A Dark Matter (Hardcover)

~ Peter Straub (Author)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Starred Review. In this tour de force from bestseller Straub (In the Night Room), four high school friends in 1966 Madison, Wis.—Hootie Bly, Dilly Olson, Jason Boatman, and Lee Truax—fall under the spell of charismatic wandering guru Spencer Mallon. During an occult ceremony in which Mallon attempts to break through to a higher reality, something goes horribly awry leaving one participant dead. Decades later, Lee's writer husband interviews the quartet to find out what happened. In Roshomon-like fashion, each relates a slightly different account of the trauma they experienced. Straub masterfully shows how the disappointments, downturns, and failed promise of the four friends' lives may have stemmed from this youthful experience, and suggests, by extension, that the malignant evil they helped unleash into the world has tainted all hope ever since. Brilliant in its orchestration and provocative in its speculations, this novel ranks as one of the finest tales of modern horror. (Feb.)
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Review

Praise for A DARK MATTER

“Peter Straub's new novel is a terrifying story of innocents-high school students in the turbulent sixties-who stumble into horrors far beyond their understanding. A Dark Matter is populated with vivid, sympathetic characters, and driven by terrors both human and supernatural. It’s the kind of book that’s impossible to put down once it has been picked up. It kept me reading far into the night. Straub builds otherworldly terror without ever losing touch with his attractive cast of youngsters, who age beautifully. Put this one high on your list.”
-Stephen King

"Part Rashomon, part The Turn of the Screw. Peter Straub may well be the most important voice in suspense fiction today."
-- Lincoln Child

"American master Peter Straub takes the sweep of our freaky history over the past forty years, subjects it to all the elegant gifts of madness and arts of haunting of which he is the wicked king, and finds himself in possession of a masterpiece."
-- Michael Chabon, author of The Yiddish Policemen’s Union and Manhood for Amateurs

"[A] tour de force from bestseller Straub…Brilliant in its orchestration and provocative in its speculations, this novel ranks as one of the finest tales of modern horror."
-- Starred PW

“[A]s dazzling a literary performance as anything Straub has ever written.”
-Booklist

“I’ve been reading Peter Straub since I was a teenager, and his work is hardwired into my brain.  A Dark Matter contains echoes of all that has been great about Straub’s previous work and builds upon it. This Rashomon-like tale is as spooky and frightening as anything he has written,  but it’s also an intense and moving celebration of love. Out of the darkness comes, ultimately, a surprising and haunting sense of joy.”
-Dan Chaon, author of Await Your Reply

"Increasingly, Peter Straub brilliantly defies and blurs literary genres. A DARK MATTER is a page-turning thriller of every sort: psychological, sociological, epistemological. Plus, it's really scary."
--Lorrie Moore, author of A Gate At the Stairs


“A devastatingly good novel.  In its investigation of a dark ritual that casts a decades-long shadow, A DARK MATTER makes you question all you thought you knew about horror and about literature.  But it goes well beyond that: it messes with your sense of reality and then, just when you're getting your bearings, scrambles it again.”
-Brian Evenson, author of The Open Curtain

"Straub’s last few fantasies have been ever more baroque, but this tall, dark tale beats them all for heaven-storming scale and wheels within wheels."
--Kirkus

“A DARK MATTER is a powerful, original and utterly engrossing novel about the palpability of evil and its costs…a novel that is nothing less than stunning.”
– The Globe and Mail
 
“In a way, A DARK MATTER reads like a gift for longtime readers who have been longing for Straub’s return to all-out horror. But the writer does it on his own terms, beautifully blending monsters and demons and indescribable evil into a melancholy novel shaped and crafted as carefully as literature, not pulp entertainment. Straub’s writing has rarely been better or more precise.” – The Miami Herald
 
“[Peter Straub] is a master at blurring the supernatural, the real-world-scary and the monsters in your psyche.”
– The Plain Dealer
 
“A DARK MATTER shows Straub confidently regaining his shifting rhythms, offering a rich, multi-perspective take on a murky collegiate misadventure in 1966.”
– TimeOut New York
 
"An alchemy of psychological suspense, supernatural horror and cultural history. . . . Ambitious in its scope and challenging in its telling. . . . Explosive." —Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel

"A modern-day supernatural Rashomon. . . . [A Dark Matter] leaves one satisfied, still eager for the next book by one of the most adroit masters of the supernatural thriller." —San Francisco Chronicle

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 416 pages
• Publisher: Doubleday; 1 edition (February 9, 2010)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 038551638X
• ISBN-13: 978-0385516389
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6.2 x 1.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (30 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #3,526 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

29 of 34 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Engrossing!, February 9, 2010

By	Jennifer Lawrence "www.jennsbookshelves.com" (DC Metro) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

The year is 1966 in Madison, WI. Four high school students Hootie Bly, Dilly Olson, Jason Boatman, and Eel Truax, become enamored by Spencer Mallon, a charismatic guru who promises to introduce them to a "higher reality." During an occult ritual, something goes horribly wrong, killing one teen. The four friends are forever changed, each dealt with this horrid day in a different way. Hootie was taken to a mental institution. His only means of communication is quoting lines from Hawthorne's A Scarlet Letter. Eel marries Lee Hayward, her high school sweetheart, but she eventually loses her sight. Boatman, once a shoplifter, now runs his own theft prevention company. Dilly Olson never really got over the entire situation. Decades later the group comes back together when Hayward decides to write a non-fictional account of that afternoon. Each learns that their own personal account wasn't as accurate as they believed. This reunion is the first time they have had the opportunity to share their experiences with one another. Pieces of the puzzle are finally starting to come together to form a large, broad picture.

Once again, Straub does an outstanding job. A Dark Matter is purely character-driven; the book is broken up into several parts, each devoted to detailing the account of each of the main characters. Readers are transported thirty years in a matter of pages. I was impressed at how smoothly this transformation flowed. There is potential for the novels with character-driven storylines, specifically ones with as many characters as A Dark Matter, to seem drawn-out and exaggerated. I did not feel that in this case, for I do not think the overall "feel" of the novel would have carried through had it not been for the varying and differing accounts of each of the characters.

Those demanding a defined and definite resolution might be disappointed, however I think this aspect is what makes this such an amazing book. I takes an extremely talented writer to do what Straub has done with this one: giving detailed explanations of one situation from various standpoints, yet still leaving the actual event quite vague. Highly, highly recommended book.

9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A great story!, February 13, 2010

By	Margaret Dybala "too many books, too little time" (Pearland, Texas United States) - See all my reviews (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)    (VINE VOICE)

Like a rare few other books, this one had my family fighting over it. It was so good and we were all trying to read it at the same time!

The story goes: 40 years ago, in the late 1960s, something strange and awful happened to a group of young people and their "sage," or guru. This charismatic man says that a ritual of some sort will have some effect -- something he can't say in advance. After they are done, one of the kids is dead, another disappears, another is hospitalized in a psyciatric hospital for 40 years, and all of them have lifelong changes in who they are.

As we start the story, the one kid in the group who did not attend the ritual, now an older writer, wants to find out what really happened. As he gets in touch with the participants (and his wife is one, and she has never told him the story), each tells it from a different perspective. As the cover of the book says, there is a certain Roshomon quality to it.

This book was different than others of the genre, with a brilliant, inventive story, with a finale that I certainly couldn't have predicted. I recommend it without hesitation.

8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Different Kind of Horror, February 24, 2010

By	David Roy (Normal, IL) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

After thinking about it quite a bit, I have to say that Peter Straub takes a bit of a different approach to the sorts of scary stories that he writes. Unlike King, I don't believe that Straub's intentions when he writes is to simply deliver thrills and chills to the reader. Don't get me wrong, Straub can put together some really spooky stuff, but his intention isn't just to spook the reader. Instead, he really wants to explore, and he really wants the reader to explore these different ideas and concepts with him.

It's almost like his stories are more like examinations of different aspects of horror and terror. They are a glimpse at how people react and cope with horrific and terrible situations. He's more subtle, less overt in some of the things that he does, which is partly why I love his work so much.

A Dark Matter is a prime example of this exploration of horror. A Dark Matter doesn't really set out to terrify the reader. It's quite literally an examination and exploration of what happens when people cross the line and dive head first into the horrors and wonders of the metaphysical. What is on the other side of reality, and what would happen to those who get a taste of it?

So, if anybody is looking forward to some speedy page turner that sends shivers running up and down your spine, you're going to be let down. (but seriously, this was never the sort of book that Straub writes anyways and you should know that already). This book is far more introspective and subtle than any of his other books.

The plot itself, the story of Lee going around and collecting the stories, interpretations and experiences from the people who were there on that insane night in the meadow, is really interesting and engrossing. it's the story of a person trying to understand something that is essentially impossible to comprehend.

The stories themselves, are a means for the reader to really look at how people interpret things differently, and what they do with the terrible and reality-defying things that they've seen and experienced. It's a taste of the metaphysical, and in those stories you are put in Lee's place. You are given multiple chances to try and comprehend things that cannot truly be comprehended. Lee's journey is really your own in the book.

Of everything that Straub has written, this is probably the most literary. In a lot of ways it his probably his most abstract book, and for people who don't realize that or are not expecting that, I can only imagine that they're going to be pretty put off by that. I'd suggest anybody picking up this book do so with an open mind. You need to set your expectations aside and see the book for what it is, and not for what you wanted it to be.