Book Review: Dark Matter

Spoilers!

This is not my world. Whatever our constituent parts — as reconstituted exploded stardust, if you will — humans like to think whatever it is that makes us us is unique. That is the entire conceit of being human and the miraculous nature of being conscious in an unfathomable universe. But what if there is more than one universe, an infinity of universes, in fact, and an infinity of me? That is, infinite versions of me created out of every possible choice I’ve made and permutations of that choice possible and permutations of the choices after those choices and so on for infinity. Is the me here and now representative of the true me? What does it even mean to say this me at this point in time on the multiverse infinite branch is the “true” me? This is the philosophical madness behind thinking through the multiverse. In his 2016 book, Dark Matter, Blake Crouch has additional, horrific designs in mind when crafting his version of this individual hell.

Jason is a middling (by his admission) local college science professor, who sacrificed scientific breakthroughs and individual adulation, to start a family. He has a teenage son, Charlie, and a wife of 15 years, Daniela, who also sacrificed a seemingly promising career in the art world for marriage and a child. One night on his way back home, Jason’s kidnapped and attacked. Something seems oddly familiar to him about his attacker, who clearly knows Jason, so, this isn’t a random kidnapping and attack. It’s at this point I had the inkling in my head that Jason was being attacked by himself. Or a version of himself, rather. Seriously! I never read the synopsis, so, I knew nothing about the book prior. As it turns out, Jason was attacked by Jason2, a multiverse version of Jason who didn’t get married and have a child and instead went on to revolutionize science by creating a quantum box (Schrödinger’s cat’s box, essentially) to open a portal into the multiverse, where our own thoughts, hopes, fears, and dreams are the “controls” for “driving” the box into other worlds — those aforementioned infinite permutations of the choices we make in our lives.

Jason2, who has achieved all the success, fame, and fortune that original Jason thought he sacrificed or could have had, now wants what Jason has: a family and Daniela specifically. He has regrets, and he believes the multiverse is a way of “correcting” those mistakes. That is, if we made a regret in one branch of our lives, we can simply hop over to another branch where we didn’t make that choice and instead, made the optimal choice. Despite Jason2 being Jason in look and voice, he still isn’t the original Jason because obviously, his life experience has made his constituents parts different. And Daniela notices and can’t quite put her finger on why Jason is different, but Jason is different.

This is one of the most disturbing horrors that isn’t featured much in horror: being with someone who is ostensibly the someone you know and love, but who isn’t actually that person. I used to have a recurring nightmare that my dad was replaced by an evil dad. What’s worse is that Jason2 and Daniela are intimate. That’s rape, right?! He’s a stranger! Again, horrifying, when you really think through the implications of what Crouch has presented us.

But it also goes back to my point that even in a multiverse world, where the many Jasons do think similar and perhaps are all along the same spectrum of personality, with OG Jason representing one extreme end of the spectrum (getting it all with family), and Jason2 representing other extreme of the spectrum (the one who got it all with professional success), there is still important and unique differences that make each Jason their own Jason.

As mentioned, because of the way the multiverse works, our imagination essentially sends us to the world we manifest. So, throughout the book, Jason experiences horrifying otherworlds. Well, first is the world where Jason2’s fellow scientists think he’s the brilliant Jason2 and are willing to kill for the success and power of the quantum box. Once he escapes with the company’s therapist, Amanda, who has a heart and helps him escape via the box, they encounter further horrifying worlds, like one seemingly destroyed by nuclear war, one from Amanda’s mind with a starve-to-death bad blizzard, and ones where Jason experiences various versions of Daniela’s death, from gunshot to car accident to contagious disease. He experiences a futuristic Chicago, though, but it’s still not his Chicago with his family. And he also goes through homelessness and fights for survival among other Jasons who sprung off from that initial confrontation between OG Jason and Jason2, all trying to get back to Daniela and Charlie. It makes your head spin in horror!

Eventually, Jason does manage to get back to his actual family and think “outside the box” to get them to safety and convince them of the fact that he’s the OG Jason. After they kill Jason2 (and another Jason) in self-defense, Jason and Daniela let Charlie pick the next world they step into.

Crouch’s book demonstrates two fundamental truths, though:
1.) It is inescapable in the machinations of being a human being to live a life without wondering about the road not taken and experienced. Curiosity breeds regrets, which is unavoidable and normal.
2.) It’s sappy, but I’m a sucker for sap: Crouch’s book is sci-fi and horrific, but it’s predominantly a love story about Jason trying to get back to Daniela and Charlie; his Daniela and Charlie. Love remains undefeated as the strongest force in the multiverse because even across infinity, love remains the tether to the reality we know.

And really, the third one I’ve been talking about throughout that there is still something within us that makes us uniquely us, even when you weigh the scale with infinity.

A few random thoughts I had while reading:

• Jason definitely cheated on OG Daniela, and it doesn’t matter that it was another Daniela! He admits this to her, but his rationale doesn’t pass the smell test to me.
• I would love to know what happened with Amanda, who split from Jason because, if we’re being honest, Jason did Amanda dirty multiple times in their journey through the multiverse, and was selfish at times to the point of being dangerous with her life.
• What’s up with Jason’s brother? When Jason is hiding from the evil scientists in Jason2’s world, he visits a doctor, and the doctor asks if they should call his brother who reported him missing. Jason doesn’t want to though. What history is going on there? At first, I was assuming regular sibling estrangement, but when I filter this rumination through the multiverse, I start wondering if they’re twins and the brother was one of the Jasons, maybe even Jason2?
• OG Jason’s plan at the end to hold a lottery with all the other Jasons for who would “get” to be with Daniela was not only stupid, but as Daniela rightly objected to, was objectifying her! One of the interesting things about OG Jason is that he never really outsmarted any of the other Jasons, including Jason2, with his science brain. Rather, he outsmarted them with street smarts more than anything.
• In one of the universes, Jason stalks (I mean, that’s what he’s self-admittedly doing!) Daniela with another Jason, and even calls that Daniela. She has a conversation with her as her world’s Jason. Later, she sees that Daniela and Jason together. Wouldn’t those two have a conversation about the weird phone call from earlier and chaos would ensue?!
• One of the reader’s guide books questions at the end of the book is if I would rather be OG Jason or Jason2, and that’s an easy one for me: OG Jason. My decision doesn’t hinge on the career/family dichotomy Crouch presented, either. Instead, it hinges on the fact that Jason2 was willing to kill. Sure, OG Jason had the thought, but he only ever harmed other Jasons in self-defense.
• I’ll end on a random nerdy moment: I believe in the futuristic Chicago, Jason and Amanda see a building that is 7,082 feet, making it the third largest in the Midwest. For comparison, the world’s tallest building in our universe is 2,716.5 feet (Burj Khalifa). In that futuristic world with Chicago, I wonder how tall the tallest building is then?!

Crouch’s book is my first or second favorite read of the year because it’s so well-written, with a fast past and suspense, thought-provoking, horrifying, and also, romantic and lovely. It’s the latter, I think more than any of the horrifying elements, that will stick with me the most. I highly, highly recommend it, and I would love to talk theories with people!