Houses Without Doors

Beneath the surface of the everyday world, behind walls of houses without doors, there lies a realm of mystery that we know exists, but which we can only reach through imagination or, sometimes, trauma and violence. The writing of Peter Straub entices the reader into this world of hidden connections and secret music. The stories in Houses Without Doors are visited by violent death, flavors of the supernatural and visions of other lives. As with Straub's last two novels-Koko and Mystery-connections between the stories, now open, now hidden, link characters, places and themes. The protagonist of "Blue Rose" will be known to those who read Koko, as will the place of nightmares and dreams described in "A Short Guide to the City." Shocking awareness and chilling horror are to be found both in the account of childhood evil that is "Blue Rose" and the delusional-or illusional-obsessions of "The Buffalo Hunter." What happens to the little boy in "The Juniper Tree" might well make him grow up into the weird hero of "The Buffalo Hunter." On the surface, Houses Without Doors comprises six stories and seven briefer pieces of writing, but these are thirteen entrances into Peter Straub's secret and mysterious world of imagination, and together they form a series of artistic seductions that leave the reader vulnerable to the shattering insights of a powerful writer. As the hero of "Mrs. God" is to discover, there may be many ways into this world, but finding a way out may not be an easy matter at all. With spectacular collection, Peter Straub has set himself a new challenge, and he has mastered it with an extraordinary inventiveness that proves exactly why each book he writes is recieved with anticipation and excitement. Copyright 1990 by Seafront Corporation. Published by the Penguin Group.