S TUTTERING FOUND A TION CELEBRITY CORNER
PETER S TRA UB LITERARY MASTER OF THE SUPERNATURAL
A native of Milwaukee, Wisconsin, Peter Straub first began writing as a student at the prestigious Milwaukee Country Day School, and would go on to earn a BA in English at the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 1965, followed by an MA at Columbia University the following year. Following his studies at Columbia, he and his wife moved to Dublin, Ireland in 1969 where he would pursue a Ph.D and also finally begin to write professionally.
A catalyst to his interest in writing ironically also activated his stuttering. His September 6, 2022 obituary in the New York Times, titled “Peter Straub, Literary Master of the Supernatural, Dies at 79”, stated, “When he was 7 he was hit by a car and nearly killed. He had to learn to walk again, and the experience left him with a pronounced stutter that he overcame but did not entirely vanquish, so that even later in adulthood it crept back whenever he grew excited.” The experience forced the first-grader to spend several months in the hospital, enduring multiple operations.
The obituary article in Entertainment Tonight stated, “Because he had learned prematurely that the world was dangerous, he was jumpy, restless, hugely garrulous in spite of his stutter.”
Over the years, interviews with and articles about Straub frequently mentioned his stuttering. His writings in the horror and supernatural genres put him in the same literary camp as novelists who stutter, such as mystery writer Paul Johnson as well as David Shields.
His first two novels, Marriages and Under Venus, published in the early 1970’s, were mainstream novels that did not fare well. IN 1975, his first attempt at the supernatural was Julia, which put Straub on the map as a novelist. It was made into the 1977 film The Haunting of Julia starring Mia Farrow.
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Peter Straub, the famous American novelist who specialized in the genres of horror and supernatural fiction . Straub, who lived in Brooklyn with his wife, died on September 4, 2022 at age 79.
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