrets, and the dangerous ghosts of the past...

What was the worst thing you’ve ever done?

In the sleepy town of Milburn, New York, four old men gather to tell each other stories - some true, some made-up, all of them frightening. A simple pastime to divert themselves from their quiet lives.

But one story is coming back to haunt them and their small town. A tale of something they did long ago. A wicked mistake. A horrifying accident. And they are about to learn that no one can bury the past forever...

Listening Length

22 hours and 33 minutes
Author

Peter Straub
Narrator

Buck Schirner
Audible release date

April 30, 2012
Language

English
Publisher

Brilliance Audio
ASIN

B007Z768DO
Version

Unabridged
Program Type

Audiobook
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Product details

Listening Length	22 hours and 33 minutes
Author	Peter Straub
Narrator	Buck Schirner
Whispersync for Voice	Ready
Audible.com Release Date	April 30, 2012
Publisher	Brilliance Audio
Program Type	Audiobook
Version	Unabridged
Language	English
ASIN	B007Z768DO
Best Sellers Rank	#6,131 in Audible Books & Originals (See Top 100 in Audible Books & Originals) #19 in Ghost Horror Fiction #77 in Ghost Fiction #379 in Literary Fiction (Audible Books & Originals)

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Cheryl Stout

Still an awesome read after forty years

Reviewed in the United States on September 16, 2018

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“What’s 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 . . .”

I first read this book when it was published in 1979. I loved it then and, now almost 40 years later, I love it just as much.

If you are looking for blood and guts horror (although there is some of that) you might not appreciate this book. This book builds its layers of horror slowly and it is one creepy tale.

It is a ghost story but it also is a character study, a horror story, and a marvel of storytelling.

It starts slowly but each piece that is added to the story is integral to the overall tale.

I am so glad I read this book again. I felt like I was discovering it all over again.

100 people found this helpful

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Corsair

are my two favorite horror novels

Reviewed in the United States on July 18, 2017

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Ghost Story, along with Shadow-Land, are my two favorite horror novels.

Ghost story is especially chilling, not just in the main narrative that progresses, but in the secondary narratives that support the unfolding mythology. Evil spirits and monstrous changelings lurk between the pages, and make for a thrilling read.

They adapted this novel into a movie... but the film is a terrible interpretation, altering the dynamic between the characters and the creature- mutating it into a kind of supernatural revenge story. Ghost Story is far superior to that cinematic rubbish, and the antagonists far more menacing. If you love the feeling of something watching you in the dark, the shiver up and down your spine, and the sense of heavy foreboding, Ghost Story will probably suit your fancy.

78 people found this helpful

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Steven Ramirez

If You’re Going to Get Revenge, Turn It Up to Eleven

Reviewed in the United States on June 12, 2019

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I first read Peter Straub’s terrifying Ghost Story decades ago, and I recently decided to pick it up again to see if my impressions had changed. They hadn’t. The work is mesmerizing. The author has created in the fictional town of Millburn a waystation steeped in snow where people live their separate lives, oblivious to the horrid things lurking in the forest waiting to strike. Eventually, these corrupt creatures come for the hapless residents, and they are caught unawares.

In many ways, this tale of ghostly revenge is instructive in how it shows us the consequences of mistreatment people visit on one another. The town itself is filled with characters surviving in escalating degrees of guilt, and it is precisely these stains on their souls that mark the victims for the marauders intent on feeding on them.

I admire this book so much, and I wanted to share three things I learned.

Turn It Up to Eleven
If you’re going to get revenge, it’s better if, instead of concentrating on a few elderly townsfolk, you turn it up to eleven and destroy the whole town. The chief villain who is known by many names—all of them with the initials AM—is going to do just that. And, like the author, she proceeds to instruct her victims in the ways of the occult and the reasons why they must die. Fortunately, because of the combined bravery of Ricky Hawthorne, Peter Barnes, and Don Wanderly, the monster’s coup de grâce cannot be delivered. Good effort, though.

Make Sure There’s Plenty of Guilt to Go Around
Stories in which the innocent are slaughtered like sheep are not fun, in my view. But take a town full of characters who have done everything from the despicable to the merely annoying and go after them—now you’ve got something. Of course, the Chowder Society members are the worst, because they caused a young woman’s death (well, she looked like a young woman, Officer) and literally buried the evidence. Then add a crazed farmer who is forever suing people and seeing Martians, a drunken shell of a sheriff, and a wife who would rather have sex with just about every other man in town than stay home. Plenty of ammunition for a vengeful, murderous, supernatural being, wouldn’t you agree?

Make the Ghost Something Else
This last point speaks to Straub’s brilliance. He could’ve done as Henry James did in The Turn of the Screw and delivered a good old-fashioned vengeful spirit. But he went one better—he created a being—or, God help us, a race of beings—that have occupied the planet for thousands of years, and enjoy feeding not only on people’s flesh but on their fears. For me, that’s what sends this novel over the top. Because you can’t just cower inside a circle of salt, holding up a crucifix. These things are real, my friend.

If you haven’t had a chance to read Ghost Story, I suggest you grab a copy and prepare not to sleep. And while you’re at it, check out the movie, which was released in 1981 and features the esteemed Fred Astaire, Melvyn Douglas, and John Houseman.

7 people found this helpful

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ktollstam

Straub is an old master of this genre. This is a complex, well crafted story well worth the read

Reviewed in the United States on December 1, 2017

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This is an oldie, a book I had read a long time ago. I enjoyed rereading it and found that I had forgotten much of it and had a better understanding of the plot. This is a well crafted novel with multiple stories woven into a single thread. It is written in the style of an old world gothic, with drama, tension and a growing sense of dread and doom. The characters are varied and although dated, still relevant and real. The supernatural is presented in a believable, frightening way and the ending is not obvious.

18 people found this helpful

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Asher Taylor-Dawson

Human Story

Reviewed in the United States on April 12, 2020

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I didn't find this book terribly frightening, but that's okay. What I found, instead, was a compelling portrait of a true enduring friendship between a handful of men—mostly old men—who love each-other with a brotherly tenderness and a devotion that demands, from many of them, the ultimate sacrifice.

If you're looking for a fast-paced thriller full of jump-scares, keep looking. If you want a book that lights the gas under you on low and slowly, smoothly brings you to a boil, try Straub's Ghost Story. Those born and bred in the Northeast, especially, will appreciate the steady menace of a bad winter (and the steely bluntness of Stella Hawthorne).

Well-plotted, well-written, and crammed with rich characters, Ghost Story is worth the read.

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Christine

Kept my interest

Reviewed in the United States on January 18, 2017

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I am not a ghost story or paranormal fan but after reading the reviews on this book, I thought I would give it a try and I am glad I did. This is considered a "classic" written I think in the 70s and a fairly long book but it was intriguing. It captured my attention from the very first page. It is a story that involves a lot of people in this little town and their history and how the "ghosts" of your past never leave until they are "dealt with" and are forced too. I don't want to give anything away. Love the book. The writing was excellent. I highly recommend this read.

7 people found this helpful

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Top reviews from other countries

Rev

Great homage to the classic ghost story

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on July 29, 2017

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I've had this kicking around on my kindle for a couple of years but had never got round to reading it until now. I'm glad it didn't become one of those books I never got around to because it's a fantastic tribute to ghost stories in general and a good novel in it's own right. Peter Straub obviously set out to pay his respects to the genre and there are nods to Hawthorne and James amongst others and he manages to include most of the ingredients for a classic scary story. I won't go too much into the plot but there's a main overarching plot that also incorporates a few other shorter tales as Straub has some fun and meanders around. It feels like a long book and it's not a fast paced read but the tension builds well and a sense of menace increases the further into the book you get. Personally I find the horror genre really hit and miss - there's a lot of dross out there but this isn't one of them. Instead, it's a proper "huddle round a roaring fire and tell tales of spooky things" type of book. Would definitely recommend this and will seek out other novels by Peter Straub.

20 people found this helpful

M. Dowden

Always Popular

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on October 14, 2019

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Peter Straub’s 1979 novel has always proved popular, both with readers and critics alike, and is one of the books hailed as starting the new boom of horror in the Eighties, which gave us some great books and newer writers. Although Straub had written a couple of novels before this, this was the book that made his name and made people take him seriously.

Set in a small fictional town so we see the main characters, who are all ageing men get together every fortnight for a story and a few drinks. As this opens one of the members of the group we see has already died, and since then the stories told by the group have really been ghost stories. But why is this so – and why are there now strange things happening in the town and immediate area of where they live?

As they write to the nephew of their dead friend so they are about to find something too horrible for words, that in this world the native Americans which make up the Algonquin language group were right, and that manitous do exist, here indeed we have an otshee monetoo loose, and having done harm for a very long time.

This is quite a long and in certain ways complex novel, and those who are familiar with Stephen King’s works will notice certain inspiration from this book appearing in at least a couple of his novels. As we read this so we read of winter coming early, and being colder and with more snow than usual as the small town becomes cut off and isolated from the rest of the neighbouring region, and then we see what happens, with evil a definite presence and the power that it has.

With manipulation by the supernatural so we see that our main characters have mostly had dealings with the evil presence in the past but were unaware at the time. And with a secret that the older characters share, so retribution is coming their way. This is well plotted and shows some very creative ideas, along with some very good writing and characterisation. This isn’t a quick read but more something to sit back and savour, so take your time with this and really get into the story.

7 people found this helpful

Squeaky Joe

The storytelling is superb

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on December 21, 2020

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The elderly members of The Chowder Society meet regularly to tell each other stories, but after one of their number dies, the stories become more ghoulish in nature. More disturbingly, each of the remaining members begins to experience similar, nightmarish, dreams. Contacting the nephew of their dead friend, they find he also has something to contribute to their shared nocturnal visions, forcing them to explore people and events from their collective past—a past they’d much rather forget.

The book begins with a tale that at first appears to have no relation to the rest of the novel—a man who has apparently kidnapped a young girl, sets off across the country for reasons we aren’t told. This is the author’s way of hooking us in with a puzzle, while he takes his time revealing the rest of this spooky tale.

‘Ghost Story’ isn’t the easiest book to read, not least because of its tendency to go off at a tangent. Many of the episodes that make up the plot seem, at first, to be unconnected with what’s going on in the town of Millburn, but as the main characters get pulled into the events and the strange deaths occurring in the town, the tension begins to mount. While the book isn’t scary in the same way as other classic horror novels are, there’s a creepiness to it that is undeniably disturbing. As the narrative proceeds, the author gradually draws the many strands of the plot together, and at the same time, ups the eeriness stakes to such a degree that I reached a point where I couldn’t allow myself to put the book down until I reached the end.

Written in the late seventies, this is an epic of creeping horror that has influenced many other writers (Stephen King included) and is a must for fans of all things scary. Though occasionally confusing and complex, the storytelling is superb and left me feeling like I’d experienced something special.

2 people found this helpful

GrindhouseDJ70

Classic Chiller!

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on January 13, 2019

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Classic chiller from Peter Straub. An epic tale about a group of ageing men who form The Chowder Society, a place where they share ghosts stories between them, and are united by a terrible secret from the past. Expertly written, solid characters, and genuinely creepy, this is Peter Staub on top form. Essential reading!
Note: If you enjoy this I seriously recommend his equally fantastic ghost story Full Circle (aka Julia/ The Haunting of Julia).

5 people found this helpful

Miss Chinaski

Still Scary 40 Years Later

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on April 3, 2017

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Read this classic horror when it first came out, like the ghosts (and the fabulous, demonic, femme fatale at the centre of the story) it haunted me for years. Have read other Straubs but this remains his best. Milburn reminds me of my upstate NY upbringing, bringing back many memories - to read this is both disquieting and a comfort. Just sad that both the film and the cover of this edition let down what I think is one of the top five ghost stories of the 20th century.

7 people found this helpful

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