A schoolboy hypnotizes his little brother and discovers a dark and deadly power...a reclusive misfit falls deeper and deeper under the spell of his favorite pulp fiction...an ambitious young professor on a sabbatical must elude the violent and ghostly world of his own ancestors...This spectacular collection of short fiction by Peter Straub exposes the terrors that hide beneath the surface of the ordinary world, behind the walls of houses without doors. Together these thirteen dark, haunting tales form a series of artistic seductions that leave the reader vulnerable to the shattering insights of a masterful writer.