Trauma, Trick, and Transcendence in the Life of a Horror Writer: The Case of Whitley Strieber This essay treats the theorization of horror in Whitley Strieber�s Communion (1987). It also pushes us to consider more honestly and forthrightly the question of �real monsters,� that is, the phenomenology of encounters with fantastic presences routinely experienced in the environment. Historical contextualization of Strieber�s abduction experiences in the Hudson Valley region and theories of other species from Charles Fort to William James are invoked to radicalize the question further