Ghost Story Summary: Peter Straub’s Snowbound Horror Classic

Last Updated: September 22, 2026

Table of Contents

Ghost Story by Peter Straub: A Town Buried in Snow and Secrets

In the fictional upstate town of Milburn, New York, four elderly friends dress in tuxedos and trade ghost stories to keep their minds off a death they cannot explain.

Their ritual works until the stories start coming true.

Peter Straub’s Ghost Story builds its horror out of an unseasonable blizzard, a fifty-year-old secret, and an ancient predator that wears whatever face it needs.

The novel moves between present-day Milburn and flashbacks to 1929, Berkeley in the 1970s, and Amsterdam, tying several lives to a single buried event.

TL;DR: The Short Version

Four prominent elderly men in Milburn, New York, meet as the “Chowder Society” to tell ghost stories after the mysterious death of their fifth member.

Their nightmares trace back to a 1929 drowning they helped cause, and to Eva Galli, a woman they believed they killed.

Who fights back: Novelist Don Wanderley, lawyer Ricky Hawthorne, and teenager Peter Barnes.
What they face: A shape-shifting Manitou that appears as Eva Galli, Alma Mobley, Ann-Veronica Moore, and Anna Mostyn, aided by two undead brothers.
Key themes: Guilt carried across generations, storytelling as both shield and trigger, aging versus unnatural immortality, and evil that changes form rather than disappearing.
Tone: Slow-burn, atmospheric, and claustrophobic, with the blizzard sealing the town off from help.

Book Snapshot

Genre & Subgenre: Horror / Gothic Horror, Supernatural Fiction, Small-Town Horror
Core Narrative Tropes: Buried sin and unspoken guilt, shape-shifting monster, small town under siege, narrative within a narrative, unreliable memory
Tone & Atmosphere: Atmospheric, lyrical, eerie, melancholic, dread-infused
Primary Conflict: The surviving Chowder Society members, Don Wanderley, and Peter Barnes against the ancient Manitou entity and her undead ghoul minions
Pacing Style: Slow-burn, non-linear, multi-layered mystery
ISBN: 978-1101989197 (Berkley reissue, 2016)
Pages: 544
Book Structure: 10 parts — a prologue, three numbered parts divided into sections, and an epilogue

Ghost Story Summary: What Happens in the Novel

Spoiler warning: this section covers the full plot, including the ending.

The novel opens with a man calling himself Lamar Burgess driving south with a passive young girl named Angie Maule.

He is really the novelist Don Wanderley, and he is haunted by his brother David’s death and by a woman named Alma Mobley. When he asks the girl what she is, she answers, “I am you.”

The story then moves to Milburn, New York, where four elderly citizens meet in tuxedos as the Chowder Society. They are lawyers Sears James and Ricky Hawthorne, physician Dr. John Jaffrey, and wealthy widower Lewis Benedikt.

A year earlier, their fifth member, Edward Wanderley, died at a party thrown for a visiting actress named Ann-Veronica Moore. To cope with grief and recurring nightmares, the men tell each other ghost stories.

Dr. Jaffrey proposes contacting Edward’s nephew, Don Wanderley, the author of a novel about a supernatural entity.

Ricky objects because it means revisiting the memory of Eva Galli, a woman who arrived in Milburn in 1929. Sears casts the deciding vote to invite Don.

Strange events begin. Farmer Elmer Scales finds his sheep slaughtered in unmarked snow and reports a towering figure with glowing eyes. Sears is confronted on his staircase by the apparition of Fenny Bate, a dead boy from his teaching past.

Dr. Jaffrey is tormented by visions of a bloody dead girl and wanders into the cold in his slippers, falling to his death from a bridge. Soon after, a young woman calling herself Anna Mostyn arrives in town, claims to be Eva Galli’s niece, and is hired at Hawthorne & James.

Don arrives for Dr. Jaffrey’s funeral and joins the remaining society members. Through journal entries, he recounts his time teaching at Berkeley and his relationship with Alma Mobley, an ethereal woman who claimed contact with the dead.

After Don ended the relationship, Alma met his brother David, a successful lawyer. David later fell to his death from a hotel window in Amsterdam. Don wrote The Nightwatcher to process the trauma and concluded that Alma had no verifiable past at all.

As a blizzard traps Milburn, the attacks escalate. Teenagers Jim Hardie and Peter Barnes spy on Anna Mostyn and follow her and insurance salesman Freddy Robinson to an abandoned train station, where Freddy dies of fright.

Jim pressures Peter into breaking into Anna Mostyn’s new house. Inside they meet Gregory Bate, a shaven-headed, werewolf-like ghoul with blank golden eyes, along with his dead brother Fenny.

Gregory murders Jim, but Peter escapes through a window. Gregory later breaks into Lewis Benedikt’s house and kills Peter’s mother, Christina Barnes, while forcing Peter to watch. Lewis Benedikt is lured outside and killed.

Gathered at Edward Wanderley’s old house, Sears and Ricky finally confess the events of 1929. All five young men had been infatuated with Eva Galli, who was engaged to farmer Stringer Dedham.

Stringer died in a threshing machine accident after discovering Eva’s true nature. Eva then visited Edward’s apartment and tried to seduce young Lewis. In the struggle that followed, she struck her head on the fireplace and appeared to die.

Panicked about their reputations, the five men put her body in a car and pushed it into a deep pond. As the car sank, they saw Eva open her eyes and smile at them through the glass.

Don combines these revelations with folklore texts and his uncle’s audio tapes. He identifies the entity as an ancient, shape-shifting Manitou or “nightwatcher” that takes female guises and uses undead thralls.

Sears James dies when his car crashes while he is pursued and ambushed by the Bate brothers. Sheriff Walt Hardesty collapses into alcoholism as corpses accumulate in his jail cells.

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Ricky Hawthorne, Don Wanderley, and Peter Barnes form a final alliance. Realizing the Bate brothers operate from the Rialto movie theater, they enter armed with an axe and a Bowie knife.

On the stage, Gregory and Fenny attack with hypnotic mind control and illusions. Don decapitates Gregory with the axe, and Peter hacks both brothers apart. Meanwhile, Stella Hawthorne drives a pearl hatpin through the temple of a possessed attacker.

The three then track Anna Mostyn to Edward Wanderley’s condemned apartment in the Hollow. Inside, the entity floods them with visions designed to convince them their reality is only a dream or a story.

Peter sees through the illusions and shatters a mystical mirror with his heel. Anna Mostyn’s human form collapses, shrivels into a lynx and then a sparrow, and vanishes, while the old Galli house explodes and burns across town.

The epilogue finds Milburn recovering as spring arrives. Ricky survives pneumonia and plans a trip to Europe with Stella, leaving Peter in Don’s care as Peter prepares for college.

Knowing the core entity is not fully destroyed, Don travels to Panama City, Florida.

He traps its larval incarnation, an insect-like chrysalis, inside a car submerged in the Gulf of Mexico and stabs it to death, ending the nightmare.

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Summary by Chapter

Spoiler warning: the following section outlines each part of the book.

The novel is divided into 10 major parts and sections.

This section offers a brief summary of each part for readers who want to see how the book is structured.

Prologue: Driving South — A man using the name Lamar Burgess drives south with a quiet girl named Angie Maule, fighting the urge to kill her. He is really the novelist Don Wanderley, haunted by his brother David’s death and by Alma Mobley. When he asks the girl what she is, she replies, “I am you.”

Part One, Section I: The Chowder Society — The October Stories — Four elderly Milburn men in tuxedos meet to tell ghost stories a year after the death of their fifth member, Edward Wanderley. Dr. Jaffrey proposes contacting Edward’s nephew Don, and Sears agrees despite Ricky’s objections. Sears sees the ghost of Fenny Bate, Elmer Scales finds his sheep slaughtered, and Dr. Jaffrey falls to his death from a bridge.

Part One, Section II: Jaffrey’s Party — A flashback to the party a year earlier, where Edward Wanderley introduced the actress Ann-Veronica Moore to Milburn. Dr. Jaffrey became enchanted by the girl and invited the town. Edward collapsed and died upstairs after seeing something horrifying, and the actress disappeared without a trace.

Part Two, Section I: Just Another Field, but What They Planted There — Don Wanderley arrives in Milburn on the day of Dr. Jaffrey’s funeral and meets the surviving society members. Anna Mostyn arrives by bus claiming to be Eva Galli’s niece and is hired as a secretary. Don explains he came to outline a novel about a showman called “Dr. Rabbitfoot.”

Part Two, Section II: Alma — Don’s journal entries recount his time teaching at Berkeley and his relationship with Alma Mobley, a graduate student who claimed to speak with the dead. After Don ended things, Alma met his brother David, who later fell to his death in Amsterdam. Don discovered that Alma had no verifiable past.

Part Two, Section III: The Town — Horror spreads through Milburn during relentless snowfall. Freddy Robinson dies of fright at an abandoned train station, Rea Dedham is murdered in her stable, and Gregory Bate kills Jim Hardie inside Anna Mostyn’s house while Peter Barnes escapes. Peter later faints at a party upon meeting Anna Mostyn.

Part Three, Section I: Eva Galli and the Manitou — Peter witnesses Gregory and Fenny Bate murder his mother, Christina Barnes, at Lewis Benedikt’s house, and learns they serve an ancient “nightwatcher” or Manitou. Don gathers Sears and Ricky, who confess they killed Eva Galli in 1929 and sank her body in a pond, only to see her open her eyes underwater.

Part Three, Section II: The Town Besieged — A blizzard buries Milburn, cutting off power and roads. Sears finds drained corpses hidden in Anna Mostyn’s basement, Elmer Scales kills his family and himself, and Sheriff Hardesty resigns in a drunken breakdown. Sears dies when his car is ambushed by the Bate brothers.

Part Three, Section III: The Last of the Chowder Society — Don, Ricky, and Peter enter the Rialto theater and destroy Gregory and Fenny Bate on stage. Stella Hawthorne survives an attack by stabbing a possessed man with a hatpin. The three then confront Anna Mostyn in Edward’s old apartment, where Peter shatters a mirror and breaks the entity’s spell.

Epilogue: Moth in a Killing Jar — Milburn recovers as spring arrives, though many are dead. Ricky prepares to travel to Europe with Stella and leaves Peter in Don’s care. Don travels to Panama City, Florida, where he traps and destroys the entity’s larval incarnation in a submerged car.

Characters in This Book

Character	Role
Sears James	Senior partner at Hawthorne & James and leader of the Chowder Society, killed when his car is ambushed by the Bate brothers.
Frederick “Ricky” Hawthorne	Sears’s law partner and husband to Stella, who survives the ordeal and helps defeat the entity.
Dr. John Jaffrey	The Chowder Society’s physician, who falls to his death from a bridge early in the story.
Lewis Benedikt	Wealthy widower and the youngest society member, murdered in his home by the supernatural entity.
Edward Wanderley	The fifth original society member and Don’s uncle, whose death a year earlier sets the story in motion.
Donald “Don” Wanderley	Edward’s nephew and author of The Nightwatcher, who leads the fight against the shapeshifter.
Eva Galli / Alma Mobley / Ann-Veronica Moore / Anna Mostyn	The primary antagonist, an ancient shape-shifting Manitou entity that feeds on human life.
Gregory Bate	An undead, werewolf-like ghoul who serves as the entity’s physical enforcer.
Fenny Bate	Gregory’s dead brother, who assists in terrorizing the town and holding victims still.
Peter Barnes	An eighteen-year-old Milburn high school senior who joins Don and Ricky against the Bates.
Stella Hawthorne	Ricky’s wife, who survives a minion’s attack by stabbing him with a hatpin.
Christina Barnes	Peter’s mother, murdered at Lewis Benedikt’s home by Gregory Bate.
Walter Barnes	Milburn banker and Peter’s father, who descends into alcoholism after his wife’s murder.
Milly Sheehan	Dr. Jaffrey’s housekeeper and secret lover.
Jim Hardie	A Milburn teenager and friend of Peter Barnes, murdered by Gregory Bate.
Freddy Robinson	An insurance salesman lured to the old train station and scared to death by Anna Mostyn.
Elmer Scales	A local farmer whose livestock and children are slaughtered, leading him to kill his family and himself.
Walt Hardesty	Milburn’s sheriff, who resigns in a drunken stupor during the crisis.
Stringer Dedham	A 1929 farmer engaged to Eva Galli, killed in a threshing machine accident.
Rea & Nettie Dedham	Stringer’s elderly sisters; Rea is murdered in her barn while Nettie attempts to warn investigators.
David Wanderley	Don’s brother, seduced by Alma Mobley and manipulated into falling to his death in Amsterdam.
Clark Mulligan	Owner of the Rialto movie theater, murdered by the Bates in his lobby.
Otto Gruebe	A German cheesemaker in Afton and friend of Lewis Benedikt.

Books Like Ghost Story

‘Salem’s Lot by Stephen King — A small East Coast town is gradually overtaken by an ancient predatory evil that infiltrates families and corrupts the community piece by piece.

The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson — A gothic horror novel built on psychological dread, lingering secrets, and a haunted space that preys on human vulnerability.

Harvest Home by Thomas Tryon — A small-town horror novel about ancient rituals, buried secrets, and the cost paid by outsiders who uncover a community’s hidden history.

Something Wicked This Way Comes by Ray Bradbury — An itinerant showman brings shape-shifting nightmare forces into a small town, echoing the “Dr. Rabbitfoot” motif in Straub’s novel.

Black House by Stephen King and Peter Straub — Co-written by Straub, this novel shares its small-town setting, ancient evil, multi-generational guilt, and a group of survivors who unite against it.

Peter Straub: A Career in Dark Fiction

Peter Straub was an American novelist best known for literary supernatural horror, a style that blends psychological realism with gothic and folkloric elements.

He published Ghost Story in 1979, and the book became one of his most widely read works.

Straub collaborated with Stephen King on The Talisman and its sequel Black House, and his other novels include Julia, Shadowland, and Koko. He died in 2022.

Who Should Read Ghost Story?

Ghost Story suits readers who prefer slow-building dread over constant action.

The novel spends long stretches on character history, small-town routine, and atmosphere before the horror fully surfaces.

It will appeal to readers interested in gothic and supernatural horror, small-town settings under siege, and stories told through multiple timelines.

Those who enjoy non-linear plotting, journal entries, and folklore-based monsters will find familiar ground here.

Readers looking for a fast-paced thriller or a straightforward monster story may find the pacing deliberate, since the narrative moves between 1929, 1950s and 1970s California, Amsterdam, and the present-day blizzard.