Blake Crouch On The Book We Can't Stop Listening To

Note: Text has been edited for clarity and will not match audio exactly.

Known for high-concept fiction with breakneck pacing and groundbreaking genre crossbreeding, Blake Crouch has sold more than a million books, including those from his Wayward Pines trilogy, which has been turned into a TV series that airs on FOX. His latest novel, Dark Matter, is a science-fiction thriller about choices, paths not taken, and how far we’ll go to claim the life we dream of.

Audible: Blake, thank you so much for spending time with us today.

Blake Crouch: My pleasure. Thanks so much for having me on.

A: For starters, congratulations on Dark Matter. I honestly loved it on so many levels it’s hard to know where to begin.

BC: Wow, thank you.

A: In your own words, and with the knowledge that we’d like to keep this discussion as spoiler-free as possible, could you tell us what the book is all about?

BC: Dark Matter is about a guy named Jason Dessen who is a forty-something-year-old college physics professor. We first meet him in Chicago when he’s walking home one night to see his wife and his son. There was a point in his mid-twenties when, instead of being a professor, he could have been this star in his field. Instead he ended up getting married to the love of his life, Daniela, and going down that road instead. He’s thrilled that he did that, but still occasionally, he has that twinge of “what if?”

Before he can make it home, he is abducted by this masked man at gunpoint, given a strange drug, and when he wakes up again, he’s in Chicago — but it’s no Chicago he’s ever seen. His wife is not his wife; in fact, he’s never been married. He doesn’t have a son. Instead of being a physics professor at a second-rate college, he is this world-renowned physicist who has created something incredible.

A: Why did you name it “Dark Matter”?

BC: First of all, I love the way it sounded. It just felt like a big thriller, but dark matter, the actual scientific definition is: We have this whole universe around us but all the matter we can observe only counts for a small percentage of it.

We know that there’s all this other matter out there because of the way that galaxies behave around each other, because of this gravity that’s exerted from this matter that does not reflect light and is completely undetectable. They call it “dark matter.” It’s the force that holds galaxies together. Some physicists, string theorists in particular, would say that dark matter is a clue to the existence of the multiverse.

I liked the idea of calling the book Dark Matter because of that and also because it’s about a dark matter: a man getting a chance to live life if he’d made a different choice.

A: You mentioned “multiverse.” For those who are non-versed in the multiverse, could you just sum up real quick what the multiverse is?

BC: The theory of the multiverse comes partly from this guy named Everett who many, many years ago posited this idea that said every thought we have, every choice we could possibly make, actually creates a new universe. In other words, if instead of getting on this phone call today with you, maybe you tried to call me and had a wrong number and just couldn’t get in touch with me and we never had this interview.

Instead of seeing all these other universes, which are around us, this thing called “decoherence” keeps us locked in our own universe, which is the one that we choose to see …

A: That would be sad.

BC: That would be sad, but the many-worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics says that there is a universe out there where we never had this phone interview.

Instead of seeing all these other universes, which are around us, this thing called “decoherence” keeps us locked in our own universe, which is the one that we choose to see, moment to moment.

A: Before we go any further, could we just talk a little basic physics? What is quantum superposition and how is it related to a cat?

BC: First of all, let me explain what quantum mechanics actually means, because that’s kind of the starting point. Quantum mechanics is the field of physics that studies how particles behave at the subatomic level. Particles seem to do really mysterious, spooky things. They appear to exist in different places at the same time.

Superposition is when a particle is in a quantum state of being in several states at the same time or being in all states at the same time. There’s a thought experiment which is the foundation of dark matter. It’s called Schrodinger’s cat.

You have a cat in a box, and inside this box is a source of lethal radiation that will be unleashed if an atom decays. The atom, for the purposes of the thought experiment, has an equal chance of decaying and not decaying. In other words, until we open this box and look inside, the cat exists in this superposition of being both alive and dead.

The cool thing is that when we open the box, we reduce the system down into one outcome. The many-worlds theory, which I was alluding to earlier, basically says there’s a world where you open the box and you find a living cat, and there’s also a world where you open the box and find a dead cat. Both of those worlds continue on indefinitely parallel to each other but always separate. You’re never able to bridge the gap between them or to travel between them.

Dark Matter poses the question: What if instead of a cat inside of this box, what if you put a human being inside such an experiment and actually let that person move between realities?

A: In Dark Matter, as in your Wayward Pines trilogy, you delve into the very nature of reality. You’re forcing characters to confront the dissonance between the reality they’ve known and the reality they now face or see. Why do you find the idea of reality so fascinating, and how would you actually define it?

BC: That’s an awesome question. You are totally right. Beginning with Wayward Pines, I have — for reasons that I’m not entirely sure of — been obsessed with this idea of reality and of identity and what is real. What does “reality” actually mean? I wish I could tell you I knew why, but I can’t. Maybe in five years from now, and with lots of therapy sessions, I’ll be able to understand why I’m obsessed with writing characters who are detached and undermined by their sense of reality.

For every path I didn’t take, another version of me did. The actual identity of “me” is all the paths taken.

A: Is there any such thing as a fundamental or a true “reality” in your opinion?

BC: I don’t know that there is. When you get really deep down into the nitty-gritty of quantum mechanics and cosmology, the idea of a reality itself just kind of crumbles away. Is my reality what your reality is? Do I really see the world the way that you see the world?

I think these questions are fascinating. I mean, you just say, “What is the color red?” I know what I think the color red is, and you know what you think the color red is. Is it really the same color when we imagine it in our minds?

A: In addition to reality, and I think you mentioned it just a second ago, you also explore the concept of identity. In other words, how do you know you’re “you,” and maybe even more importantly, what makes you “you”?

BC: After this, could we tackle good and evil? (Laughs) We’re getting deep here. I don’t know if that’s answerable. It’s one of the intriguing things about this book that made me want to write it.

In Dark Matter, my main character lands at the conclusion that I am not the only definition of me. I am the sum total of all the choices I could ever have made. For every path I didn’t take, another version of me did. The actual identity of “me” is all the paths taken.

A: Another cornerstone of Dark Matter, as you said, is the tremendous impact of all the choices we all make every day, from the tiniest, seemingly inane decisions to the ones we recognize as big, right there in the moment. Could you say a little bit about this quote from Dark Matter? ”It’s terrifying when you consider that every thought we have, every choice we could possibly make, branches into a new world.”

BC: When I started writing the book, I thought that one of the most profound parts of it would be the disparity between a character who is the same person essentially, but ten years ago made a profoundly different choice that dramatically affected their life. What I actually found was that it’s the small choices that you make that can be just as terrifying.

It’s the tiny little things, I mean, as small as: I decided to wear a green shirt today instead of a blue shirt. What if that green shirt, instead, caught the eye of someone on the street who may not have otherwise noticed me in a blue shirt, and we struck up a conversation and I became entangled in that person’s life — and the only reason I did was because of which color shirt I chose to wear.

If you made one choice differently, it would skew all the others.

It’s the little tiny choices that we make that can lead to massive upheaval. I was very aware of it writing this book. It kind of brain-damaged me for a little bit, because when you sit around thinking all day about choices — and should you make the wrong tiny choice that you’re not even aware of — you could completely upend your life. That can bring its own set of neuroses.

A: Speaking of choices, here’s another quote. This one honestly did keep me up a little bit at night. The quote is, “Life is imperfect. We make the wrong choices, so we end up living in a state of perpetual regret.” Can you talk about what constitutes a wrong choice, and is it a question of perspective?

BC: I think it’s absolutely a question of perspective. The character who says those lines of dialogue is living in a state of regret in the book, and it leads them to do a terrible thing. I don’t think that perspective is healthy or wise. I think that’s the perspective of a damaged man. I think that the healthy perspective is that there are no really wrong choices. All the choices will ultimately lead to you being where you are right this moment.

Maybe you’re not a million percent thrilled with every aspect of your life, and you think: “If I’d done something different in the past, things would be just a little bit better.” It doesn’t work like that. If you made one choice differently, it would skew all the others. You wouldn’t be in a situation where you do love 70 or 80 or whatever percentage of the good things in your life.

A: You mentioned Jason’s wife, Daniela, previously. It’s a good opportunity to talk about the fact that, even though the premise of Dark Matter is grounded in science and quantum mechanics and physics, the book is driven by human relationships and connections, particularly Jason’s relationship with his wife and son. Could you say a little bit about that?

BC: I think where Dark Matter moves out of the realm of your more standard sci-fi fare and into something else is in the story of Jason and Daniela, because their connection is almost other-worldly. When Jason is separated from her early on in the book, it’s his drive to get back to her, and his understanding of what he lost and how special that connection is, that really is the engine for the book. And because of that, I’m describing Dark Matter as the first love story I’ve ever written.

A: We talked about identity a little, earlier. I think, for him, it really is his relationship to her and to his son Charlie that defines a great part of him to himself.

BC: It is. It’s very much the story of a man trying to find home and what that is to him, and asking himself, “Am I the best version of me? Am I living the life I was meant to be living?” Those questions lead him on this epic journey to find home and his way back to the people he loves.

I feel like I left everything on the field with this book.

A: Which authors or works have had the biggest influence on you?

BC: I love Cormac McCarthy very, very much. Just as a writer, I admire his writing and his style more than anyone else. The Road is probably my favorite book of all time. That and Blood Meridian.

Pat Conroy’s Prince of Tides was the first adult novel I read as a child, and it just made a huge impact on me in terms of the way he wrote emotion and wasn’t afraid to really bring emotion into a story.

I’m also a big fan of Thomas Harris. Silence of the Lambs was a big thriller book for me.

A: I’d like to turn the conversation to audio for a moment. Have you listened to the audio version of Dark Matter?

BC: I have not. To be fair, I have never listened to one of my audiobooks.

A: Do you have a reason?

BC: Yes. By the way, I love audiobooks. I have my workout audiobooks, and right now I’m listening to Orphan X by Gregg Hurwitz. It’s amazing. It’s so good, it makes me want to go work out more because I only let myself listen to it while I’m working out.

It’s nothing against my own audiobooks that I haven’t listened to them. It’s just that by the time a book of mine is ready to be produced as an audiobook, I am so sick and tired of the story, I cannot bear to hear a sentence one more time. If I hear someone read the sentence, I’ll undoubtedly imagine a way that sentence could be better, and it will just send me down this death spiral of self-doubt and questioning, and I don’t need to go there.

A: What’s next for you? Can we look forward to a Dark Matter 2 maybe?

BC: I’m not going to write a sequel to Dark Matter. I feel like I left everything on the field with this book. I’m in the process of planning that next idea as we speak.

When I’m ready to start thinking about my next book, I just journal. I take lots of notes. I chase down storylines and ideas for characters that interest me. I’m always scouring the internet for emerging technologies and fields of science that I don’t know a lot about, and that I feel like maybe the public doesn’t know a lot about, but that I want to learn more about.

For me, one of the big things that makes my work exciting to me is the idea that the stories are already out there. They’re buried. All the books I’ll ever write, and all the stories I’ll ever tell, are already inside of me. I just have to dig them up. That really resonates with me. I do believe that my next book idea’s already in me. I just have to find it.