Dark Matter

by Blake Crouch

F. Scott Fitzgerald line: Life starts all over again when it gets crisp in the fall.

I’ve always had a fondness for the fall. It reminds me of the start of school. Of youth and potential. Growing up in the south, summer seemed endless. Green trees, hot days. To see the leaves begin to turn and the mornings dawn colder and colder gave a sense of life progressing after the stasis of summer. It was important that I capture this in the opening of the book, as Jason Dessen is looking at all the possible roads not taken. The fall season reminds him of what it once felt like to be truly alive, and is an entry-point to the journey that awaits him.