The paperback copy of Peter Straub’s A Dark Matter, which is the format I read, is splattered with high praise from critics and other major novelists alike.  It’s called superb, terrifying, a masterpiece, and the San Francisco Chronicle says it ”leaves one satisfied.”

Lies, all lies.  Here’s my opinion of A Dark Matter:  Pointless–completely and utterly pointless.  Reading it is akin to watching a balloon deflate, minus the entertainment and fun.

In 1966 a group of high school kids fall under the sway of a guru named Spencer Mallon.  The kids, Lee Truax (nicknamed the Eel), Hootie, Boats, and Dilly, agree to join Mallon and three college kids, Meredith, Milstrap, and the psychotic (possible serial killer) Keith Hayward.  The one hold-out is the Eel’s boyfriend, Lee Harwell, is called Twin since the two Lees look alike.  It’s probably a good thing Twin stayed home (Twin thought Mallon was full of bull).  The ceremony the group performed in a meadow opened a rift between dimensions and a bunch of somethings came through–Milstrap got abducted into another reality and poor, crazy, Keith Hayward got torn to bits like Dionysus.  From everything they witnessed that day, Hootie soon found refuge in a mental institution and the Eel eventually went blind.

In the present day, the Eel is married to her high school sweetheart, Lee Harwell, who is a very successful, very famous, novelist.  Lee is stumped on what to write next, and after his agent and editor suggest he write a non-fiction book, he soon concludes he wants to put the past to rest by writing the definitive story of what happened in the meadow.  The Eel tells him go ahead, and when she’s ready to talk she’ll let him know, and instructs him to start with Dilly.  Dill is fresh from prison; he got put away for some indiscretions with an underage girl as part of his teachings he learned from Mallon.  Lee Harwell takes him in and they begin piecing the events of 1966 together–no one in the group saw exactly the same things.

Their investigation takes them back to their hometown of Madison, Wisconsin, and to the mental institution Hootie has been at for forty-plus long years.  They gradually track down each member of the group, talk to them, get their view of events, and their thoughts on the ceremony, Mallon, and the other participants.  After getting the story from everyone else, the Eel is finally ready to tell them the definitive word on that disatrous day.

But the Eel’s story comes at the end of the book, and it’s a long damn way from the first page to her small section.  If you enjoy reading about people sitting around and talking about the past, you have found literary heaven in A Dark Matter.  If you are one of those picky readers who kind of like it when somethinghappens in a long, sprawling, story, then you’re better off watching the balloon I mentioned near the start of this review.

There is no denying Peter Straub is a great writer, and I urge readers to go and seek out some of his other works such as Ghost Story or The Hellfire Club (a personal favorite).  For all the nothing contained within A Dark Matter, I couldn’t force myself to stop reading it, although I really, really, wanted to along the way.  I wanted to make it to the end to know how it all turned out.  I don’t like the book for that reason, I despise the book for that reason.  When I finally read the last page and closed this book, I was elated that I it was finally over, and I felt the urge to throw it against the wall or into the garbage.  It was a waste of two weeks.  But Straub is so good, I just had to finish it.  Two weeks…I’ll never get them back.

The saddest part of it all is that Straub defeats himself in A Dark Matter.  The characters are so well drawn, life is so real and grounded and rounded, when the supernatural mumbo-jumbo juju stuff begins to rear its head, it’s silly.  It’s not believable.  I would have liked to have read the story of Keith Hayward, of Lee Harwell trying to discover if someone he and his friends socialized with, albeit briefly, was a murderer or not.  That is the missed opportunity, learning the nature of true evil.

1.5 out of 5
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