A Dark Matter

One wonders why the likes of Lorrie Moore and Michael Chabon are championing this book, which Chabon goes so far as to call a masterpiece. I'm guessing that Moore and Straub are colleagues at UW-Madison; and, as a college professor myself, I can imagine that Moore might have felt she had no other choice.

The characters are poorly developed; one doesn't believe in any of them, let alone care about what happens to them. The plot, such as it is, is propelled along by the author's magical intervention. We learn what each middle-aged character saw "in the meadow" 40 years ago, and the answer is: different kinds of meaningless, even embarrassing, hocus-pocus. Nothing that we learn is even remotely scary, though much of it is laughable (e.g., the devil who shows up dressed in preppy clothes and speaking in a "New York" accent -- an especially painful stretch of poor Robertson Dean's somniferous narration -- whose name is "Doity Thoid" (get it? 33rd? hahaha!)).

What propelled me to the end was curiosity about how Straub might get himself out of the boring mess he was creating. The answer is: he doesn't. Ouch.

Don't waste your money/credits on this book. I felt I was drugged while listening to this book. I could not get into it. I pride myself in listening to every book I get no matter how bad it may turn out, but this one broke me. I could not listen to one more repeat or forward/backward telling. I am not for sure I would reconize the end when it came. I have liked his books in the past, but this is not worth even trying. If I can save even one person from trying this book, I have done my part

After suffering through Peter Straub's "A Dark Matter" I discovered an entirely new idea of what hell must be like. It must be like sitting in the coach section of an American Airlines 767 with Peter Straub seated at the front of that section reading aloud from "A Dark Matter." I can think of absolutely nothing more horrifying. The ineptitude of his prose, the relenteless silliness of his images and descriptions, the brainlessness of his "characters" as Straub's words wander aimlessly over the page in search of a plot. If this was a 7th grade writing exercise, the teacher would ask the child to throw it out and start over. And to think that only one month ago I concluded no one could tell a dumber story with greater ineptitude or more hollow pretense than little John Irving in "Last Night in Twisted River," when along comes Straub to prove me dead wrong. This book is not nearly as frightening or as fun as Mr. Toad's Wild Ride in Disneyland. And what is most frightening about it is its determination to continue on and on and on with neither plot or purpose as if the author was paid only by the word. The horror, the horror.

I really wanted to like this book. I loved older books written by Straub, like Ghost Story and Koko. Ghost Story is still one of the best horror stories I've ever read.
But Peter Straub began to slip some time in late 80's or early 90's. His books became strained, vague, and uninteresting. He completely changed genres. So I basically gave up on Straub.
With A Dark Matter, I decided to give him another shot, hoping that he had returned to some form of horror. I shouldn't have wasted my credit. I should have known better.
This story is boring and repetitive. It simply explores several characters' bizarre dreams and imaginations (I think). It was frankly difficult to follow. I gave up on the book before I finished it. I just couldn't hang in there. I can't tell you if the ending was any better because I never got to the end.
The only good thing about this book is the narrator. Robertson Dean is excellent, I've listened to some of his other narrations, and he never dissappoints.

I can't add much to what's already been written about this boring waste of time and money. I, like another reviewer thought at one time that Mr. Straub was destined to become the next Stephen King, this dreadful effort has finally put that possibility to rest.

Being a fan of Peter Straub since his Ghost Story days, I was verry disappointed with A Dark Matter. It is a boring story made worse by a dull uninspiring narrator whose voice and diction are out place with the story line which is essentially a 60's mind bender.

The first Straub book I read was Shadowland way back when. The first 100 or so pages were a challenge to get through but once you got to Shadowland the book really took off making it a great read. I was hoping for the same thing after struggling through the first few hours of "A Dark Matter". No such luck, uninspired narration and frankly a wandering and boring storyline with no real payoff and that is being generous. Pretty much a waste of a credit in my opinion. Don't bother.

I thought the book itself wasn't all that bad, what ruined it for me was the narrator. There was not enough differentiation in his voice to easily follow which character was speaking at any given time. I had a very hard time picking up when one character stopped speaking and the next started. I think if the narration had been better, the book would have been much more enjoyable to listen to and the plot more easily followed.

I am finally giving up on Peter Straub. After reading "Ghost Story," I thought that he was the next best thing to Stephen King. Alas, nothing he has written since comes close to GS, and much of it, like "A Dark Matter" is almost unreadable. It did not take long before I did not care about the characters or how the story would end. One can suspend disbelief only so far, and the author takes us about a light year beyond that point in this book. It is amusing that the nickname of one of the book's charactor's is Dil and that at one point he and the main character try to remember the name of the author of "To Kill a Mockingbird." Mr. Straub should have taken Harper Lee's cue and quit after his first masterpiece.

I'm new to audible.com and really really wished I had realized there were book reviews. If I had read them - and I agree with every one of them - I would have never chosen this book. It was boring, hard to follow, and just plain mind numbing. I will be reviewing books from now on.