Reading ‘Ghost Story’ is similar to a chilly walk on a lonely path in woods for most of the book. The trees are bare of leaves and a cold wind blows ice down your neck. Far away a wailing wolf sings to the moon. The atmosphere seems vaguely threatening - but despite the creeping sensation crawling up your spine, there is nothing to see.

At least, nothing living can be obviously seen or heard, although as time goes on, dread begins to grow from suspicion to certainty. Something must be watching, following. That crawling sensation of eyes staring at your back is palpable, and every hair on your body is standing up...what was that sound? A whisper? A giggle?

*Hehe*

‘Most of the action in the book takes place in Milburn, which is an old-fashioned small town of old-fashioned values in rural New York. (Author Peter Straub’s book was first published in 1979.) Milburn is like many of the fictional towns in early Stephen King novels. There are one or three main streets, maybe one or five traffic lights, small mom-and-pop stores servicing rural people with large lots for farms and barns, and storefront townsfolk who provide professional services such as that provided by doctors, lawyers or accountants. Kids who run wild tend to do so acting out with petty thievery, vandalism, bullying, underage drinking. Everyone knows everybody.

A gothic undertone slowly breaks out more and more into the open as characters go about their lives in Milburn. Then, mysterious deaths begin to occur (after about two hundred pages), and everything going bad seems to have at the center of it all a small informal club, the Chowder Society, whose five members are respected men in their late 60’s and early 70’s. They usually meet twice a month for conversation and companionship.

Sears James, John Jaffrey, Lewis Benedikt, Edward Wanderley, and Ricky Hawthorne have known each since they were Milburn kids in the 1920’s. Some married, some didn’t, some had kids. They appear to be ordinary men - a doctor, lawyer, accountant, writer. An old tragedy has bound them together, but they never discuss this incident. They spend their social evenings together telling stories. But after the death of one of them one year ago, they change their ritual of general storytelling into instead telling a story of the worst thing that ever had happened to them. This is the moment when things seem to be going a little dark for them all, although the men refuse to take much notice upfront. The remaining four members are carrying on normally as far as they are concerned. Except for Ricky. Ricky feels it - oncoming darkness. The nightmares are getting worse, ever since Edward died. Is he the only one? No. Not, gentle reader. Something IS coming to get them....

Ghost Story’ is somewhat flawed, in my opinion. The first half is overlong and not really a horror story as it reads more like sort of a mild panegyric to small-town life, as well as a slow-moving domestic fiction. Readers get to really know how some of these characters are living every day - somewhat stereotypically but hey, that is reality too. Finally, after too many pages of ‘a day in the life of’ reveals, there is a sense of growing doom and gloom, some strange deaths, and periodic paranormal happenings which chill the blood! At this point, I was reminded of Stephen King’s ‘Salem’s Lot’. I wish these gothic occurrences had begun sooner. However, the writing is always first-class, and once the deaths start, the horror definitely takes charge of your headspace. The last quarter of the book is gripping - like claws into your body....

;)