In the movies, people almost never talked about the towns they spent their lives in; they ran around having adventures and never stopped to get their bearings. It was weird, when you thought about it. They only remembered where they were from if they wanted to complain about how awful it was there, or, later, to remember it as a place of infinite promise, a place whose light had been hidden from them until it became unrecoverable, at which point its gleam would become impossible to resist.
Universal Harvester is a strange kind of book: a rolling fog of a read that seems to be concealing something intriguing that you never quite get a glimpse of. It's gentle but anxiety-provoking; a promising character study that reveals little of its characters. Author John Darnielle is like a hipster hybrid of Kent Haruf and J. J. Abrams, and despite ploughing through this book in a few hours, I could never decide whether I was actually enjoying it or not in the moment; can't decide whether or not it was “important” upon reflection. I will say that the curiosity and disquiet this book caused me was intense while I was immersed in it, and I have to call a read that draws any strong emotions out of me a successful experience; even when there's no real pay off.
The book opens in the late 1990s: Jeremy Heldt is a twenty-two year old clerk at a Video Hut – a job he's wasting time at until he figures out what he wants to do with his life – in the small town of Nevada (pronounced “Ne-vay-da”), Iowa. It is soon revealed that Jeremy's mother died in a car accident six years earlier, and while Jeremy and his father tiptoe around each other's feelings and attempt to carry on a normal existence in the family home, it's obvious that it's lingering grief and filial duty that are holding Jeremy back from moving on into adulthood. Meanwhile at the Video Hut, customers start returning VHS tapes that have had upsetting scenes spliced into them, and when Jeremy takes one of these movies home in order to see for himself, he is so disturbed by what he finds that he's up all night watching and rewinding, and later, staring at his ceiling in uneasiness. At first the contents of these mysterious scenes aren't fully revealed to the reader – which made me totally anxious – and when the characters start discussing what's on the tapes, their inability to describe quite what they saw made me more anxious (one character namedrops The Blair Witch Project and that's a fair comparison: there's something that the camera isn't quite capturing, but since the characters are upset, that's transmitted to the viewer/reader). Just as the action is revving up, Part Two begins and we are introduced to another story from another time.
It's not that nobody ever gets away: that's not true. It's that you carry it with you. It doesn't matter that the days roll on like hills too low to give names to; they might be of use later, so you keep them. You replay them to keep their memory alive. It feels worthwhile because it is.I can't say that I loved this disruption of the plot, but after finishing the four disjointed parts, you can see how it's all one story (with various doubling of experiences: missing mothers; car accidents; using the available technology to delve into mysteries), and how it all seems to be more about the general experience of living in small town America than the individual people who live there. Abandoned cars and collapsed silos rusting away in the cornfields, a young man seeing a real future in selling basement sealant, weekly Bible Studies, and folks who can't sit idle if they think there's someone in trouble: Universal Harvester is about a time just past, but somehow, the various characters' experiences feel as outdated as VHS tapes, dial-up internet, and the ability to disappear without a trace. There's ultimately nothing that unusual happening in Nevada, Iowa – this is neither a horror story or a paean to small town living – and the fact that it starts with an anxiety-provoking premise seems a trick worthy of whoever is splicing those videotapes. As for me, I took the hook but wasn't landed.
Another reviewer on Goodreads said, "Do yourself a favor and listen to The Mountain Goats. Their best album is The Sunset Tree. If you listen to "This Year" and aren't filled with pure jubilation, jumping up and down with glee and sheer happiness then there is something wrong with you." I don't think it filled me with glee and sheer happiness, but it is an interesting enough companion piece to include here:
And if the connection isn't clear, I'll note that author John Darnielle is the lead singer of the Mountain Goats; which of course put me in mind of Bird Box - another odd book written by someone (Josh Malerman) who is better known as the frontman for an obscure (to me) group. Even in retrospect I think it's funny that I gave the kind of average Bird Box four stars - I think it's because I listened to the audiobook and just bought into the creepy atmosphere at the time.
