Like most horror fiction, Ghost Story deals with a struggle between good and evil; the audience's values as well as those of the surviving characters are reaffirmed as good ultimately triumphs over evil. Straub explores the nature of this struggle, however, far more deeply than formula fiction does. In Ghost Story, as in some of his other works, Straub deals with ghosts that have peculiarly symbiotic relationships with the other characters. In a particularly important scene, for example, Don Wanderley awakens to find Alma standing at the bedroom window.

When he asks her if anything is wrong, she replies, "I saw a ghost." In retrospect, Don thinks she may have said instead, "I am a ghost"; finally, and most frighteningly, he realizes that she actually said, "I am you." Which species of evil creatures Alma belongs to is not important throughout most of the novel &mdash...