Flatlands of Iowa turn into scary place
Author intertwines two narrative threads and brings them together in a scary climax, writes Steve Walker.
The plains of America’s midwest can be devastating. Stretching flat for hundreds of miles and dominated by wheat fields, they can be dull beyond belief.
But they can also be ominous – dark, secretive and foreboding.
Indie-rocker and writer John Darnielle turns the flatlands of Iowa into a scary place. Anything can happen behind the corn stalks or in the hidden farm buildings.
As Darnielle writes, ‘‘A few rows of corn will muffle the human voice so effectively that, even a few insignificant rows away, all is silence, what to speak of out at the highway’s shoulder: all the way back there, already fading into memory now’’.
This novel of suspense – not quite horror, but with several of its characteristics – gradually and quietly builds the sense of something sinister in these cornfields.
Jeremy Heldt works in a video store in small town Nevada, Iowa. Life is a mundane cycle of issuing and returning videos, mostly Hollywood blockbusters. Jeremy seems quite happy in his dull existence, as does his father, Steve. They share nights of watching videos. The only disruption to their routine was the death of Jeremy’s mother six years ago.
Darnielle effortlessly creates the atmosphere of crushing daily sameness. Even a customer returning a video that has been spliced with an odd scene does not cause much of a ruffle – at first.
Jeremy watches the tape. The spliced episode is bizarre: hooded figures in a barn. Not the local Klu Klux Klan, but somebody is being questioned, then flees.
Other doctored tapes turn up. Now there is a real sense that some sort of torture scene is being recorded, and it appears to be local. Jeremy is intrigued by ‘‘the itching persistence of loose ends’’. His boss, Sarah-Jane, makes her own enquiries.
Midway through, the novel switches to the story of Lisa Sample, whom Sarah Jane has befriended. Lisa’s background looks unremarkable, until her mother Irene, too, disappears. This time, however, it is known what lies behind that. Irene had turned to a Christian cult and had been mesmerised by their doctrines.
Darnielle gently intertwines these two narrative threads, only bringing them together in a scary climax. His skill lies in the technique of the halfreveal; we glimpse what might be the horror, rather than see it all.
This half-reveal extends to the narrator himself. It seems to be some sort of detective, reviewing the case some years later. His identity is not known until the end.
This is Darnielle’s second novel. His writing career looks as if it is overtaking his musical one. He will be one to watch.