Houses Without Doors [Paperback]

Peter Straub (Author)

Product Details

• Paperback: 454 pages
• Publisher: Grafton; 1st edition (1991)
• ISBN-10: 0586212027
• ISBN-13: 978-0586212028
• ASIN: B001KU3Y2U
• Product Dimensions: 7.8 x 5.1 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (13 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #4,509,488 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Evocative, But Never Pretentious, April 16, 2004

By 

C. T. Mikesell (near Dallas, Texas) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Houses without Doors (Signet) (Paperback)

This collection of short stories lifts its title from an Emily Dickinson poem ("Doom is the house without a door..."). There is a sense of doom pervading each of the stories, as the major characters are cursed by psychological maladies (psychosis, repression, obsession) or are forced to interact with powers beyond their (and our) comprehension. Some of the stories end with the characters clearly not escaping their doom (most notably in "The Buffalo Hunter"), while others leave it to the reader to guess at the outcome ("Mrs. God," "The Juniper Tree"). All of the stories, including the interludes, work overtime to produce a dark mood and an off-kilter worldview.

"The Buffalo Hunter" and "Mrs. God" were my favorites. The former presents a loner who gets lost in his own imagined relationships and later in the paperback novels he reads. I'm a fan of Raymond Chandler's work, so Straub's pastiche of "The Lady in the Lake" was particularly enjoyable. If I were more familiar with Anna Karenina I might have had a better appreciation for the ending of the short story, but as it was I sensed something bad coming and Straub didn't disappoint. "Mrs. God" felt a lot like Ghost Story to me; particularly nice was the way Henry James and other authors were woven into the piece. I had read "Blue Rose" when Penguin issued it as a stand-alone mini-book in the mid-90's; it's the "oogiest" of all the stories - even the second time through it still creeped me out and made me slightly nauseated.

I enjoyed these stories a great deal. Straub can be crueler and more terrifying than some of his contemporaries, even while his syntax and phraseology are more refined. If you're a fan of Straub's or the psychological/horror genres in general you'll likely enjoy this book. Beyond that, there aren't many to whom I'd recommend this collection of short fiction, unless it would be a student who wants to see how words can be used effectively to create mood and transport readers to worlds they'd not likely find on their own.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A House Can Be Without A Door, But Still Have A Window, December 1, 2002

By 

Tyler Runde "writerpwr" (Illinois) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Houses without Doors (Signet) (Paperback)

What I loved about this collection of stories was that in every one of them it showed the dark side of people who can at least be consisdered kind of normal. Peter Straub holds nothing back when it comes to his characters and it has always been a great rule of fiction to always tell the truth. Straub has told the truth here and may have dove too deep into it for some people's tastes.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Great collection of stories!!, April 13, 2002

By 

Patrick m Tinney (Louisville, KY USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Houses without doors

I was glad to see that Peter Straub released this short collection of his work. There are some dark & memorable stories here. Blue Rose and The Juniper Tree are the best of the lot. I enjoyed those especially since they tie in heavily to Koko and The Throat. I was sorry to see that The Ghost Village wasn't part of this collection, but, it did appear later in another of Peter's collections called Magic Terror. The last story in the book, Mrs. God is excellent. Since there is a longer, slightly different version of it, in limited release, I would recommend that instead. There are smaller interludes that divide each story and these interludes make up their own short story as well. All in all, anything by Peter Straub is a going to show what a true Master he is at his craft.