Universal Harvester
By John Darnielle, 2017.
A teenager (or early 20-something) employee of a video store in a small Iowa town has a couple people talk about something mysterious on a video they are returning. The young man, who lives with his widowed father, eventually decides to check it out, and finds some disturbing images & sounds of unknown. His older, female boss and a girl friend of his also become involved--but what will they discover?
I didn't like this book as much as I thought I would. I'd heard the author on NPR, and his take on the title "Universal Harvester" (a nod to International Harvester and the feeling that it could represent something like the grim reaper) sounded interesting. Also, a previous book of his (Wolf in White Van) was a National Book Award nominee (2014), and he's the one-man creative force of a "band" (he's singer, guitarist, pianist, composer, etc.) called The Mountain Goats.
The story itself was suspenseful, but I felt there were too many uncertainties during the book, and with the ending. I wouldn't mind giving another book of his a read, though--it was a bit of a page-turner, and his writing brought the main character and his environment to life.
A teenager (or early 20-something) employee of a video store in a small Iowa town has a couple people talk about something mysterious on a video they are returning. The young man, who lives with his widowed father, eventually decides to check it out, and finds some disturbing images & sounds of unknown. His older, female boss and a girl friend of his also become involved--but what will they discover?
I didn't like this book as much as I thought I would. I'd heard the author on NPR, and his take on the title "Universal Harvester" (a nod to International Harvester and the feeling that it could represent something like the grim reaper) sounded interesting. Also, a previous book of his (Wolf in White Van) was a National Book Award nominee (2014), and he's the one-man creative force of a "band" (he's singer, guitarist, pianist, composer, etc.) called The Mountain Goats.
The story itself was suspenseful, but I felt there were too many uncertainties during the book, and with the ending. I wouldn't mind giving another book of his a read, though--it was a bit of a page-turner, and his writing brought the main character and his environment to life.