If You Could See Me Now (Peter Straub novel)
If You Could See Me Now is the third published novel by American author Peter Straub and his second work of gothic or supernatural fiction. The book was published by Jonathan Cape in June 1977 – the same London publisher who published Julia in 1976. Coward, McCann & Geoghegan published an American edition also in June 1977.
[edit] Synopsis
The novel tells the story of Miles Teagarden, a widowed English professor struggling to complete his dissertation in the summer of 1975. Twenty years earlier – on the night of June 21, 1955 – Miles made a vow with his beautiful cousin Alison Greening that they would meet again at the family farm in Arden, Wisconsin in twenty years. Shortly after swearing this vow, Alison drowned under mysterious circumstances while she and Miles were swimming in the quarry not far from the family farm.
The main action of the book follows Miles as he returns to Arden ostensibly in search of peace and quiet in which he can complete his dissertation. Very quickly the work on the dissertation falls away as Miles becomes obsessed with memories of his cousin and the circumstances of her death. Several young girls have been murdered in the area and the suspicions of the small town fall on Miles, who soon comes to believe that Alison's vengeful spirit may be responsible for the deaths.
[edit] Themes and connections to other works
The novel introduces themes that appear throughout Straub's later novels: the alienated intellectual returning home; digging through layers of memory and history to make sense of violent events in childhood; serial killers; a fictionalized rural Wisconsin setting; and the overwhelming power and attraction of sex and violence.
The protagonist, Miles Teagarden, also has a cameo in Straub's novel Shadowland.
[edit] Collaboration with Stephen King
In addition to building Straub's reputation as a writer of quality supernatural fiction, If You Could See Me Now caught the attention of author Stephen King, who provided a lengthy blurb for the dust jacket of the book's first American edition. As Straub recounts in the essay "Meeting Stevie" in Fear Itself: The Horror Fiction of Stephen King (1982), he was deeply impressed by King's sympathetic reading of his work long before the two had met. It was this blurb that prompted Straub to pick up a copy of King's 'Salem's Lot and ultimately resulted in their meeting in London. They eventually went on to collaborate on the novels The Talisman and Black House.
