'Talisman' author Peter Straub dies at 79: 'The smartest and most fun person'

Author Peter Straub, who was best known for his popular horror and supernatural fiction including two novels co-written with Stephen King, has died at 79.

His daughter, Emma Straub, who's also a best selling author of popular fiction, shared the news on Instagram Tuesday.

"Peter Francis Straub, the smartest and most fun person in every room he was ever in, 3/2/43 - 9/4/22. How lucky we were. There aren’t enough words in the world," Emma Straub wrote.

Straub, a lifelong reader and writer born in Milwaukee, first achieved widespread success with his spooky 1979 novel "Ghost Story," which was adapted into a 1981 film starring Fred Astaire and Alice Krige.  Many supernatural and horror novels followed, including his most popular, 1984's "The Talisman," about a boy's travels to a parallel universe to save his mother, and its 2001 sequel "Black House," both co-written with horror juggernaut King.

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In a 2001 interview with USA TODAY book critic Bob Minzesheimer about his partnership with King, Straub said, "Writing is a deeply private, intimate activity. One's own style is achieved at some cost. You don't want anyone else in your workshop, playing with your tools, unless you trust him."

King, whose new fantasy novel "Fairy Tale" went on sale Tuesday, took to Twitter to express his condolences on a bittersweet day.

"It's a happy day for me because FAIRY TALE is published. It's a sad day because my good friend and amazingly talented colleague and collaborator, Peter Straub, has passed away. Working with him was one of the great joys of my creative life," King wrote.

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In a 2002 interview with Minzesheimer, Straub said he resented "being stuffed into the category of genre writer . . . as if genre writing is automatically second-rate and can become literary only by transcending the genre," and wished critics would judge writers by the quality of the writing, not just their subject matter.

Straub was a reliable presence on the USA TODAY Best Selling Books list, with seven of his novels spending 68 weeks on the list. His highest-ranked book was "Black House," which went as high as No. 2 in 2001.

Emma Straub wrote warmly of her relationship with her father, which inspired her most recent book, "This Time Tomorrow," a big-hearted time-travel novel about a woman coming to terms with her writer father's impending death.

A ★★★½ (out of four) review for USA TODAY from May says "Straub is concerned with love – its different forms and expressions, how it evolves over time, and how we can be better at giving and accepting it. Love, too, for her own father, horror novelist Peter Straub, whom she thanks in the acknowledgments 'for receiving this book as it was intended, as a gift.'"

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Peter Straub: 'Talisman' author, Stephen King collaborator dies at 79