sensitive and cathartic in Straub’s hands. From his seminal 1979 novel, “Ghost Story”: “Nobody can protect anybody else from vileness. Or from pain. All you can do is not let it break you ...

It’s the kind of instant jolt into a different reality that only a vivid memory or a novel can provide. Writing the book, Straub said, gave her “a place to go that was safe and comfortable and ...