My father, Peter Straub, was famous for wearing nice clothes. He was famous for other things, too—writing dark, psychological horror novels, mostly—but his friends and family knew him as someone who dressed like a banker despite the fact that he spent his days alone, at home, writing fiction about murder and torture. He wasn’t a dandy—his clothes weren’t colorful or showy, just well-made and expensive. He wore bespoke suits. He wore proper suspenders, with buttons. He wore bowties, unironically. There is a photograph of my father and me on a ride at Disney World in the mid-1980s, and my father is wearing a striped Paul Stuart sweater and a sportcoat. On a ride. At Disney World. He was committed to dressing the part.
One of the last conversations my father and I had before he went into the hospital for the final time was about clothes—we were talking about how my children now enjoy thrift shops, like my mother and I do, and how my father had always been averse to them. He’d grown up without much money, a scholarship student at an expensive prep school, and had been embarrassed about his clothes. I pointed out that this might be a reason why he recoiled at the thought of thrift shopping while my mother and I, who both grew up with money, prefer resale shops. Yes, he said. You might be right.
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