Ghost Story

Content Warning: This guide’s source text discusses abuse of prescription substances and alcohol, suicide, physical and sexual abuse of children, violence, and sexual assault. The source text relies on anti-Black stereotypes and contains some anti-Black epithets.

Straub uses weather throughout the novel as a symbol of the shapeshifter’s power. The weather takes on the role of an antagonist, driving the citizens of Milburn further into isolation and terror. The word snow appears hundreds of times in the text. Omar Norris runs the snowplow nonstop, leading to his death. The shapeshifter brings a sunny weather patch, lulling Milburn into a false sense of security. This lull leads directly to Lewis’s death.

The final journey of Ricky, Don, and Peter forces them through the blizzard to the Hollow. The shapeshifter uses the weather as a defense, trying to keep herself isolated from the threat of their attack. The weather embodies her other worldly power, supernatural and unconquerable. Straub uses the weather to express the isolation and unending attack caused by the shapeshifter.

Ghost Story employs the woods and natural imagery to represent the wildness and eerie quality of the protagonist’s central foe. The density of the woods surrounding Milburn further adds to its isolation.