Communion is a book by
AmericanThe United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
ufologist and
horrorHorror fiction is a genre of fiction in any medium intended to scare, unsettle and horrify the audience. Historically, the cause of the "horror" experience has often been the intrusion of a disturbing supernatural element into everyday human experience...
author
Whitley StrieberLouis Whitley Strieber is an American writer best known for his horror novels The Wolfen and The Hunger and for Communion, a non-fiction account of his perceived experiences with non-human entities...
that was first published in February of 1987. The book is based on Strieber's own alleged experiences with non-human, possibly extraterrestrial entities.
Communion was a Number 1
New York TimesThe New York Times Best Seller list is widely considered to be the preeminent list of best-selling books in the United States. It is published weekly in the The New York Times Book Review magazine, which is usually found inserted in the Sunday edition of The New York Times, or as a stand-alone...
bestseller in the Non-Fiction category, and was on the list for fifteen weeks in hardcover and for thirty-six weeks in paperback.
Communion is a book by
AmericanThe United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
ufologist and
horrorHorror fiction is a genre of fiction in any medium intended to scare, unsettle and horrify the audience. Historically, the cause of the "horror" experience has often been the intrusion of a disturbing supernatural element into everyday human experience...
author
Whitley StrieberLouis Whitley Strieber is an American writer best known for his horror novels The Wolfen and The Hunger and for Communion, a non-fiction account of his perceived experiences with non-human entities...
that was first published in February of 1987. The book is based on Strieber's own alleged experiences with non-human, possibly extraterrestrial entities.
Communion was a Number 1
New York TimesThe New York Times Best Seller list is widely considered to be the preeminent list of best-selling books in the United States. It is published weekly in the The New York Times Book Review magazine, which is usually found inserted in the Sunday edition of The New York Times, or as a stand-alone...
bestseller in the Non-Fiction category, and was on the list for fifteen weeks in hardcover and for thirty-six weeks in paperback. Hardcover sales neared 300,000. Paperback sales exceeded 2,000,000. It was the 3rd bestselling mass market paperback of 1988.
A 2008 trade paperback edition presents a new preface by the author.
The cover painting of an alien was rendered by Ted Seth Jacobs. The painting is considered one of the most widely-recognized popular culture images of a "grey" alien. "The Communion cover," Jacobs recounts, "was painted in my small apartment on East 83rd St, in New York City. Whitley sat with me first for a drawing of the Alien. As I sketched, he would indicate how to change the portrait so that it would more match what he saw. It was, I believe, the process used by police sketch artists. Every last detail was corrected according to his instructions. At one point, he said the image corresponded exactly to what he had seen. With Whitley beside me for the subsequent session, I began to paint the image on a wooden prepared panel, going through the same process as for the drawing, until Whitley finally said the image was exact. ...As to the gender of the Alien image, to tell the truth, the subject didn't come up. I don't even know if the 'greys' have gender as we understand it. Whitley corrected the developing image to have a certain fragility, a vulnerability. I suppose we Earthlings usually associate these qualities with femininity."
The book was later made into a film directed by
Philippe MoraPhilippe Mora is a French-born Australian film director.Mora is a member of one of Australia’s best known artistic families. His parents, Georges Mora and Mirka Mora, migrated to Australia from France in 1951 and settled in Melbourne, where they quickly became key figures on the Melbourne cultural...
and starring
Christopher WalkenChristopher Walken is an American actor of stage and screen. He has appeared in more than 100 movies and television shows, including Annie Hall, The Deer Hunter, Brainstorm, The Dead Zone, A View to a Kill, At Close Range, King of New York, Batman Returns, True Romance, Catch Me If You Can,...
as Strieber.
Misc.
The band
PG.99Pg. 99 was a screamo band from Sterling, Virginia on the outskirts of Washington, D.C. The band formed as a 6-piece in winter 1998 and later expanded to an 8-piece. With continual line-up changes, they once played as a 14 member outfit. Pg. 99 were known for their intense live shows.In...
's song "By the Fireplace in White" contains someone reading passages from the book at the end of the song.
Swedish Progressive Metal band
EvergreyEvergrey is a progressive power metal band from Gothenburg, Sweden. The band was founded in 1996 and released its debut album The Dark Discovery in 1998. Their most recent album is Torn, was released in 2008.-Lyrical themes:...
wrote their 2001 concept album,
In Search of TruthIn Search of Truth is the third album by Swedish progressive metal band Evergrey. The album is a concept album dealing with alien abductions. According to an interview, frontman Tom S...
, around the ideas presented in "Communion" after the band's singer Tom S. Englund read the book.