Peter Straub, horror writer and Stephen King collaborator, dies at 79

Peter Straub, an acclaimed horror novelist know for “Ghost Story” and his collaborations with Stephen King, has died. He was 79.

Straub died Sunday, his daughter author Emma Straub confirmed. Susan Straub, his wife, told the New York Times that he died at Columbia University Irving Medical Center after experiencing complications from a broken hip.

Author Peter Straub attends a benefit reading for actor Frank Muller at Town Hall February 2, 2002 in New York City. (Jeffrey Vock/)

Straub was born March 2, 1943, in Milwaukee, Wisc. He had to relearn how to walk as a child after he was hit by a car, a traumatic moment that eventually led him to writing horror and supernatural stories.

After moving to Ireland in the 1960s with Susan, he ending up writing his first novel “Marriages” instead of working on a doctorate degree.

He scored a hit with “Julia,” his third novel, about a haunted house in London, in 1975. Two novels later came “Ghost Story,” a best-seller that was adapted into a chilling film starring Fred Astaire and John Houseman.

In 1984, he co-wrote fantasy novel “The Talisman” with Stephen King. The pair reunited for “Black House,” a 2001 sequel. The Duffer Brothers, the creators of “Stranger Things,” and Steven Spielberg are developing a TV adaptation. Ben Straub, his son, runs a production company that adapts his father’s works.

From left, Stephen King, John Grisham, Peter Straub and Pat Conroy at "A Benefit for Frank Muller and Family," at Town Hall in New York City in 2002. (Evan Agostini/)

Straub used horror and supernatural to comment on the darker, unpleasant aspects of life.

“There’s a lot of stuff that I think people in general prefer to back away from that I simply cannot back away from, temperamentally, because I don’t think we have the whole world in mind or in view unless we also include these things,” he told Salon in a 2016 interview ahead of the release of the short story collection “Interior Darkness.”