Universal Harvester
By (Author) John Darnielle
Scribe Publications
Scribe Publications
3rd March 2017
Australia
General
Fiction
Horror and supernatural fiction
813.6
Paperback
224
Width 135mm, Height 206mm, Spine 30mm
224g
From the author of the acclaimed Wolf in White Van comes a horror-infused thriller set in a tiny Midwestern town. Jeremy works at the counter of Video Hut in Nevada, Iowa. It's the 1990s, pre-DVD, and the work is predictable and familiar; he likes his boss, Sarah Jane, and it gets him out of the house, which has felt desolate and empty since his mother died six years before. But when Stephanie Parsons, a local schoolteacher, comes in to return her copy of Targets, she has an odd complaint- 'There's something on it,' she says. Two days later, Lindsey Redinius brings back She's All That and complains that something is wrong- 'There's another movie on this tape.' Curious, Jeremy takes a look. And what he sees on the videos is so strange and disturbing that it propels him out of his comfortable routine and into a search for the tapes' creator. As the once-peaceful fields and barns surrounding Nevada begin to seem sinister and threatening, Jeremy must come to terms with a truth that is as devastatingly sad as it is shocking. Creepy and poignant by turns, Universal Harvester is a deep dive into damaged lives and the different ways people try to escape grief, loss, and darkness.
John Darnielle's first novel, Wolf in White Van, was a New York Times bestseller, a National Book Award nominee, and a finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize for first fiction, and widely hailed as one of the best novels of the year. He is a writer, composer, guitarist, and vocalist for the band the Mountain Goats. He lives in Durham, North Carolina, with his wife and son.