Publication
Ballantine Books (2004), Edition: Reprint, 368 pages
Original publication date
2003
Collections
Genres
Subjects
Awards
Bram Stoker Award (Nominee — Novel — 2003)
British Fantasy Award (Nominee — August Derleth Fantasy Award — 2004)
International Horror Guild Award (Winner — Novel — 2003)
Locus Recommended Reading (2003)
Description
A woman commits suicide for no apparent reason. A week later, her son- fifteen-year-old Mark Underhill-vanishes. His uncle, novelist Timothy Underhill, searches his hometown of Millhaven for clues that might help unravel this horrible dual mystery. He soon learns that a pedophilic murderer is on the loose in the vicinity, and that shortly before his mother's suicide, Mark had become obsessed with an abandoned house where he imagined the killer might have taken refuge. No mere empty building, the house whispers from attic to basement with the echoes of a long-hidden true-life horror story, and Tim Underhill comes to fear that in investigating its unspeakable history, Mark stumbled across its last and greatest secret: a ghostly lost girl who may have coaxed the needy, suggestible boy into her mysterious domain.… (more)
User reviews
LibraryThing member ladyofunicorns
I was very disappointed in this book. Usually Straub's writing is not like this. It was mediocre. I like some of his other books so that is why I picked this one up. It wasn't that scary. Not much of it to like. Definitely not going to keep.
LibraryThing member bcquinnsmom
First off I will tell you that this is definitely a chiller. It is also a novel that you will not want to put down. Second...if you're looking for an ordinary horror story, you're not going to get it here. It is a mystery with added components: ghosts, haunted houses, parallel universes. Not your
A great device used by the author in this story is the foreshadowing...certain things that Straub tells us through the voice of the main character here, writer Tim Underhill who is a recurring character in a few of Straub's books. First off, when the story begins Tim has agreed to collaborate on the writing of a libretto for a chamber opera based on Dr. Herman Mudgett, also known as HH Holmes (recently profiled in Larsen's The Devil in the White City), the notorious serial killer. Without giving away any of the surprises in lost boy lost girl, Underhill's nephew disappears and is assumed dead by the hands of a pedophile-killer who preys on young boys. Granted, Holmes/Mudgett's victims were women, but both sets of crimes involved a house...which eventually yielded up their clues to the grisly killings. Second, Underhill notices a strange slogan which he takes for an ad "lost boy lost girl" on a New York sidewalk which he cannot find later when he goes back to look for it. Third, while visiting his brother at the time of his sister-in-law's funeral, Underhill looks out his hotel window and watches as a strange black car run down a man on the street, an obvious murder. However, while he's wondering if anyone else noticed it or is going to do something about it, a group of people who turn out to be a movie crew descend on the spot of the "accident." Therefore, we have a warning that things may not be what they seem. There are other items that a careful reading will bring out, but I've already given away too much. Okay. So forewarned is forearmed.
As the story opens Tim Underhill's sister-in-law has died, a victim of suicide. Tim goes to his hometown of Millhaven to attend the funeral with his brother and nephew, Mark. A few days later after Tim has returned to New York, he gets a call from his brother wondering if Mark is there with Tim. Tim goes back to Millhaven to help his brother try to find the answer to what happened to Mark.
Told NOT in chronological order (this may confuse some readers but believe me, it's better this way) and through the use of alternating voices, the story that unfolds is creepy and keeps you turning pages. My advice to the reader: you don't need to believe. Just have fun with a very well-written novel. I do believe this may be the best Straub has yet offered.
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average horror novel and if that's what you're looking for do not read this book. You'll be disappointed.A great device used by the author in this story is the foreshadowing...certain things that Straub tells us through the voice of the main character here, writer Tim Underhill who is a recurring character in a few of Straub's books. First off, when the story begins Tim has agreed to collaborate on the writing of a libretto for a chamber opera based on Dr. Herman Mudgett, also known as HH Holmes (recently profiled in Larsen's The Devil in the White City), the notorious serial killer. Without giving away any of the surprises in lost boy lost girl, Underhill's nephew disappears and is assumed dead by the hands of a pedophile-killer who preys on young boys. Granted, Holmes/Mudgett's victims were women, but both sets of crimes involved a house...which eventually yielded up their clues to the grisly killings. Second, Underhill notices a strange slogan which he takes for an ad "lost boy lost girl" on a New York sidewalk which he cannot find later when he goes back to look for it. Third, while visiting his brother at the time of his sister-in-law's funeral, Underhill looks out his hotel window and watches as a strange black car run down a man on the street, an obvious murder. However, while he's wondering if anyone else noticed it or is going to do something about it, a group of people who turn out to be a movie crew descend on the spot of the "accident." Therefore, we have a warning that things may not be what they seem. There are other items that a careful reading will bring out, but I've already given away too much. Okay. So forewarned is forearmed.
As the story opens Tim Underhill's sister-in-law has died, a victim of suicide. Tim goes to his hometown of Millhaven to attend the funeral with his brother and nephew, Mark. A few days later after Tim has returned to New York, he gets a call from his brother wondering if Mark is there with Tim. Tim goes back to Millhaven to help his brother try to find the answer to what happened to Mark.
Told NOT in chronological order (this may confuse some readers but believe me, it's better this way) and through the use of alternating voices, the story that unfolds is creepy and keeps you turning pages. My advice to the reader: you don't need to believe. Just have fun with a very well-written novel. I do believe this may be the best Straub has yet offered.
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LibraryThing member davidabrams
Peter Straub can scare readers with just a whisper. Other horror writers might give us books which scream blood, gore and guts, but Straub (Ghost Story, Koko, The Throat) puts ice in our veins with a soft, barely-audible "boo!"
To badly paraphrase Carl Sandburg, Straub creeps up on little cat's
In lost boy lost girl, novelist Tim Underhill (who also appears in Koko and The Throat) returns to his hometown of Millhaven, Illinois when his sister-in-law commits suicide. The death is shocking, especially to Tim's brother Philip and nephew Mark. It was "a death like a slap in the face," the book's first sentence informs us. The family's grief is only made worse when Mark mysteriously disappears a week later.
Based in part on a couple of cryptic e-mails Mark had sent him, Tim starts to think there's something more to his nephew's disappearance than the police department's suspicion that it's the work of the local Sherman Park Killer who has been snatching local teenage boys off the street. Tim returns to Millhaven and begins to investigate the string of deaths and as he gets closer to the truth, he discovers it most likely can be found in the creepy house which has sat abandoned in Mark's neighborhood for years.
As we'd expect from the man who gave us the ultimate Ghost Story, lost boy lost girl eventually turns into another haunted-house masterpiece. The residence at 3323 North Michigan Street becomes a living, breathing, pulsating character in its own right, complete with hidden staircases, sliding panels and poltergeists that move objects from room to room.
Straub is an elegant writer—on the opposite end of the horror spectrum from his chum Stephen King, the Royal Scribe of Sticky Gore. From Julia onward, Straub has penned his stories in a tradition established by people like Hawthorne, James and Saki. Like his literary ancestors, he knows how to scare readers psychologically, rather than with an amplified, Hollywood-ized barrage of "gotcha!" cheap thrills. The result is complex writing which is placid on its surface, but underneath teems with the squirming nasties of the id.
Like the dust-moted rooms of the house, Straub's writing is quiet and intense, choosing not to blare off the page in show-offy fashion (starting with the unobtrusive, e.e. cummings-like title). Instead, we take our horror in small doses, unexpected scenes which can prickle the neck-hairs with a single, well-placed word.
For instance, while out skateboarding one day, Mark comes across a dark, hulking figure we assume is the Sherman Park Killer and the sight fills him (and us) with icy dread:
A thick-bodied man facing the other direction stood silhouetted against the dead sky at the top of Michigan Street….The sense of wrongness flowed from this man, Mark understood—this figure with his back turned. Mark took in the unkempt black hair curling past his collar, his wide back covered by a black coat that fell like a sheet of iron to the backs of his knees. Willful, powerful wrongness came off of him like steam.
You could spend hours deconstructing a paragraph like that to determine how Straub does it, how he goes about the business of icy cat's paws with words like "unkempt," "curling," and "steam."
There are plenty of other instances where the author works his black magic on the reader: for instance, a ghost's footsteps "chimed like brush strokes." As Mark sits in the not-empty-after-all house, those whispery footfalls were like "hearing someone stepping down a passage within his own head."
And, earlier, when Mark and his friend Jimbo first entered the house, he'd looked for footprints in the thick dust carpeting the floors. "He saw only tracings, loops and swirls like writing in an unknown alphabet inscribed with the lightest possible pressure of a quill pen." Straub excels at writing subtly wicked sentences like that which collapse our lungs and tighten our throats. What ethereal being, we wonder, could have made those loops and swirls and—most importantly—are they good or evil?
Both good and evil inhabit the rooms of Straub's haunted house in lost boy lost girl, and it's that conjunction of forces which gives the novel its air of melancholy and, ultimately, majesty.
To badly paraphrase Carl Sandburg, Straub creeps up on little cat's
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feet and puts his icy paws on the back of our neck when we least expect it. In his latest novel, lost boy lost girl, he saturates his typically literate prose with an ominous buzz that crescendos right up until the last nerve-shattering sentence. In lost boy lost girl, novelist Tim Underhill (who also appears in Koko and The Throat) returns to his hometown of Millhaven, Illinois when his sister-in-law commits suicide. The death is shocking, especially to Tim's brother Philip and nephew Mark. It was "a death like a slap in the face," the book's first sentence informs us. The family's grief is only made worse when Mark mysteriously disappears a week later.
Based in part on a couple of cryptic e-mails Mark had sent him, Tim starts to think there's something more to his nephew's disappearance than the police department's suspicion that it's the work of the local Sherman Park Killer who has been snatching local teenage boys off the street. Tim returns to Millhaven and begins to investigate the string of deaths and as he gets closer to the truth, he discovers it most likely can be found in the creepy house which has sat abandoned in Mark's neighborhood for years.
As we'd expect from the man who gave us the ultimate Ghost Story, lost boy lost girl eventually turns into another haunted-house masterpiece. The residence at 3323 North Michigan Street becomes a living, breathing, pulsating character in its own right, complete with hidden staircases, sliding panels and poltergeists that move objects from room to room.
Straub is an elegant writer—on the opposite end of the horror spectrum from his chum Stephen King, the Royal Scribe of Sticky Gore. From Julia onward, Straub has penned his stories in a tradition established by people like Hawthorne, James and Saki. Like his literary ancestors, he knows how to scare readers psychologically, rather than with an amplified, Hollywood-ized barrage of "gotcha!" cheap thrills. The result is complex writing which is placid on its surface, but underneath teems with the squirming nasties of the id.
Like the dust-moted rooms of the house, Straub's writing is quiet and intense, choosing not to blare off the page in show-offy fashion (starting with the unobtrusive, e.e. cummings-like title). Instead, we take our horror in small doses, unexpected scenes which can prickle the neck-hairs with a single, well-placed word.
For instance, while out skateboarding one day, Mark comes across a dark, hulking figure we assume is the Sherman Park Killer and the sight fills him (and us) with icy dread:
A thick-bodied man facing the other direction stood silhouetted against the dead sky at the top of Michigan Street….The sense of wrongness flowed from this man, Mark understood—this figure with his back turned. Mark took in the unkempt black hair curling past his collar, his wide back covered by a black coat that fell like a sheet of iron to the backs of his knees. Willful, powerful wrongness came off of him like steam.
You could spend hours deconstructing a paragraph like that to determine how Straub does it, how he goes about the business of icy cat's paws with words like "unkempt," "curling," and "steam."
There are plenty of other instances where the author works his black magic on the reader: for instance, a ghost's footsteps "chimed like brush strokes." As Mark sits in the not-empty-after-all house, those whispery footfalls were like "hearing someone stepping down a passage within his own head."
And, earlier, when Mark and his friend Jimbo first entered the house, he'd looked for footprints in the thick dust carpeting the floors. "He saw only tracings, loops and swirls like writing in an unknown alphabet inscribed with the lightest possible pressure of a quill pen." Straub excels at writing subtly wicked sentences like that which collapse our lungs and tighten our throats. What ethereal being, we wonder, could have made those loops and swirls and—most importantly—are they good or evil?
Both good and evil inhabit the rooms of Straub's haunted house in lost boy lost girl, and it's that conjunction of forces which gives the novel its air of melancholy and, ultimately, majesty.
Show Less
LibraryThing member thioviolight
This is the first novel I've read of Straub's, and a wonderful introduction to him! I actually got this because of Gaiman's blurb, but I was delighted to discover that Straub's writing suits my taste. Quick-paced, intriguing and a very good read!
LibraryThing member ct.bergeron
Nancy Underhill commits suicide for no apparent reason. A week later, her son 15 years old Mark - Vanishes. The boy's uncle, novelist Timothy Underhill searches his hometown of Millhaven for clues taht might help unravel this horrible dual mystery. He soon learns that a pedophilic murderer is on
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the loose in the vicinty, and that shortly before Nancy's suicide, Mark had become obsessed with an abandonned house where he imagined the killer might have taken refuge. No mere empty building, the house whispers from attic to basement with the echoes of a long hidden true-life horror story, and Tim Underhill comes to fear that in investigating it's unspeakable history, Mar stumbled accross its last and gruesome secret: a ghostly lost girl who may have coaxed the needy, suggestible boy into the mysterious domain. Show Less
LibraryThing member lalaland
I thought this was a terrible book. Did not like it at all (even though I finished it). Even though Stephen King endorses it, I just hated it.
LibraryThing member NKSCF
Lost Boy, Lost Girl offered a very slow start, even with the promised suicide of Timothy Underhill's sister-in-law and the disappearance of his nephew following his obsession with a house that has many ties to his family. I learned a little late that Tim has been in several other works of Straub's,
Like I said before it has a slow start, but after it begins to delve into why Mark--the nephew--disappeared and exactly how his mother and he are related to the problems experienced by the neighborhood they used to live in. Not as Ghost Story, but it's an unfair comparison, so this book is still good enough to stand by itself.
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but the only other novel of his that I've read is Ghost Story, so this is my introduction to him and it is well done.Like I said before it has a slow start, but after it begins to delve into why Mark--the nephew--disappeared and exactly how his mother and he are related to the problems experienced by the neighborhood they used to live in. Not as Ghost Story, but it's an unfair comparison, so this book is still good enough to stand by itself.
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LibraryThing member DChurch71
I picked up this book just from the amazing reviews all over the internet, and also having Stephen King's blurb that says "Peter Straub's best work" really enticed me to pick this book up.
The book is well written, but did not grab me as a reader and make me want to keep reading to see what happens
The book is well written, but did not grab me as a reader and make me want to keep reading to see what happens
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next. While I thought the story had potential to be very good and interesting I felt let down. There was no real build up and over all it was a snooze in some parts. I enjoyed the characters; if story had more excitement to it I would have rated it higher. Definitely not Straubs best work, kind of mundane and boring overall. When I made it to the end I was left feeling nothing about the characters or the book, no wow factor. Show Less
LibraryThing member butterflytam
Strange, but good read.
LibraryThing member andreablythe
Summary: "A horror novelist searches for his nephew who disappeared a week after the boy's mother committed suicide. Worried about a pedophilic murderer on the loose, he is led in his investigation to a haunted house with an unspeakable history."
The summary makes it sound like a murder mystery,
I think I might have enjoyed this one more if I hadn't accidentally first read the sequel, In the Night Room (which was very strange and I wasn't that in to). While I enjoyed lost boy lost girl far better, I read it in the context of the sequel, so I already knew some of the mysteries revealed. It made it hard to get excited about the plot.
The summary makes it sound like a murder mystery,
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ghost story -- and it is, in a way -- but it is also a story of family, it's burdens and disconnections. The story jumps back and forth in time and is very well written, vivid descriptions and excellent exploration of character. Somehow though, there was an emotional distance and I couldn't really connect with the characters, no matter how well written they were. I think I might have enjoyed this one more if I hadn't accidentally first read the sequel, In the Night Room (which was very strange and I wasn't that in to). While I enjoyed lost boy lost girl far better, I read it in the context of the sequel, so I already knew some of the mysteries revealed. It made it hard to get excited about the plot.
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LibraryThing member jjaylynny
This must be the year for rereads. I just love this creepy little story; not sure if it's the setting (a barely-disguised Milwaukee), the strange setup, the recurring character from another of Straub's books. I like this Peter Straub, an effective writer, before he went off the rails.
LibraryThing member Kotzma
'Lost boy Lost girl' was an interesting read, in which takes the reader for a run-a-round mind boggle. The plot in itself seemed slow (at first) though picked up substantially near the end of Part 1. I'm looking forward to discussing this book with my grandmother, to compare if I am correct in the
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way I lead myself to believe the ending.. I read this book in less than a day, simply due to the curiosity I succumbed to. Enjoyed his play on horror novels and will be sure to read more of his work. Show Less
LibraryThing member Isaac_Thorne
I've always felt that Peter Straub has never gotten his due from critics and horror fans. He's the Bob Seger of the literary world: a great storyteller as acknowledged by nearly everyone who has read his work, but without the Hollywood-propped household name recognition of a Stephen King or a Neil
Straub is a true master of the genre in both style and substance. This story is a strange wandering through an early 2000s landscape when cameras were not yet everywhere and Internet-enabled technology still felt somewhat magical to the average user. In that way, this novel has probably not aged well.
However, if you set aside the dated technological references and instead focus on the double mystery of Nancy Underhill's suicide and Mark Underhill's disappearance, the story is timeless. Familial bonds are tested. Young boys only out to entertain themselves become inextricably linked to a mysterious empty house. Murderous evil people are suspected of wrongdoing. Societal and cultural prejudices hold deadly influence over events and people. And then there's the ghost of the little girl.
There's a great deal to enjoy about LOST BOY, LOST GIRL. I'm glad I picked it up.
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Gaiman. LOST BOY, LOST GIRL is just more evidence of this. Straub is a true master of the genre in both style and substance. This story is a strange wandering through an early 2000s landscape when cameras were not yet everywhere and Internet-enabled technology still felt somewhat magical to the average user. In that way, this novel has probably not aged well.
However, if you set aside the dated technological references and instead focus on the double mystery of Nancy Underhill's suicide and Mark Underhill's disappearance, the story is timeless. Familial bonds are tested. Young boys only out to entertain themselves become inextricably linked to a mysterious empty house. Murderous evil people are suspected of wrongdoing. Societal and cultural prejudices hold deadly influence over events and people. And then there's the ghost of the little girl.
There's a great deal to enjoy about LOST BOY, LOST GIRL. I'm glad I picked it up.
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LibraryThing member Jonathan_M
*Partial spoilers ahead*
An interesting premise, though Straub takes his time getting to the point and the reader occasionally may wonder if all the buildup is leading to anything. I enjoyed the vividly spooky phantom imagery borrowed from Henry James's classic ghost story "The Jolly Corner"
But don't avoid the book just because of that. Fans of The Throat, in particular, should read Lost Boy, Lost Girl because it follows author/amateur detective Tim Underhill back to his hometown of Millhaven to solve a new mystery: the disappearance of his young nephew Mark, which is somehow related to a shunned neighborhood house where terrible events took place decades earlier. The particulars of the story will be comfortably familiar to Straub fans, and this short novel is a nice warm-up for its sequel In the Night Room. There, Straub revisits the setting of this book, but on surer footing with a cast of adult characters.
An interesting premise, though Straub takes his time getting to the point and the reader occasionally may wonder if all the buildup is leading to anything. I enjoyed the vividly spooky phantom imagery borrowed from Henry James's classic ghost story "The Jolly Corner"
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(seasoned Straub fans will be aware of his longstanding fascination with James). In stylistic terms, Straub is largely successful in translating the flavor of his 600-page bestsellers into a shorter, simpler format, and Lost Boy, Lost Girl is not a bad introduction to his writing for folks who aren't ready to tackle a big, daunting book like The Throat or Mr. X. Where it falls short is in its depiction of teenage characters. Kids are hard to write, I get it, and writing them realistically presents a challenge even for authors of Straub's caliber. Unfortunately, a lot of this novel consists of the interactions between two skateboarding adolescent boys, and the characterization, mannerisms and dialogue are consistently awkward throughout. But don't avoid the book just because of that. Fans of The Throat, in particular, should read Lost Boy, Lost Girl because it follows author/amateur detective Tim Underhill back to his hometown of Millhaven to solve a new mystery: the disappearance of his young nephew Mark, which is somehow related to a shunned neighborhood house where terrible events took place decades earlier. The particulars of the story will be comfortably familiar to Straub fans, and this short novel is a nice warm-up for its sequel In the Night Room. There, Straub revisits the setting of this book, but on surer footing with a cast of adult characters.
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Language
Original language
English
ISBN
9780449149911
Physical description
368 p.; 4.2 inches
Pages
368