On September 4, some 23 days ago as I write this, Peter Straub died. He was a good friend for thirty years or more, and I felt the loss deeply, along with regret that we’d largely lost touch in recent years.

In the wake of his death, a Talkwalker email alert steered me to a website sporting brief extracts of a batch of critical essays Peter had written, one of them having to do with my own Matthew Scudder series. None of it rang any bell whatsoever. When had Peter written about Scudder? Where might his words have appeared?

It wasn’t hard to learn that what he’d written was “Hope to Die: An Appreciation of the Scudder Series,” and that it was included in Sides, a collection of Peter’s nonfiction published by an esteemed small press, Cemetery Dance. I ordered the book, but by the time it arrived the origin of the piece had already dawned on me.

In 1994, William Morrow had published Hope to Die, the fifteenth Matthew Scudder novel. Sometime after the book appeared, Michael Johnson of Scorpion Press, asked if he might publish a deluxe edition of 100 copies, and if I could suggest someone who might be persuaded to contribute an introduction. I agreed, as who would not, and suggested Peter Straub might be induced to say a few words.

And then I largely forgot about the whole enterprise. Months later I received my complimentary one or two copies of the book, but I don’t think I did anything with it but note its very attractive binding before finding a home for it on the appropriate shelf.

I never read Peter’s contribution. By the time I got the book, I may or may not have been mindful that he’d signed on to introduce it; if I was, I likely assumed it was the usual page or two of blather, telling the reader that he or she was in for a treat. I have, over the years, written many such introductions, and few if any are worth the time it would take you to read them.

So I never read it, and never said a word about it to Peter—who certainly never inquired.

When I realized all of this, I could have looked for that Scorpion Press edition. I’m pretty sure I know where it is. I decided to wait for Sides to arrive, and it did, and I saw at once that Peter’s introduction was neither brief nor perfunctory, that in fact it ran to 22 pages. I read a few pages, and that was enough to make it clear that this was far and away the most perceptive and insightful view of my work ever recorded.

And then I had to stop. Out of what, exactly? Guilt? Embarrassment? False modesty? I don’t know. I’ve always had a problem with being the center of favorable attention; fortunately it’s something that doesn’t arise very often.

I turned it over to my wife, who informed me after reading it that Peter’s words were indeed quite wonderful, and that I would really have to read them myself. And last night I did, and my initial impression was confirmed, and then some.

I feel conflicted about recommending Peter’s essay to you, but how can I not? I’ve read some of Sides’s other contents, and everything has been a pleasure to read, as Peter is after all a man who never wrote a graceless sentence; the remembrance of his mother is by itself worth the price of the book and more. (And that price is hardly exorbitant—$25 or so for the hardcover book, or a giveaway price of $2.99 for the Kindle ebook.)

I wish…well, never mind what I wish.

Cheers,

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