Ghost Story

Straub makes a case against the outsider in his novel. Each antagonist and victim places themselves outside their community. The fear of the Other is central to the narrative and plot development. Straub draws on cultural norms, transparency, economic status, and gender to create different in groups and outsiders.

The central protagonists, Sears, Ricky, John, and Lewis face Eva Galli as young men. They are their own in group where Eva is an outsider, an Italian actress whose wild ways terrify the young men. The idyllic Milburn cannot handle “loose” women. With the exception of Stella, who redeems herself, each of them dies. The town holds no place for them.

Nor does the town accept nor allow individuals with substance use disorder or those with little money. Milburn designates the underprivileged citizens to their own tiny community called the Hollow. The sheriff and Omar Norris are footnotes of death, not central figures. The Bate brothers, prior to their crossing over, live far out of their community, separated by fear and suspicion. All the outsiders are seen as less than or evil.

Straub’s case against the Other evolves as the Bate brothers become irredeemable. No matter how Sears struggles, the Fenny Bate cannot be saved. His sister, who remains virtuous, moves on. The author shows how the combination of community pressure and economic circumstances leads to an insurmountable stigma. The Bate brothers encapsulate the community outsiders who society relegates to the fringes. Only the societally accepted and moral can achieve salvation.

Though the shapeshifter can be anyone, it almost always chooses a woman. The various faces of the monster are all feminine. The author illustrates that society, especially 1970s society, fears the empowered woman and her ability to control those around her. The language used to describe these women’s hold over the men of the story is the language of magic. Straub describes the men as in a trance, enchanted, and obsessed. The women are all promiscuous and unbothered by convention. The only shape it chooses that is not a woman is a Black man. The shapeshifter sets itself apart, and Straub communicates how the time in which the novel was written viewed women and people of color as Other, while white, heterosexual men were posited as the center of society.

Straub holds up a mirror to society and shows them their deepest fears. The terror comes from the monsters, but the fear is rooted in those perceived as outsiders. The desire for sameness and predictability cannot be achieved. Ricky says that all change is change for the worse, but change is inevitable. Straub highlights the moralism of the time period as those depicted as outsiders are killed and the white male is upheld as the protector. The living female characters in the novel are all depicted as villainous: the shapeshifter serves to use its deceitfulness against the men; Stella is regularly unfaithful to Ricky; Milly is depicted as an inappropriate partner for John; and Peter’s mother is having an affair with Lewis. Linda, Lewis’s deceased wife, even returns in his hallucinations to remind him of his failures. Straub demonstrates how even those of the Chowder Society itself are unsafe, as John, Sears, and Lewis are killed by the shapeshifter’s luring voice. Sears is suggested to be gay—communicating the time’s building anti-gay bias—and drives himself into a snowplow. John, a doctor in a relationship deemed uncouth by others, is lured to jump off of a bridge. Lewis, described as the most attractive Chowder Society member, consistently pursues married women; he meets his end in the woods. Straub underlines the 1970s fears in which the story was published and communicates how these fears of women and sexual expression and orientation can lead to violence.