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    A Dark Matter
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    A Dark Matter
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    A Dark Matter
    Audiobook14 hours

    A Dark Matter

    Written by Peter Straub

    Narrated by Robertson Dean

    3/5

    ()

    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this audiobook

    The incomparable master of horror and suspense returns with a powerful, brilliantly terrifying novel that redefines the genre in original and unexpected ways.

    The charismatic and cunning Spenser Mallon is a campus guru in the 1960s, attracting the devotion and demanding sexual favors of his young acolytes. After he invites his most fervent followers to attend a secret ritual in a local meadow, the only thing that remains is a gruesomely dismembered body-and the shattered souls of all who were present.

    Years later, one man attempts to understand what happened to his wife and to his friends by writing a book about this horrible night, and it's through this process that they begin to examine the unspeakable events that have bound them in ways they cannot fathom, but that have haunted every one of them through their lives. As each of the old friends tries to come to grips with the darkness of the past, they find themselves face-to-face with the evil triggered so many years earlier. Unfolding through the individual stories of the fated group's members, A Dark Matter is an electric, chilling, and unpredictable novel that will satisfy Peter Straub's many ardent fans, and win him legions more.


    From the Hardcover edition.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherPenguin Random House Audio
    Release dateFeb 9, 2010
    ISBN9780739322420
    Unavailable
    A Dark Matter
    Author

    Peter Straub

    Peter Straub (1943–2022) was the #1 New York Times bestselling author of more than a dozen novels, including A Dark Matter, The Talisman, and Black House, which he cowrote with Stephen King. He has won the Bram Stoker Award for his novels Lost Boy Lost Girl and In the Night Room, as well as for his collection 5 Stories. Straub was the editor of the two-volume Library of American anthology The American Fantastic Tale.

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    Reviews for A Dark Matter

    3/5

    177 ratings31 reviews

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    • 4/5
      Peter Struab is one of the most imaginative and inventive modern authors I have encountered.
    • 3/5
      Interesting. Oddly confusing (the married couple at the center of the story had the same first name), really interesting last page; otherwise, pretty much what you'd expect from the genre plus some philosophy add-ons.
    • 2/5
      I forced my way through this book hoping that eventually I would make sense of the story and I never did.
    • 5/5
      Mr. Straub is a very good writer. It is a joy to read one of his books because I can focus on the plot and characters and not be disturbed by poor writing, odd sentence construction, misspellings (I know the editor's fault, but still), and awkward phrasing.

      His characters have depth. I wanted to bring Hootie home and would've run screaming from Meridith Bright!
    • 4/5
      This review originally appeared at RevolutionSF.com:

      It was 1966 in Madison, Wisconsin. A group of teens fascinated with a self-proclaimed guru named Spencer Mallon agree to participate in a ritual with him. By the time it's over, one of them has disappeared, one of them is insane, one is going slowly blind, one has been literally torn apart, and all have been altered. Years later, the only member of their group of friends who wasn't there, now a successful writer, tracks down his old friends and gets them to tell their versions of what happened that night.

      Recalling Rashomon, each story differs in the details, and those differences give us insights into the characters telling the story. Also like Rashomon those differences and what they reveal about the characters is more important to Straub than illuminating exactly what happened that night and what it all means, so if you're only interested in linear storytelling with concrete conclusions, you'll want to look somewhere else. But if you're a “the journey is more important than the destination” type, you'll find a lot here to enjoy.

      The prose itself is fluid without being flowery, and the pacing is very consistent. The chracters themselves are both the greatest strength and the greatest weakness of the novel. Some characters shine: bitter, empty Meredith Bright is just as chilling in her way as nascent serial killer Keith Hayward.

      And Howard “Hootie” Bly is a revelation. He was so undone by the incident that he retreated into madness, able to communicate only by quoting from various books, mostly Hawthorne. Hootie's innate gentlenss and goodness is as clear and effective as Meredith Bright's emptiness. Straub's affection for Hootie is clear, and it's well nigh impossible not to agree.

      Because so much of the information is filtered through one character (Lee Harwell, the writer), it's sometimes hard to get a grasp on the others in the group, or to know if a description or insight is objectively true, or merely Lee's opinion. This adds yet another Rashomon-layer to the story, but leaves the reader a bit adrift.

      The other big problem for me was the character of Spencer Mallon. We're told about Mallon: he's devilishly handsome, he's ridiculously charismatic, he inspires devotion bordering on adoration from the group; but (barring a couple of glimpses by Lee that may or may not be Mallon, since he never met him when they were young) we never experience that charisma for ourselves. This may have been a conscious choice by Straub; we're in the same boat as our narrator, who only knows Mallon by what he's been told. But given that Mallon is another survivor of the incident, one can only wonder what his version of that night would have looked like.

      So if you're looking for a straight-up, good-vs-evil, good wins in the end horror story, you probably won't be happy with what you find here. But if you're interested in good writing, layers of meaning, and a meditation on how what we see and remember often says more about us than about what we've seen, then you should give A Dark Matter a look.
    • 3/5
      In the summer of 1966 eight friends venture into a meadow to take part in a secret ritual. At the end of this ritual only six emerge from the meadow. Those who emerged were changed forever. Lee Harwell was a friend to those who went that night, but declined to go along. Fast forward many decades and Lee is a successful author with a case of writer’s block. An unusual unpublished manuscript found on ebay seems to be the answer to his problem but leads him down a path he never expected to travel. He starts to question what actually happened in that meadow. The story unfolds as Lee questions each of those present that night. The group he interviews is an unusual cast of characters each with their own story. This collection of stories makes up the book, with Lee joining them together with his own thoughts and perceptions. Lee speaks to the reader as if he knows the reader is there … a bit of an unusual writing method but for this story it definitely works. It’s a book that rather than being simply a horror story it is a story of past experiences and a little bit about righting a wrong.
    • 2/5
      Peter Straub is one of those writers I love for the atmosphere of his books: mystery and secrets, particularly his "Blue Rose" series. Here, for some reason, I felt the storyline was a crossover between Donna Tartt and Stephen King - Donna Tartt for the idea of a secret ceremony (i.e. 'The Secret History') and what was supposed to be a deep friendship that linked teenagers/adults (i.e. 'IT', or 'The Body'). However, I was not convinced by the latter; their friendship was superficial at best and the 'big' revelation was anything but. I felt let down by the ending. Furthermore, the elements of fantastic were described but not acted on any further. As a standalone novel, I suppose it could always be argued that it's ok as a summer read, but I wouldn't go from the 'Blue Rose' series into this one, they're too different; it's a disappointment.
    • 3/5
      I'd give it maybe 3 1/2... The story wasn't the intriguing part, what hooked me was the tone and descriptive voice Straub used to tell it. I wish I wasn't so puzzled by it all because I was left with a feeling of 'did I miss something?' I enjoyed the flow that had me lost in the strange event the book tells. Good ride but it felt jumbled and incomplete.
    • 2/5
      Well, this book is well written, but it is all about what happened in a meadow that made one person crazy, another blind, another disappear, and another dead. And the revelation about what happened just about bored me to tears, especially as it is told three times, from three different perspectives. The 'payoff' was not worth the wait.
    • 4/5
      Not Straub's best book, but an engaging page-turner nonetheless. I enjoyed it for what it was.
    • 1/5
      I generally like Straub and I wanted to like this book. But, I just couldn't get into it. It was slow moving. At one point, I realized that I didn't really care about the big "mystery" . I just wanted the book to be over. At that point, I gave up. I don't like stopping in the middle. I try to finish, hoping it will get better. But, this time I just couldn't do it.
    • 3/5
      A group of high school kids get influenced by a shaman who performs a ceremony which opens a window to another world. That evening a guy in the group dies and one goes insane. A few years later when the husband of one of the victims who also happens to be a writer investigated each comes up with his own version of the occurrences of that day.For a tale of horror it is quite Luke warm.
    • 3/5
      A quick overview of some of the highlights of ancient Greek literature, art and history. Cahill's breezy style gets a bit grating in this book, as he tries too hard to be casual and, I suppose, intellectually non-threatening. However, it does expose you to a bit of the most obvious parts of the Greek contribution to western civilization without having to work too hard at it.
    • 5/5
      Another excellent book from Thomas Cahill, this time on the contributions of the ancient Greeks to the modern Western world. If you want to know who you are and why you think and act the way you do -- read his Hinges of History series now!
    • 2/5
      I usually enjoy a good Peter Straub novel, and this one carried me along, but somehow didn't quite make it, not his best book for sure.
    • 2/5
      Straub is an author whose works I'm never quite sure how I'll react to. Three of his works (Julia, If You Could See Me Now, and Shadowland) I like quite a bit. A couple more (Ghost Story and The Hellfire club) I like *parts* of quite a bit. The rest just leave me cold. Based on the premise I ought to like this one: Back in the late sixties a sort of itinerant mystic named Spencer Mallon wanders from place to place impressing the easily impressed with his line of mystic talk, and mooching off his followers. He comes to Madison, Wisconsin, and recruits a group of students to perform some sort of mystic ceremony out in a University-owned field. Something goes spectacularly wrong: One kid is messily dead, another missing, a third in a mental institution, the rest emotionally or physically damaged by the events. This book follows the 40-years-belated investigation of the incident by (Straub stand-in character) Lee Harwell, the only person from that old group of friends and acquaintances not to participate in the ceremony.It's a great premise, huh? You can play around a bit at the intersections of imagination and reality, of magic and madness. You can tap Castenada for the feeling of the sorcery, then soak it in the sixties like King's "Hearts in Atlantis". Ice the cake with the ache that someone who remembers the sixties feels for their lost youth, the regrets of the wrong choices that they don't let themselves think about. The mistakes, the missed opportunities. Sadly, I don't think Straub pulls it off. Thing is, Straub's just good enough of an author that I can't pinpoint which direction his mistakes are in. So, what do I mean by that? Well, let me give the worst example first: I don't think it's possible to love this book unless you like Lee Harwell and his wife. But I don't honestly know if Straub's error was in realizing you might not like them, but thinking it didn't matter (much in the way I dislike Colquitt Kennedy in Anne Siddon's _The House Next Door_, or the way that almost no one in Rashomon is remotely likable) or if the fault lies in the much more grievous fault of not seeing that they're hard to sympathize with, much less love or admire.All of his failings are like that: I don't think his group ever coheres as a group. Does he intend that and the book's just not strong enough to survive his choice, or did he just fail in painting them? He spends far too much time on heavily visual descriptions of others' mystic visions. Is he deliberately trying to distance the reader while making a show of being open and straightforward, or is he simply screwing up?In the end, though, I don't know that it matters. He and I just didn't connect through his writing. He has some nice flashes here and there in the book, but overall, I think it's a weak thumbs down. Straub has a reputation in the genre, of course, and as a much younger reader, I'd have felt as if I was at fault because I just couldn't properly tune in. Older now, I can see how people might enjoy this book, but I didn't like it all that much myself.
    • 4/5
      I was introduced to Straub through his work with King on the Talisman and Dark House books. Given their tie to the Dark Tower books, his ability to write about two overlapping worlds (and more) became obvious. In A Dark Matter he's right back in this element, describing an overlapping world beyond ours with disturbing clarity.He does take a long time to get to the point of this story, but there is some gifted writing to enjoy en route. He uses multiple viewpoints to continually shed new light on the mystery at the core of the story. The character who spoke primarily in quotations from other literature was entertaining as well.The highlight of this book occurs (not unsurprisingly) near the end as the narrative approaches its climax. Straub has a gift for using adjectives you wouldn't expect to make surreal scenes absolutely vivid in your imagination.A Dark Matter isn't an instant-payoff novel—it's like an album you grow to love the longer you listen to it.
    • 3/5
      Oh Peter. As much as I love your imagination and the way you put a story together, this one tried my patience and I skimmed the last 50 pages or so. One long bad acid trip or dream and I HATE reading dream sequences in anything. I will add more if I can process it out of my head.
    • 4/5
      Book 4 of the Hinges in History series. I like the way this book is laid out; not so much in a chronological order, but categorized in what the Greeks brought to Western Culture. My favorite chapter was "How to See" in where he talks about Greek art and language and how they inspired future artists. As with all of Cahill's books, he has to slip a little Jesus in there, no exception here. I just think the Socrates/Jesus comparison is a bit of a stretch, but I'll let him preach.
    • 4/5
      “No more than a dark shimmer in the air.” --Howard “Hootie” BlyA Dark Matter is Peter Straub’s latest novel. Don’t let the fact that his work is classified as horror scare you away. This categorization glosses over the fact that in reality Straub writes speculative fiction of a highly literate nature, with a special focus on the shadows, which is true in this case and in past novels such as Shadowland.As A Dark Matter opens, Lee Harwell is in search of his past. More correctly, he is in search of the past of his wife and friends, who experienced something one night in 1966 that they never explained to him, never let him in on, and never shared, though it shaped their lives and his from that night on.In the mid 1960s, the ripples of world change were striding across the American landscape. There were those who adroitly gauged the effects of the growing social unrest and seized upon that wave. One of these was Spencer Mallon, a young adventurer guru, who swept into Madison, Wisconsin, and wowed his way into the hearts, minds, pantries and bedrooms of a series of young students. All that talk of heady epiphanies ended on a night in mid-October, leaving behind Lee’s friends, forever altered, and another student’s mangled body in a field. There had been a transformation, as Mallon promised, but it wasn’t what any of them had expected.Four decades later, Lee tries to put the pieces back together again, one person at a time.Peter Straub’s books hold for me a certain type of enchantment, an allure that makes it difficult to nail down in my own words an accurate impression of his work. It has to do with mystery. It has to do with fleeting impressions and momentary glimpses that make you wonder. What was that about? Where did it come from? Did I really see that? Did I really hear that? Would a “yes” in answer to those last two questions really be a good thing?Perhaps this quote from Lewis Carroll’s Through the Looking Glass will make matters a little clearer: `The name of the song is called "Haddocks' Eyes."' `Oh, that's the name of the song, is it?' Alice said, trying to feel interested. `No, you don't understand,' the Knight said, looking a little vexed. `That's what the name is called. The name really is "The Aged Aged Man."' `Then I ought to have said "That's what the song is called"?' Alice corrected herself. `No, you oughtn't: that's quite another thing! The song is called "Ways and Means": but that's only what it's called, you know!' `Well, what is the song, then?' said Alice, who was by this time completely bewildered. `I was coming to that,' the Knight said. `The song really is "A-sitting On A Gate": and the tune's my own invention.'You see?I’m pretty sure I need to sit down and read the book again, because I want to. It’s been a few months now since I finished reading it for this review. It’s taken me that long to try to really process how the book captured me (and I still can’t quite do it). A lot of other reviewers have complained about the lack of oomph in the ending. I can see that – I think I myself felt a little let down, after the highs of the story itself. But if Straub really was doing an experiment with this book, in which time and perception weave their layers as bizarrely as they do in real life and its memories, why does the story really need an ending?“You’ll see. Everything stops when you open the door.” --Spencer Mallon
    • 3/5
      A Dark Matter was blurbed by some impressive writers, including Dan Chaon and Lorrie Moore, so I brought some high expectations to this book about the aftermath of an occult experiment undertaken by a group of students in the 1960s. The structure, in which a famous writer belatedly asks his friends, and his wife, to tell him the truth about What Happened in the Meadow, inspired a few of the blurbers to invoke Rashomon, but it never gripped me like that. Part of my problem is that I don't take occultism seriously, and it almost seems as if Straub does, especially in the high-minded, spiritually inclined climax. I don't mind suspending my disbelief, but this novel gave me no reason to. I was mostly bored.
    • 4/5
      As compelling as it is bizarre, in A Dark Matter, Peter Straub examines an occult ritual experienced by a group of teens from nearly every perspective. An idea which is interesting in concept but frustrating at times when put into practice. We begin the story many years after the terrifying events that shape the story have already taken place, and so, since the climax of the story is only referred to as memories, the entire tale is resolution. Straub builds an intensely layered story that makes you think about the fundamental philosophies of how we understand evil in modern times. If you’re hoping for a mindless page turning thriller, you’ll be disappointed as this novel is more subtle, ambiguous and intellectual than that. A Dark Matter is intensely creative but more strange and creepy than typically frightening. The audio version is read by Robertson Dean who gives an intense narration.
    • 2/5
      Mr Straub is a very difficult story teller to follow. I found this book was no exception. The characters tell an interesting story but it washard to keep interested.
    • 5/5
      Light on plot, but deep on meaning. I don't know if I read this book, or if it read me.
    • 2/5
      Much ado about nothing. Well written, but overlong with little substance. Sorry!
    • 2/5
      On some level, of course, Peter Straub writes well. But this book is sad testament to the current publishing reality, where unknown novelists are held to impossibly high standards while established writers get a free pass. The blurbs on this novel describe a book that isn’t here. It uses the Roshomon technique to little effect, creating shades of meaning so fine they may as well be non-existent, especially for a commercial novel. The structure keeps doubling back on itself, denuding the book of drama or suspense while the plot settles into a kind of stasis that can’t have been the author’s intention. And where was Peter Straub’s editor while he was mixing points of view and intermingling names to a point that, at times, approaches incoherence?
    • 4/5
      It's like this. You will like or dislike this book depending on your expectations. If you're expecting the kind of hackle-raising horror that is often associated with this author, you may be disappointed. If you are expecting a slam-bang, linear narrative in which all is revealed, you probably won't want to read it. It is really not so much a novel of horror but more of a look at the whole concept of the connectivity of good and evil, so if you come at it from that angle, you will definitely get much more out of it than if you think you're getting say, a book along the lines of Straub's Julia or If You Could See Me Now. If you're willing to put in the time and you can deal with a different approach to writing than you're used to seeing with this author, then it just might work out to be a good read. The key here is that this is not a passive book -- meaning that the reader has work to do here as well. The crux of this novel hinges on events that happened in the late 60s in Madison, Wisconsin. A group of high-school friends meet a strange and charismatic guru-ish figure named Spencer Mallon, and find themselves held in thrall by his teachings. With the exception of the narrator of this story, Lee Harwell, all of the kids go off with Mallon to be part of a ritual he's conducting at that time, accompanied by three other people, also followers of Mallon. What happened at that ritual is what Harwell, later in life, wants to determine. His wife, also Lee (but called "the Eel") was there, but over all of this time, has refused to let him in on the details. Little by little he gathers the story in pieces from all of the various participants with two exceptions: one person who was suspected, even in the 60s, of being a serial killer, and a friend of his who went missing afterwards. The book blurbs (and most reviews of this book) note that this is done in a "Rashomon" style, which is an apt description of how Harwell is able to glean an insight into not only what happened, but why things turned out as they did for each and every one of Mallon's groupies later in life. This is a work of metafiction, in which the author (Lee Harwell) is gathering information and retelling the story for a book he is writing. This sent up a flag for me -- can we really trust this guy in relating this information to the readers -- meaning, is Harwell a reliable narrator here? Also, this is mostly a character, rather than plot-driven novel, since each of the people involved have different aspects of the story to relate. While this is a cool approach, I was left with a sense of something lacking in most of the people involved that would provide more depth to this novel, with one exception, the kid who turned out to be the serial killer. Hmm. I was also happy to find Tim Underhill mentioned in this novel, since he's been one of my favorite characters since the Koko years. Overall, it's a good novel, although often a bit repetitious and thus frustrating sometimes early on, but stick with it. What Straub is trying to say here may not be new, but it is worth the time you put in to read the book. His approach is different but a good one. I don't know that I would specifically label it horror, but more of a psychological suspense with elements of the supernatural involved.
    • 4/5
      This is a so-so book, drawing on a limited array of sources, and it tries too hard to make the material seem jazzy and relevant. A far more appealing book, both from a scholarly perspective and from a reader's point of view, is Frederic Raphael's wonderful [Some Talk of Alexander]. Recommend that instead of this, heartily...
    • 3/5
      From a historical point of view, I realize that every scrap of writing and every potshard is precious, especially when speaking of ancient and thinly documented society. But when I commented to a friend that otherwise, the Muslims need not have bothered preserving Greek philosophy, she was horrified. Especially that masterwork, Plato's Republic, which I have read and she has not, but which she knows is excellent. She emphatically recommended this book to me.I think that Cahill fails in his stated goal: "to retell the story of the Western world as the story of ... those who entrusted to our keeping one or another of the singulartreasures that make up the patrimony of the West." It is a historical truism that Western cultural arises primarily from the interaction of of the Greco-Roman and the Judeo-Christian. I cannot see why it is necessary to have yet another book that merely restates this without building a careful case to demonstrate it. To really do this, Cahill needs to show that the Greeks were so different from their contemporaries that history would have been altered without them. He also needs to show necessary links to later Western culture. He does neither of these very well. In his chapter on philosophy, for example, Cahill contents himself with asserting, without demonstrating, that only the Greeks developed philosophy as a systematic study, and quoting Alfred North Whitehead: European philosophical tradition ... consists as a series of footnotes to Plato." (And if it does, in my opinion, so much the worse for Western philosophy!) Otherwise, the chapter consists of a brief history of Greek philosophy with a focus on a couple of works by Plato.Indeed, the whole books works better as a brief survey of Greece with the usual short-comings. Athens is primary subject, with Sparta running a poor second and the rest of Greece as also rans. There is little on non-elites, especially the rural population. Cahill appears to have relied on art and literature, without using much other archeological information. This last is one of his problems with discussing other ancient cultures. Many of them are poorly documented either by writings or by artifacts, and he never addresses the hazards of assuming, in such cases, that absence of evidence is evidence of absence.A slight ambiguity in the book is the question of whether Cahill is tracing both good and bad influences. The issue of whether something has been an important influence is somewhat different from the question of whether or not it has been a good influence. In his introduction, Cahill seems find his "gift-givers" almost entirely beneficial. I question, however, whether the Christian theological disputes that he attributes to Greek influence were not mostly maleficial. Aristotle has been both a blessing and a bane for science and reason, although one could certainly make the case that he cannot be blamed if the Christian church turned his ideas into dogma. In the end, I suppose that most readers will be left with the attitudes that they started with, so the book is recommended chiefly to established fans of ancient Greece.The book includes an index, list of famous people, and bibliographical references.
    • 4/5
      Cahill's object in this book is not to present a scholarly screed on the merits and demerits of the Ancient Greeks, but to transmit to the reader their humanity and personality in a way that veers from lyricism to a selective recitation of how they lived to influence the rise of the West. Not for him the weary recounting of kings and battles, but rather the enjoyment of their art, a meditation on their language, and an appreciation of their myths.I, a relative novice in the historical arts, mired in the contemporary dogmas of multiculturalism, gained something from this book. It is that culture matters, and that not all cultures are equal at all times, for all times. The Greeks brought some unique materials to the table of a progressing civilization, and it merits some study to determine what the threads running through it were.Their much celebrated discoveries of the practice of democracy, their penchant for skepticism, and invention of a heartless logic, all influence our own version of civilization in ways that we are hardly aware of, and that our pedagogues of today would have you believe came from everywhere but the Greeks.Yes, the Greeks enslaved others, they killed one another endlessly, loved carelessly, believed in the merits of their race, and excluded women from their political palavers. But this is true of almost all civilizations everywhere at all times, and arguing that the Greeks are unworthy of our attention as a consequence, although fashionable in the current abominations of the academy, is as stupid as arguing that chemistry can be taught without acknowledging the centrality of the elements.Cahill's sometimes excessively irreverent style, and his annoying attention to speculations on sexual matters, occasionally get in the way of his central message, but overall he has done a credible job here and produced a thought-provoking book that is worth reading, especially for multiculturalists with an open mind.