In 2008 I'd just finished a wildly successful photo book called Armed America: Portraits of Gun Owners in Their Homes and was feeling mounting pressure to follow it up, fastly, with something equally as exciting. I'd recently met science fiction novelist Michael Swanwick at a party and had thought a book of photographs of writers in their writing spaces was a great idea for a photo book because it would let me travel and meet new people and, it was pretty much the same thing that I'd done with my last book and I felt that I'd gotten pretty good at photographing people in their houses. 

In the early months of 2009, Peter Straub was one of the first people that I approached  — author of Koko, Floating Dragon, Ghost Story and the Talisman with Stephen King, I figured I needed to start big. Peter was one of those people whose books endlessly occupied the cardboard dumps jutting out into airport terminals and bookstores. Everything he wrote just got handed to the New York Times bestseller list. He'd pretty much single handedly returned the horror genre from pulp back to gothic respectability, even with all those grisly murders. Peter had a really funny web page, which isn't there anymore, but you can find it on the Internet Archive, it was about the fake town of Millhaven, where much of the action takes place in Straub's novels. There were fake newspaper clippings and hidden links that appeared if you clicked in certain places, it was a beautiful maze that lead you on a non-linear journey through this fictional place, filled with gems of wit and pathos. It really was marvelous. And, this being the heady-middle days of the Internet, there was a "contact me" link. So I clicked it and filled with youth and success I explained that I wanted to photograph his writing space and sent some reviews of my current book. 

A couple of days later I got an email back from Peter saying he'd be delighted to have me come up and photograph his writing space. 

Peter had the most perfect house, five stories tall, along central park in Manhattan. Exactly the sort of place you'd think he'd have. Filled with books. He and his wife Susan invited me and my assistant Colin in with joy, as though they'd been waiting for us and we were friends. Peter lead us to his exquisite writers garret which was literally festooned with awards, Edgars mostly, and curious knickknacks, one of which was an autographed photo that Alice Cooper had sent him as a fan. He had various first editions of the various works of Henry James.

Peter's 5th floor writing space. You may clickenzee to embiggen.

And he told me that for years his writing regiment had been to get up incredibly early in the morning and write until just before noon at which point he would head downstairs, make a sandwich, pour a glass of bourbon, and watch One Life to Live. Over the years as a writer, working at home, he'd gotten obsessed with various soap operas because,  back in those pre-VHS days, you had to watch what was on TV, and during the day the only things on TV were daytime dramas meant to entertain housewives because why on earth would anybody else be home? Soap operas, Peter said, were great things for writers to  watch because "they're entirely plot!"

I overheard someone say once "Nobody writes a best selling novel with a $500 fountain pen", but they were wrong. Peter was obsessed with fountain pens and the Levenger's catalogue was his pornography.

A collection of awards. Edgars and World Fantasy mostly. I love this photo of him. Peter was charming and delightful and funny. And he also play-acted at being sinister because of what he wrote. He could't do it for very long though before a smile came though. Shelves You couldn't really tell what was a "to be read" pile and what was an "already read" pile. His house was a library and a cathedral to books. Details, everywhere it was a space to explore.

I photographed Peter's office, I phographed things in his office. We stayed long after the photographing was done.

Susan Straub runs a non-profit that convinces adults to read to children.

Susan packed up some cookies for Colin and I and when we left, hours later, I felt like we were friends. 

And, over the years, I found out that we were. 

And I'll miss him. 

More memories soon. 

Peter Francis Straub, March 2, 1943 — September 4, 2022