Slow but sure terror plays out in disturbing mystery
I t’s 1999. Jeremy Heldt, 24, is working at a video store in a small town in Iowa. It’s the most thrilling part of his simple and unfulfilled existence, though not by much. That is, until two women return videos that have scenes recorded over them, footage that doesn’t quite belong.
When Jeremy decides to watch the videos, the inserted footage shakes him to his core, upending his small- town life and sending him on a lifechanging adventure.
It all sounds very high stakes but Universal Harvester is much more subdued than that. Though there is a dark, disturbing and unexplained mystery at its core, this slow- burning book revels in the quiet moments rather than trying to terrify you — and really, that’s what makes it so unsettling. From musician and burgeoning author John Darnielle ( Wolf in White
Van), Universal Harvester has been described as a horror, but it is far more unsettling and profound than that label implies. We rarely see the same terrors that our characters face: they are described briefly to us, the narration instead focused on their increasingly unsettled states of mind, leaving us with the same questions they have.
More frights come from the unknown, rambling narrator, who rarely speaks up but projects a presence in spine- tingling moments that pass so briefly it is only then that you stop and wonder what is going on. It would be easy to compare this to last year’s TV megahit Stranger
Things, with its combination of small- town America, nostalgia and lonely souls investigating unknown happenings. It even feels very episodic at times. However, Universal Harvester stands out thanks to having more realistic and defined characters and a terrifying mystery more reliant on human nature than faceless demons.
Some may be disappointed by the book’s slow nature and thriller/ horror fans who expect big pay- offs will finish unsatisfied.
Yet the lack of anything happening is what builds up the tension, leaving you constantly asking questions and desperate to know more, the slow drip feed of information enough to sustain you until the poignant, lowkey climax.
Though it occasionally wanders into the pretentious and rambling with the narrator’s monologues on humanity and small- town mentality,
Universal Harvester is gripping thanks to Darnielle’s excellent pacing and makes for a quietly unnerving read.
It’s a book that makes you double- check you closed all the doors before you go to bed, not out of fear of monsters hiding in the night, but because it leaves you seeking out the peace of mind that everything’s going to be okay.