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. 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. 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.Īfter suffering through Peter Straub's 'A Dark Matter' I discovered an entirely new idea of what hell must be like. 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.Īs 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.

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. The charismatic and cunning Spenser Mallon is a campus guru in the 1960s, attracting the devotion and demanding sexual favors of his young acolytes. The incomparable master of horror and suspense returns with a powerful, brilliantly terrifying novel that redefines the genre in original and unexpected ways.

Peter straub a dark matter review