A short life of the author
Whitley Strieber (born 13 June 1945) is an American author whose career encompasses two distinct phases: a critically respected horror novelist who wrote The Wolfen (1978) and The Hunger (1981), and — beginning with Communion (1987) — the most prominent literary voice of the alien abduction phenomenon. Communion, with its iconic cover painting by Ted Seth Jacobs of a large-eyed grey being, became a number-one New York Times bestseller and sold over two million copies, transforming both Strieber’s career and the cultural conversation about extraterrestrial contact.
Life
Strieber was born in San Antonio, Texas, and educated at the University of Texas at Austin and the London School of Film Technique. He worked in advertising in New York before turning to fiction. His early novels were well-reviewed commercial horror. After the experiences he described in Communion, his life and career were consumed by the contact phenomenon — to the admiration of believers and the dismay of literary critics who had expected a very different career.
Horror Fiction
The Wolfen (1978) reimagines werewolves as a parallel species of intelligent predators that have coexisted with humans throughout history, culling the weak and homeless. The novel is a sophisticated urban horror-thriller, set in the South Bronx, that treats its premise with scientific plausibility. It was adapted into a 1981 film directed by Michael Wadleigh, starring Albert Finney.
The Hunger (1981) reinvents the vampire as Miriam Blaylock, an ancient being who takes human lovers, grants them centuries of youth, then watches helplessly as they age horribly and collapse into an undying torpor. It is one of the most emotionally devastating vampire novels ever written — a meditation on love, mortality, and the horror of watching someone you love decay. Tony Scott’s 1983 film, starring Catherine Deneuve, David Bowie, and Susan Sarandon, became a cult classic.
Warday (1984, co-written with James Kunetka) is a speculative non-fiction account of America five years after a limited nuclear war — written as reportage, with Strieber and Kunetka travelling through the devastated country and interviewing survivors.
Communion (1987)
On 26 December 1985, according to Strieber, he was taken from his cabin in upstate New York by non-human beings and subjected to procedures he could not fully understand or remember. Communion: A True Story is his account of the experience and its aftermath — the recovered memories, the terror, the hypnotic regression sessions, and his attempt to understand what happened to him.
The book’s power, regardless of one’s position on its factual claims, lies in the quality of the writing. Strieber describes his experiences with the same literary skill he brought to horror fiction — precise, sensory, psychologically complex. The terror is real; the ambiguity about what is actually happening is maintained with genuine intelligence.
Communion sold over two million copies and generated an entire genre of alien abduction literature. The cover image — Jacobs’s painting of a grey-skinned, almond-eyed being — became arguably the most culturally influential book cover of the 1980s, establishing the visual template for how alien beings are depicted in popular culture.
Subsequent Contact Books
Strieber followed Communion with Transformation (1988), Breakthrough (1995), The Secret School (1997), and Solving the Communion Enigma (2011), each exploring different aspects of his ongoing experiences. He maintained that the beings he encountered were not simply “aliens” in the science-fiction sense but something stranger and more complex — possibly interdimensional, possibly related to human consciousness itself.
He also wrote Majestic (1989), a novel based on the Roswell incident, and The Grays (2006), a novel about alien-human contact.
Critical Standing
Strieber’s literary reputation depends entirely on which phase of his career one considers. The horror novels — particularly The Hunger — are regarded as significant contributions to the genre. Communion and its sequels are impossible to assess by conventional literary standards: they are either the most important eyewitness testimony of the century or an elaborate self-deception by a gifted writer. Most literary critics have simply declined to engage with them.
His influence on popular culture is indisputable: the grey alien of Communion’s cover is now the default image of extraterrestrial life in Western culture.
Collecting Strieber
The Wolfen (1978, Morrow) in first edition with dust jacket brings $50–$150. The Hunger (1981, Morrow) firsts are $40–$100. Communion (1987, Beech Tree/Morrow) in first edition with the Jacobs cover painting is the most collected title, bringing $50–$200 depending on condition. Signed copies are readily available, as Strieber has been active in public appearances.