An Interview With the Legendary Peter Straub

Tonight, I have a very special interview for you. In fact, all you horror writers out there would probably be pool boys or number-crunchers if this man did not exist. I may never have been motivated to leave Milwaukee, and I probably would not be a writer today. This guy co-wrote my most favorite book of all time. That book: The Talisman. He has also written such masterpieces as Ghost Story, Shadowland, Floating Dragon, Koko, Mr. X, Lost Boy, Lost Girl, In the Night Room, and A Dark Matter. Our very special guest: grand master of horror MR. PETER STRAUB. Of course he thinks I’m a total whack-job now for asking these odd questions, but, you know, it’s all in fun. And how often do you have the ear of one of your all-time favorite authors, an all-time great? He is so gracious and such a kind person and a real inspiration. I really appreciate him taking time out of his insanely busy schedule to play along. Thanks, Peter!

PS:  Let’s see what I can do with your interesting questions:

1.) I know you’re a big jazz fan, but imagine for a moment that you were attending, say, some horror writers’ function and someone pulled out the old karaoke machine. Let’s say you were in just the right mood to get up and belt out a song — which song would you choose?

PS:  If I could choose any song I wanted? “The Way You Look Tonight,” probably. I like the way it moves, and I like its intervals. 

2.) Magicians:  fun-loving entertaining scamps or malicious lying rip-off artists?

PS:  Neither — they are hard-working entertainers.

3.) If your car blew a tire in a rural area and your cell phone wasn’t working (I forget to recharge mine all the time), would you know how to change the tire yourself?

PS:  What’s a tire? I haven’t driven a car in about 25 years. But… if I were in this situation, I would be seriously freaked.

4.) Do you now or have you ever owned a piece of clothing with the Milwaukee Brewers logo on it?

PS: Nope. I own no articles of clothing that refer to any athletic competitions or teams. I do have 2 jazz festival t-shirts, though. And one Down Beat t-shirt.

5.) What is your favorite brand of handkerchiefs and why?

PS:  I cannot answer that question. Handkerchieves appear in my drawer, but I don’t quite know how they get there. I can say that I like good-sized handkerchieves that aren’t white, from pastels to dark blues and greens.

6.) You lived in London for a time. Are you fluent in British-English and do you find yourself in situations where you have to translate that dialect for speakers of American-English? (For example: you have to tell your Wisconsin relatives that crisps are potato chips, or that if someone says you look smart they don’t mean you look like a nerd, or if someone calls you a wanker… You get the idea.)

PS:  I tend to use a lot of Britishisms, so I guess they must have sort of soaked into me during the decade I lived in Dublin and London. I’d never say I I was having a recce when I meant I was having a good look around, and I’d never say that someone was happy as a sandboy, but that’s the kind of thing I mean. A truck can be a lorry, the trunk can be the boot, a cracker can just as well be a biscuit.

7.) What ever possessed you to appear on a soap opera? Wouldn’t you rather be on Survivor or maybe Hell’s Kitchen?

PS:  Hell, no. I love my soap opera, ahem, as we say “daytime drama,” One Life to Live. I watched it every day for years, and after I had become friends with some of the principal players, i.e. Michael East and Robert S. Woods, it seemed completely natural to accept the invitation to play a few scenes with them. The only other thing I’d like to do on TV  is to be a judge on Law and Order.

8.) So, where is this Green Woman Taproom? (I think it’s a place in Milwaukee called the Safe House.)

PS:  The real-life counterpart of the old Green Woman is an Irish bar called The Harp, on the Milwaukee river in downtown Milwaukee. I remember re Safe House, I think, where you had to know the password to be allowed in.

9.) Bowling:  the real thing or the Wii version?

PS:  Bowling, get out of here. Bowling. I ask you. Please. I like bowling only when it is in The Big Lebowski. So the answer is: the real thing, at one remove. I can deal with fictional bowling.

10.) Do you have a lava lamp suite in your own home? How about secret tunnels behind the walls?

PS:  Oh, yes, you bet, I have both. If fact, if you push a discreet panel in my lava lamp suite, which we called the “Florida” or “Tiki” suite, you can slip into the great secret tunnel system, which leads into movie theaters, bank vaults, ice cream emporia, the apartments of certain favorite yum-yums, into the back rooms of bars, the back rooms of great houses on 5th Avenue and Gramercy Park, and into two or three hollow trees in Central Park. Boy, those tunnels are really useful, let me tell you. The lava lamps, actually they’re pretty ugly, you know what I mean, but you can’t beat them for camouflage.

Thanks again for your participation. You are truly an American treasure and your books will always be magical to me.

Visit Peter Straub any time at The Official Peter Straub Website

You can also find him on Twitter @peterstraubnyc