A Dark Matter by Peter Straub

The Guardian newspaper's critic said, about this book "……terrifying……" and "Gripping". Stephen King, that master of terror and suspense, said "Terrifying……impossible to put down", so I have to wonder - is it just me?

The story tells of 4 American High School students, 2 College 'frat boys' and a beautiful teenage girl who all fall under the spell of a man who purports to be a charismatic, travelling, free spirit, a psychic, a wizard. He tells them he can change the world, if only for a moment, through a special ritual that he proposes to hold in a local field. This is the 1960s, when the world seems to be full of people like this character, Spencer Mallon, so it's less difficult yo believe that these kids would follow a character like this than it is, perhaps, nowadays, in our more cynical times.

The story is told, in retrospect, by the husband of one of the main characters - a girl nicknamed the Eel (her name, Lee, backwards). It works less well in the UK, where the female variant is Leigh but that's by-the-by. His name is also Lee (confused? you will be!) Harwell and they, together, are nicknamed, the Twins.
The 4 students all have nicknames, too and Straub flips backwards and forwards between the full names, shortened names and nicknames often - sometimes several times in the same sentence. More confusion.

All 5 of these characters - the students plus the teenage girl - are telling their versions of the story to Lee (the husband) much later on in their histories, after years of being separated by life's experiences and the trauma of the night in the field with Spencer. The incident in the field is filled with weird and inexplicable happenings, such as the appearance of nightmarish creatures, a tear in the fabric of reality and violent death.

There is redemption in the telling, and a repairing of old, fractured, relationships, but there are also a number of hanging threads. Who, for example, is the character who appears at the edge of Lee's (the husband, not the Eel) vision? Who is the man who gives him a warning that saves his life, and why? these, and other questions, are never answered.

I found this book neither frightening or satisfactory. The explanations of what happened in the field are long - perhaps too long - and grow tedious, which isn't conducive to the generation of fear. As for frightening - well, it might work as a film (visual images are certainly more evocative) but I can't say that I was frightened anywhere in this story. It's laboured and loose in it's construction, so much so that I struggled to maintain my motivation to read it and almost gave up several times. Sorry, but can't recommend.

A Dark Matter is published by Doubleday.