If No One Knows You, Then You

Fiction Is Fun Because You Get To Steal An Identity And Try To Make It Authentic.

I'd Read An Enormous Amount But Had Spent So Much Time In My Own Head That I Didn't Have Extensive Social Skills. Suddenly I Was In This World Where I Was Surrounded By These Incredibly Polished And Wealthy Kids Who Had Gone To Prep Schools, And I Felt Daunted By Them. I Don't Think People Were Aware Of How Full Of Anxiety I Was... For A Long Time I Felt Like I Was Living In A Place Where I Shouldn't Have Been.

I've Been Reading Peter Straub Since I Was A Teenager, And His Work Is Hardwired Into My Brain. A Dark Matter Contains Echoes Of All That Has Been Great About Straub's Previous Work And Builds Upon It. This Rashomon-like Tale Is As Spooky And Frightening As Anything He Has Written, But It's Also An Intense And Moving Celebration Of Love. Out Of The Darkness Comes, Ultimately, A Surprising And Haunting Sense Of Joy.

There Are So Many People We Could Become, And We Leave Such A Trail Of Bodies Through Our Teens And Twenties That It's Hard To Tell Which One Is Us. How Many Versions Do We Abandon Over The Years?

Even When Our Death Is Imminent, We Carry The Image Of Ourselves Moving Forward, Alive, Into The Future.