The Juniper Tree and Other Blue Rose Stories, by Peter Straub

I picked up the miniature paperback version of the Peter Straub story Blue Rose for 50 cents almost 20 years ago, while spinning through a display of cheap and tiny books by a cash register. It was an impulse purchase - I had no idea who Peter Straub was or what the book was
about, I just had a dollar in my pocket, and figured I could certainly use ONE more book.

While scouring my basement recently for Halloween decorations, I found this little book, and before I knew it, hours had gone by and I was still sitting on the basement floor, reading. No matter how many times I read it, it still delivers chills, and once I start it, I can't put it down.

Peter Straub's Blue Rose trilogy (Koko, Mystery, and The Throat) is one of the landmark accomplishments of modern popular fiction. Ranging from the Caribbean to Vietnam to the American Midwest and spanning decades of tumultuous history, these books are both unforgettable
narratives and indelible portraits of people in extremis, struggling to survive in a world marked by grief, loss, pain, trauma, and homicidal madness.

The four stories gathered here are offshoots of that larger fictional universe. Each one stands entirely on its own. Together, they shine a revelatory light on the mysteries and hidden corners of the novels that inspired them.

Blue Rose recounts a defining moment in the childhood of
Harry Beevers, when ten-year-old Harry discovers his capacity for violence and brutality.

The Juniper Tree describes, with almost unbearable clarity, a lonely young boys encounter with adult betrayal, and with the darker aspects of human sexuality.

The Ghost Village takes us to the phantasmagoric landscape of Vietnam, where the barriers between the
living and the dead begin to dissolve, to mesmerizing effect. Bunny is Good Bread is arguably Straub's single most harrowing story. With relentless attention to detail, it anatomizes the creation of a human monster through abuse, cruelty, and neglect.

These disturbing, beautifully written stories have a moral weight and emotional resonance that only the finest fiction achieves. They are the clear product of a master storyteller at the very top of his game. No one who reads them is likely to forget them, or come away unchanged. You can read all or only one, but you should read Blue Rose first, and The Throat, last.

All Available in the Fiction section @ PML - under  FIC STRAUB