Back in 2014 we reviewed John Darnielle’s Wolf in White Van, the National Book Award nominated novel which pretty much proved his overall writing genius beyond that of the uncannily consistent Mountain Goat records. The piece was pretty in-depth, but the take home message was how Darnielle managed to create a character so vividly human:
“Sean is 3-dimensional/real/alive because he is at once remarkably kind and empathetic and capable of destroying lives. In some ways he is ignorant beyond hope and in others understanding beyond all expectation”
Well the good news is that John Darnielle is back with a new novel. Universal Harvester apparently hits a “sad/frightening axis”, which supposedly means a blend of straight up B-movie terror and horrors more human in nature, things like loneliness and sorrow and grief. The preview on the FSG website gives a few more details, claiming that the work is a” significant literary leap” in terms of scope and craft, describing the general plot like something between Infinite Jest, The Ring and a grown up sequel to Eerie, Indiana.
Twentysomething Jeremy works at a late 90s Video Hut in small-town Iowa that’s just about to be transformed/finished by the dawn of DVDs and the internet, though he seems “blissfully unaware” of such forces. The twist is that customers keep returning tapes that are apparently damaged or tampered with, like She’s All That‘s four minute interruption of “grainy, homemade, black-and-white footage that is distinctly creepy-as-hell—there’s a darkness there, an overwhelming sadness”. Jeremy, like all good video store clerks/literary protagonists, explores just what is going on with the strange stock, though we’re going to have to wait and see just what path Darnielle sends him down.
Universal Harvester is set for release on the 7th February, 2017 on Farrar, Straus and Giroux, and you can pre-order it now from most good book shops.
Book design by Rodrigo Corral and Alex Merto