posted on 16 Jan 2023

Dark Matter by Michelle Paver

Over the Christmas period I was keen to find a top rate ghost story and digging past the first row of books on the shelves I came upon Michelle Paver’s trilogy of sophisticated, brilliantly written chillers – Thin Air, Wakenhyst and Dark Matter. Oddly enough, I’ve already done reviews of Thin Air and Wakenhyst but, I discovered, I’d not done one Dark Matter which was published 2010 and preceded the other two. This was enough to convince me that a reread was probably in order given that over a decade had passed since I first fell under its spell.

The story of Jack Miller’s experiences as a member of an amateur expedition to the Arctic in 1937 is told by way of giving us privileged access to his ‘lost’ journal. We see everything that happens through his eyes and we are increasingly unsure whether the horrors he faces are ‘real’ or whether they are a metaphor for his crumbling state of mind.

Miller, a penniless lower middle-class ‘grammar-school boy with a London degree’ answers an advertisement to join an expedition to the Arctic which is being organised by four upper-class Oxbridge graduates. From the very outset, Miller is constantly undermined by his feelings of inadequacy – social and financial – and channels these emotions into personal animosity towards ‘the fat one’ of the group, Algie Carlisle. Despite his stroppiness the expedition party seem to think Miller's skills as a communications expert are just what they need and eventually they are all heading north and trying to find their sea legs.

They are heading to the Arctic to collect ‘data’ that might in the future be useful if there is another European war and decide that a place called Gruhuken would be the ideal spot. But this decision turns out to be one which will have unexpected and tragic consequences. Things start to take a turn for the worst when they announce their destination to the captain of the boat – who immediately flatly refuses to go there but will not say why.

Bad luck starts to dog the expedition from this point onwards and although they eventually bully the ship captain and crew to help them set up at Gruhuken, two of the party have to drop out through injury and illness. This leaves just the three men and a pack of Husky dogs. Jack’s dislike of Algie is paralleled by a growing hero-worship of the expedition leader, Gus.

Soon Jack’s uneasiness with the constant winter dark begins to translate itself into visions of horror that he can barely articulate. When Gus goes down with peritonitis and he and Algie are forced to leave, Jack stubbornly decides to stay in the solitary shack, taking his weather readings in order to keep the expedition alive. As he waits for the others to return following Gus’ operation, we keep him and the dogs company as a sort of nameless terror gathers around him. And, who is that mysterious figure that materialises in the icy wastes?

I’m obviously not going to reveal more of the story at this point because it would be a terrible spoiler but in many ways the denouement of the story is way less interesting than the tangible atmosphere of dread and fear that Paver manages to create for the reader. I genuinely felt the physical and mental torment that Jack finds himself enduring.

If you like your supernatural suspense to burn slowly and to drag you step by step along a path you feel instinctively you don’t want to go down, this is a book for you. In lots of ways it depends on the creation of atmosphere, not unlike the kind you get with the best of M.R. James, and as a result you feel at the end that the ‘ghostly’ part of the story is rather less substantial than you felt it was as you battled with Jack against his mental demons.  

Paperback and hardback copies are not hard to find and not expensive – a small investment for guaranteed chills.

 

Terry Potter

January 2023