Horror maestro Peter Straub on the changing face of publishing

Peter Straub is no stranger to the supernatural. He has written such unsettling novels as Ghost Story, Floating Dragon and Shadowland. He co-authored The Talisman and its sequel, Black House , with Stephen King. His horror fiction has earned such honours as the Bram Stoker Award, World Fantasy Award and the International Horror Guild Award. But to Straub, 73, the perversity of human nature provides the ripest material for truly disturbing stories. “What people are willing to do to one another is pretty awe-inspiring,” he says. “Human beings will justify almost any actions. They’ll bring it in line as moral or at least forgivable behaviour.” Straub’s latest collection, Interior Darkness: Selected Stories , reflects that astute outlook. Gathering works from Houses Without Doors, Magic Terror and 5 Stories , as well as three “uncollected” stories, Interior Darkness stares unflinchingly into the black hole of human depravity. Straub’s success indicates we continue to have a taste for such dark material.

SEE ALSO: Dean Koontz shows he is still the king of suspense

How did you go about choosing works for this anthology?

I had wanted ideally to do a book of collected stories. I knew it might be a pretty fat book. Then my agent informed me it would be two volumes, and there wasn’t a chance in hell I could get that published. So then I was obliged to consider “selected” stories, and that meant I did have to leave out any number of stories that I like a lot. It took a long time. I made many lists. Each list was the final one until I thought about it again. Part of the problem is that half of the shorter fiction I’ve written isn’t at all short.

What were your criteria for inclusion? Were you looking for certain themes?

Occasionally stories were a little frivolous, and I didn’t choose those; I wanted a kind of balance. Really one of the best things I’ve ever done is a story called “Bunny Is Good Bread” – which has some very graphic abuse of a small boy. When I used to read it in public my daughter would make this little “Oh no, he’s reading that again!” face. It’s not gratuitously nasty, but it is deeply nasty. I did have one story about child abuse I was eager to place in the book [“The Juniper Tree”], and I thought probably one of those was enough for a single volume of stories. There are two stories about torture, though.

You’ve seen the publishing industry change dramatically over the years. How do these changes affect you?

I’m in my early 70s – I do pretty much what I want to do. I have a comfortable life. What I do now daily at my desk is not going to pay for the tuition of my children in private school – they’re adults, they’re out on their own. I’m pretty sure I’m not going to be homeless – though the second I say that, I start to wonder. But there’s a worry level I’ve graduated from. I’m very fortunate … If I were younger I’d have to deal with the one dreadful fact that has taken place in American publishing, which is that advances have gone way down … Many a writer’s income just vanished. It’s harder to make a living. People could support themselves by writing a book a year, which is not easy – it’s hard work to write a book a year. I have a good friend in northern California, my age, who just discovered she has to write four books a year to support herself, and she was not living like a princess. It’s got stonier and colder and harder.