Peter Straub - Mr. X  

AN IRRESISTIBLE TALE with surprising twists right up to the last sentence Peter Straub is a master at keeping secrets. He lures his reader into a complex plot, replete with dark undercurrents [and] sinister ghostly figures.

St. Louis Post-Dispatch

Mr. X marks Straubs triumphant return to the tale of the paranormal and the supernatural. The plot is challenging, the characters are intriguing in their complexity, and the language is a delight.

S TEPHEN K ING

Theres no shortage of memorable players in [Straubs] latest effort, Mr. X. A classic doppelgnger tale with supernatural elements, passages of H. P. Lovecraft parody, and an unexpected stable of wickedly droll oddball characters.

Entertainment Weekly

A Main Selection of the
Book-of-the-Month Club

PETER STRAUB IS A
NATIONAL TREASURE.

L AWRENCE B LOCK

A continually surprising narrative [Straub] caps it off with a wonderfully devious final sentence that makes you question everything youve just read and almost makes you want to go back and start from the beginning.

The Miami Herald

I loved this book. Mr. X is a fun romp through the roots of supernatural horror.

Rocky Mountain News

PETER STRAUB IS A FINE STORYTELLER.

The Washington Post

One of the most invigorating horror reads of the year Straub has specialized in macabre mysteries dense with the details of small-town life and cast with ordinary people who find that the extraordinary crimes they investigate raise doubts about their own moral integrity. In this bravura new outing, he returns to his horror roots, lacing an ingenious whodunit with an intoxicating shot of the supernatural. Discerning readers will recognize this surprise-filled tale of tortuous family relationships as a modern variation on Lovecrafts classic shocker The Dunwich Horror. But Straub turns his pulp model inside out, transforming its vast cosmic mystery into an ingrown odyssey of self-discovery and a probing study of human nature.

Publishers Weekly (starred review)

[An] impressive new novel As crafty as it is well-crafted, Mr. X soars.

LOCUS

Compelling Straub is worthy of his reputation as a master of horror.

Library Journal

CONTENTS

1

Stupid meI fell right into the old pattern and spent a week pretending I was a moving target. All along, a part of me knew that I was hitching toward southern Illinois because my mother was passing. When your mothers checking out, you get yourself back home.

She had been living in East Cicero with two elderly brothers above their club, the Panorama. On weekends she sang two nightly sets with the house trio. She was doing what she had always done, living without worrying about consequences, which tends to make the consequences come harder and faster than they do for other people. When she could no longer ignore her sense of fatality, my mother kissed the old brothers goodbye and went back to the only place Id be able to find her.

Star had been eighteen when I was born, a generous, large-souled girl with no more notion of a settled life than a one-eyed cat, and after I turned four I bounced back and forth between Edgerton and a parade of foster homes. My mother was one of those people who are artists without a specific art. She apprenticed herself sequentially and many times over to painting, writing, pottery, and other crafts as well as to the men she thought embodied these skills. She cared least about the one thing she was best at, so when she stood up and sang she communicated a laid-back, good-humored ease her audiences found charming. Until the last few years of her life she had a soft, melting prettiness that was girlish and knowing, feline and earthy, all at once.

I lived with six different couples in four different towns, but it wasnt as bad as it sounds. The best of my six couples, Phil and Laura Grant, the Ozzie and Harriet of Naperville, Illinois, were almost saintly in their straightforward goodness. One other couple would have given them a run for their money if they hadnt taken in so many kids they wore themselves out, and two others were nice enough, in a this-is-our-house-and-these-are-the-rules way.

Before I went to Naperville, now and then I did go back to Cherry Street, where the Dunstans lived in their various old houses. Aunt Nettie and Uncle Clark took me in as though I were an extra piece of luggage Star had brought along. For a month, maybe six weeks, I shared a room with my mother, holding my breath and waiting for the next earthquake. After I moved in with the Grants, this pattern changed, and Star visited me in Naperville. She and I had come to an agreement: one of those deep agreements people dont need words to strike.

The core of our agreement, around which everything else wrapped itself, was that my mother loved me and I loved her. But no matter how much she loved me, Star didnt have it in her to stay in one place longer than a year or two. She was my mother, but she couldnt be a mother. Which meant that she couldnt help me deal with the besetting problem that frightened, distressed, or angered the foster parents I had before the Grants. The Grants accompanied me on a procession through doctors offices, radiology departments, blood tests, urine tests, brain tests, I cant even remember them all.