Peter Straub, Horror Master and Stephen King Collaborator, Dies at 79

Peter Straub, the best-selling and beloved novelist who spun dark fantasies and literary horrors, including two co-authored projects with Stephen King, died Sunday. His wife confirmed to The New York Times that Straub had died following complications caused by a broken hip. He was 79.

In an Instagram post memorializing her father’s death, Emma Straub wrote, “Peter Francis Straub, the smartest and most fun person in every room he was ever in… How lucky we were. There aren’t enough words in the world.”

Stephen King, with whom Straub penned fantasy-horror novel The Talisman and its sequel Black House, mourned his “good friend and amazingly talented colleague and collaborator” in a tweet Tuesday.

“Working with him was one of the great joys of my life,” King wrote.

A 14-time Bram Stoker Award nominee (and 10-time winner), Straub was also honored in 2008 with an International Horror Guild Living Legend Award. Highlights from his prolific four-decade career included his debut horror novel, 1975’s Julia, and his fifth work, 1979’s Ghost Story. Both were adapted into films, with the loose cinematic reworking of Ghost Story starring Fred Astaire.

A native of Milwaukee, Straub cultivated a sharp, offbeat sense of humor, which he would later infuse into his writing. Finding kindergarten a “stupefyingly banal disappointment,” as a bio on his website reads, he turned to memorizing his comic books, learning the words by heart and dazzling the other neighborhood children with his dramatic retellings.

He honed that strange, sardonic edge throughout his life. In a post mourning Straub, Neil Gaiman recalled the time his fellow fantasy writer had once performed a Crow Pose in a Wisconsin men’s room, “because he was fearless and proud of his yoga.”

“One of the best writers I've read, one of the best friends I've known,” Gaiman added. “Always kind, funny, irascible, brilliant.”