Yesterday news broke that author Peter Straub had passed away at the age of seventy-nine. While an author of "literary novels of terror, mystery and the supernatural" doesn't seem like a likely candidate to be mourned at PennSound, Straub had an author page since close to our site's launch. Charles Bernstein marked his friend's passing, noting "'"The world is half-night,' Peter Straub once wrote, but it seems all night now. ... The world I've known is less. His work lives on, but it's not enough and still more than enough."
On Straub's author page, you'll find two interviews with Bernstein that took place nearly a decade apart. The earlier of the two, from Bernstein's LINEbreak radio program, was recorded in 1995. On that show, Straub discussed "horror as a literary genre and its relationship to the Vietnam War" and "his early aspirations to poetry" as well as reading from his novel Koko and excerpts from the short stories "Hunger" and "Mr. Club and Mr. Cuff." Then, in 2004, Straub was Bernstein's guest at the Kelly Writers House, with the resultant reading and conversation being broadcast as part of the Close Listening radio series. In that February 24th session, Straub read the story "Lapland or Film Noir" and excerpts from Koko, then took questions from Bernstein as well as his students. The photo above was taken during that visit.
You can listen to both of those recordings and read a Daily Pennsylvanian article on Straub's visit by clicking here.
