Content Warning: This guide’s source text discusses abuse of prescription substances and alcohol, suicide, physical and sexual abuse of children, violence, and sexual assault. The source text relies on anti-Black stereotypes and contains some anti-Black epithets.

Ghost Story creates a mood of suspicion, anxiety, and fear. Straub creates this mood by using diction, or word choices, that support the atmosphere of fear. The first paragraph of the novel uses evocative language and images that pull the reader into the mood of suspicion. The food is not chewed but gnawed; Don obscures his license plate and avoids crossing a border; The most terrifying sentence is the last one, “He still did not know what he was going to have to do to her” (13). Straub allows the reader to imagine any number of terrible acts and sows suspicion against both the little girl and Don.

The prologue itself heightens the sense of dread, fear, and suspicion by deliberately obfuscating intentions and context, deepening the suspicion of the scene’s mood. Don’s act of kidnapping immediately makes the reader suspicious of him and his motives, especially in his intense control of her.