The author of Wolf in White Van is back with another
creeping, psychological novel. Jeremy
Heldt is a post-high school graduate working in the Video Hut in Nevada, Iowa
in the late 1990s. He knows his life is far from glamourous. It’s just him and his dad since his mom
passed away in a car accident six years ago.
He knows he should probably enroll in some classes at the local
community college or at least look for a full-time job now that he’s out of
school. Things take an unusual turn
when Stephanie Parsons returns a copy of a video and says “there’s something on
this one.” Jeremy forgets about it until
the next day when another customer complains about a second tape being “taped
over.” After taking the second tape home
to watch it, he decides it’s time to tell his boss, Sarah Jane about the strange
tapes. She too takes one of the videos home and then forgets about it for
weeks. But once she watches it, she sees
a familiar farm house that leads her to seek out the creator of the films.
Stephanie and Jeremy begin their own investigations and the strange videos worm
their way into each of their lives.
John Darnielle claims that he is a man who
loves loose ends. This is true in that
there are no nice neat answers in this book.
But the writing creates general feelings of unease and a drowning sense
of memory to take the reader down paths of the past. To a girl whose mother walked away when she
five. To a cultish church with vagrant
followers. To an old farmhouse where
unsettling things were recorded and then expertly spliced into rental videos
and then forgotten. Darnielle proves yet again that some of the creepiest
stories aren’t really horrible at
all. They may only be vaguely
menacing. And that may be enough to make
a book stick with you for a very long time. Check out Universal Harvester from
the library today.
