#BlogTour ‘Darke Matter’ by Rick Gekoski

About the book…

‘Clever, witty and perceptive . . . Gekoski writes movingly about love, loss and grief, while handling the difficult issue of assisted dying with considerable balance and finesse. Beautifully written, engrossing and heartbreakingly funny’ Mail on Sunday

‘Stylish, funny and daring . . . the clarity and energy of Darke Matter fill you with light’ The Times (best summer books)

‘Harrowing, funny, tender and nearly always beautifully written’ Sunday Times

James Darke is dreading the first family Christmas without his wife Suzy. Engulfed by grief, his grudging preparations are interrupted by a persistent knock at the door. Questions about the circumstances of his wife’s death force him to confront the outside world and what really happened to her.

Isolated, angry and diminished, James soon faces a crisis both legal and psychological. It will test his resolve and threaten his freedom.

‘Darke Matter’ is a brilliant, mordant examination of the nature and obligations of love. Both immensely sad and extremely funny, the story wrestles with one of the great moral issues of our time.

The surprising sequel to ‘Darke’ . . .

‘I don’t need the pretence, I’m used to misery and crimp,they suit me just fine’

Dr James Darke, the doctor of philosophy, not medicine, has made himself a cocoon of isolation that couldn’t make it any clearer that he is in mourning for his late wife Suzy. Having nursed her through cancer, he has painted the front door black, removed the door knocker, the post box and ignores anything that intrudes on what is his new reality. Invitations to a group of poetry enthusiasts from his fellow academic, Dorothea, are answered sporadically, his attendance to one of her ‘Group Of Grievers’ goes very wrong….regret is immediate and forthcoming.

‘My attachment to  my wife,and hers to me,is unrelenting,a constant reminder that it is no attachment at all,save that provided by the persistence of memory.And of love.’

His daughter and grandchildren break through his grief sporadically, and then finally because he has to face the potential consequences of his action in giving Suzy her last drink, and so, is accused of at worst, murder, at best, euthanasia. His subsequent thoughts on the matter become a viral sensation, quite accidentally, as he compares the assistance through the veil to death of loved ones, to that of the mercy deaths of pets.

This is a novel which is at once brave and pernicious, playing fast and loose with plotting through the three acts which make up the story. It is a study of loss and grief whilst being a genuinely philosophical meditation on the regard we have for fellow humans. It is brave in the way that it takes Jonathan Swift’s ‘Gulliver’s Travels’ as a plot device-Darke reads it to his 8 year old grandson, his own version of it anyway-and as parrallel to the journey our protagonist is on.

His manner is so bitter and anti humanitarian, he develops a loathing for Dickens for popularising the Christmas festival and his battle within himself about his intellectual appreciation of Dickens’ work against which he pits his hatred of seasons where you are forced to endure the company of others, left me chortling.

I can see that this might be read as a ‘Marmite’ novel, the protagonist is not exactly likeable-a almost 70 year doctor of philosophy accused of killing his wife. It’s not a whodunnit, it’s a character study and a deeply moving as well as humorous take on the process of death and grieving. It reminded me of David Nobbs’ ‘Reginald Perrin’ series for its helplessness and melancholy, whilst underlining the futility of life with dark humour and wit.

The reading of Gulliver strikes me as apocryphal, as Gulliver is travelling the worlds looking for the different kinds of man he finds himself in the gaps between what makes him the same, and different, from his fellow species. I will very much look forward to reading the previous novel, ‘Darke‘, and hopefully maybe a third, concluding story?

My thanks to Anne Cater of Random Things for the tour invite and Little Brown UK imprint, Constable , for the gifted review copy.

About the author…

Rick Gekoski is a rare book dealer, writer, and occasional broadcaster. An American who came to England in 1966, he taught English Literature at the University of Warwick from 1971-1987, and has published books on Joseph Conrad, William Golding, Premiership football (Staying Up), a collection of essays entitled Tolkien’s Gown and Other Stories of Great Authors and Rare Books (based on his BBC Radio 4 Series Rare Books, Rare People), and Outside of a Dog: A Bibliomemoir.

A second series of Lost, Stolen, or Shredded: The History of Some Missing Works of Art was broadcast on Radio 4 in 2009. He has founded two private presses, The Sixth Chamber Press and The Bridgewater Press, which issue finely printed editions of leading contemporary novelists and poets.

Links-https://gekoski.com/writer/

Twitter @RGekoski @RandomTTours @LittleBrownUK