Item: The Premonitions Bureau
Rating: 4.50
Author: pamela

by Sam Knight

“This is rich, florid, funny history, with undertones of human grief . . . Knight is shrewd and perceptive . . . [he] pushes his material into neurobiology, into the nature of placebos and expectations and self-fulfilling prophecies . . . Knight’s book is crisp.” —Dwight Garner, New York Times

"[E]legant and eccentric . . . [Knight's] prose glides like mercury and he does not waste a word. With deft skill, he explores historical theories of perception, time, death, fear."
—New York Times Book Review

"[A] thought-provoking and deeply researched book . . . Knight probes the space between coincidence and the ineffable mystery of supernatural possibilities."
—NPR Books

"[Knight's] prose delights."
—Wall Street Journal

“Stunning… An enveloping, unsettling book, gorgeously written and profound.” —Patrick Radden Keefe, New York Times bestselling author of Say Nothing and Empire of Pain

From a rising star New Yorker staff writer, the incredible and gripping true story of John Barker, a psychiatrist who investigated the power of premonitions—and came to believe he himself was destined for an early death

On the morning of October 21, 1966, Kathleen Middleton, a music teacher in suburban London, awoke choking and gasping, convinced disaster was about to strike. An hour later, a mountain of rubble containing waste from a coal mine collapsed above the village of Aberfan, swamping buildings and killing 144 people, many of them children. Among the doctors and emergency workers who arrived on the scene was John Barker, a psychiatrist from Shelton Hospital, in Shrewsbury. At Aberfan, Barker became convinced there had been supernatural warning signs of the disaster, and decided to establish a “premonitions bureau,” in conjunction with the Evening Standard newspaper, to collect dreams and forebodings from the public, in the hope of preventing future calamities.

Middleton was one of hundreds of seemingly normal people, who would contribute their visions to Barker’s research in the years to come, some of them unnervingly accurate. As Barker’s work plunged him deeper into the occult, his reputation suffered. But in the face of professional humiliation, Barker only became more determined, ultimately realizing with terrible certainty that catastrophe had been prophesied in his own life.

In Sam Knight’s crystalline telling, this astonishing true story comes to encompass the secrets of the world. We all know premonitions are impossible—and yet they come true all the time. Our lives are full of collisions and coincidence: the question is how we perceive these implausible events and therefore make meaning in our lives. The Premonitions Bureau is an enthralling account of madness and wonder, of science and the supernatural. With an unforgettable ending, it is a mysterious journey into the most unsettling reaches of the human mind.

The Premonitions Bureau was a fascinating book. It dealt with tragedy in a way that was both empathetic but dispassionate, which I found genuinely surprising. The idea behind the real-life "Premonitions Bureau" is so far-fetched that the book could easily have fallen into farce and become a lighthearted non-fiction comedy of errors. But it didn't. Sam Knight managed to deal with his subject matter in a way that showed genuine compassion for every person in his story, no matter what role they played.

Despite being factual, The Premonitions Bureau read like a novel, and I found myself furiously turning the pages to find out what happened next. For this reason, I felt the end was a little lacking - but I suspect that is due to the nature of the events themselves, and not for any poor writing on Knight's part. Because the rest of the narrative was so engrossing, the end of The Premonitions Bureau felt like a flame that just fizzled out and left me a little underwhelmed.

Still, this is a crazy non-fiction romp that I can highly recommend to readers of all kinds. Knight takes no firm stance on the objective truth of premonitions, which made the book thought-provoking rather than restrictive. I'll definitely be reading more from Sam Knight in future.

Reading updates

26 February, 2022: Started reading

26 February, 2022: on page 0 out of 256 0%

4 April, 2022: Finished reading

13 April, 2022: Reviewed