This is an incredibly difficult book to review – I went into Universal Harvester expecting something along the lines of mystery/thriller/horror based on the synopsis, but what I got was a beautifully written work about family life and loss in Nevada, Iowa. There is a mysterious element to this story, but I would not call this a mystery.

Jeremy works at the local Video Hut, and is content with his life right now. He has no major responsibilities and a comfortable job that he knows well. One day a customer returns a video, stating that there is something else on the tape. He plans to watch the video soon, but after a second customer brings another video in with the same complaint he decides he better check them out right away. The scenes, spliced into the regular movie, are poorly filmed in black and white and look like something created by a film student. Jeremy shows these videos to Sarah, the store’s owner, and she recognizes the farmhouse where the scenes were filmed.

Sarah heads out to confirm that she has the right location, and quickly becomes infatuated with Lisa, the woman who lives there now. Before long, Sarah has moved in with Lisa, leaving Jeremy to wonder what’s going on.

This book is narrated from multiple perspectives: Jeremy and his father, Lisa’s childhood family, and a family who also discovers the videos towards the end of the book. The atmosphere is unsettling – something strange is going on, and I kept waiting for the pieces to fall into place. The pieces, rather, slowly roll towards the general direction of a resolution. I don’t need a story to be perfectly wrapped up, or to have a cut and dry arch, but I do need to feel satisfied with the journey. Darnielle’s writing is great and I felt compelled to finish the book, but I was left with a dissatisfaction that could have been easily fulfilled.

Thanks Netgalley, MacMillan publishing, and John Darnielle for this ARC.
My first book by this author and I have to say it was written so differently from other books I've read that I found it a page turner to see where the characters intertwined with the storylines'.
A great read and I will be looking for more from this author in the near future.

While I love the concept of this book, unfortunately, I felt that it was undone by its literary pretensions. It pains me to say this, but I stopped reading 75% of the way through -- but I would have stopped earlier had it not been for my own stubbornness.

I have no idea how to rate this book! I'm going with 3 stars ("I liked the book"). I did like the book--maybe I even really liked it--but it's so unusual and so unexpected that rating it seems hard.

This book meanders. It changes characters frequently, and often leaves stories hanging or unresolved to wander over to another character. It also changes time, going from past to present with little transition. This should have annoying, but I was so interested in all the different characters that I soon found myself caught up in another story. The writing style is very simple, but characterization is strong.

The main story is kind-of-but-not-really wrapped up, which was slightly frustrating as well (I really wanted more movie fragments). But overall this book is about mothers and melancholy--and oh boy, is it good at melancholy. It perfectly captures a decaying rural town, and perfectly captures the yearning for someone who's gone. It's enigmatic and unsettling, frustrating and fascinating.

I received this review copy from the publisher on NetGalley. Thanks for the opportunity to read and review; I appreciate it!

Not quite horror, nor even mystery, Universal Harvester sits in an uncategorizable no man's land of weird literary fiction that draws heavily from both of those genres, leaving us with a persistent sense of dread and mild incomprehension.

Themes of technological change—with a specific focus on the dead and dying technologies that lost out as the modern age flew by, as well as the businesses and workers associated with them—recur throughout the book. This plays out most obviously with the VCR's, video rental stores, and the videotapes referenced in the cover blurb (containing strange, cryptic transmissions from who knows where), but there's also a focus on film photography as a tangible means of preserving the past even as the hobby itself falls out of common usage (a character buys a personal darkroom setup at a deep discount after a local photography store finally succumbs to the changing market), and the shrinking of manufacturing workforces through technology-related downsizing via automation and increased workplace efficiency (something especially relevant today, as we face millions of impending AI & automation related job losses). Each of these separate ideas seem to symbolically represent the gradual desolation of the American midwest, or perhaps America as a whole, or the type of lives Americans like to think they lead (despite entreaties to return to greatness)—which ultimately seems to be the theme of the book.

It's bleak stuff but never cynical or morose, and rarely overtly horrifying so much as just unsettling. Life hasn't gone to hell, it's just subtly askew. Darnielle sets a somber tone and largely sticks with it, which is interesting when you compare the tone of his prose here to, say, his ongoing column for Decibel magazine, which is more of a manic burst of absurdity. Here he keeps the language calm, measured, and thoughtful, even when he dispenses with traditional modes of narration and breaks the fourth wall, or digresses into a discussion with the reader of the way things might have gone somewhere else, to different versions of the same people. It has the effect of keeping the narrative at arm's length, and it can be slightly hard to follow at points, but it also perfectly serves the plot and themes on display, and Darnielle's prose is plenty strong enough to carry the burden of the mild experimentation he employs.

A word of warning: most readers will probably read the cover blurb and expect something more dramatic, more gut-wrenching, and perhaps expect more of a paradigm-shifting, pull out the rug type switcheroo ending than what the book actually delivers. There are mysteries and there are surprises, but this isn't really that kind of book. Universal Harvester is a quiet story, more reflective than explosive, much more inward-focused than dynamic or propulsive, yet it does have a subtle rhythm and a consistent lyricism.

One last recurring theme worth mentioning: several times Darnielle gives us characters who catch a glimpse of something imperceptibly wrong and get pulled into the central mystery, needing to know how and why these things are the way they are, and more importantly, what they mean. Darnielle does the same thing to the reader, and the parallel is clearly intentional. If you bring your sense of curiosity, not just for the resolution of the mystery at the heart of the book but also regarding the larger nature of the book itself—while accepting that life often doesn't offer concrete, wholly satisfying answers because it's often impossible to properly frame the questions—you will be gently rewarded for your time spent reading. Very much recommended for the right sort of weird minds.

I'm between 2.5 and 3 stars here, but I'm going to round up for the quality of John Darnielle's writing.

This should be an interesting exercise: writing a review of a book that you do not understand but you couldn't stop reading, both because you were hoping things would finally become clear, and because the writing was quite good, even as it meandered.

It's the late 1990s, just before DVDs become the preferred method of entertainment, leaving video stores struggling. Jeremy works at Video Hut in Nevada, Iowa, a small town in the center of the state. He should be thinking about college, or at least getting a "real" job, but he likes not having much to worry or think about—he can perform all of the "store opening" functions in a matter of minutes.

One day, one of the store's regular customers, brings in a copy of an old movie with Boris Karloff that she rented. She says that there's something else on the tape. Jeremy means to watch it in his spare time but he gets distracted and forgets. A few days later, another customer returns another movie, saying, "There's another movie on this tape." When Jeremy watches the video, he can't explain what he sees, but it disturbs him. The scenes appear to be poorly shot home videos, sometimes an empty room with just the sound of breathing evident, sometimes there are masked people moving around, but Jeremy can't determine if the people are involved of their own volition or if they're somehow being controlled or threatened.

When Jeremy shows the videos to Sarah Jane, the store's owner/manager, she recognizes the farmhouse where the scenes were shot as being in a nearby town. She feels compelled to visit this house and see if the people who live there know anything about these films. She is inexplicably drawn to Lisa Sample, the woman who lives in the house, and before anyone notices, she has practically moved in with Lisa, who seems to have some type of control over Sarah Jane, and has some secrets of her own.

Jeremy can't understand what has prompted Sarah Jane to practically abandon her store to spend time with Lisa, and he can't get the videos out of his mind. Should he just let Sarah Jane live her life as she chooses, and should he move on with his own life? Or should he try and figure out just what these videos mean, especially when he finds other videos in the store with increasingly disturbing scenes?

This book is creepy and confusing, with a mood that falls somewhere between Twin Peaks and The Ring, although it really resembles neither in terms of plot. The story shifts perspective several times, with a few sections narrated from Jamie's point of view, a few narrated from Lisa's point of view (and her family history), and a section narrated from another family's point of view.

As I mentioned earlier, John Darnielle knows how to write, to create vivid pictures and atmosphere, and ratchet up the tension so you can't stop reading even as you wrack your brain trying to figure out what this book is about. Is it a horror story? Is it a meditation on loss, and our need to try and find answers to what causes those losses? Or is it just one great big collection of red herrings?

I honestly don't know the answer to the above question, and it's pretty frustrating. While I like to use my imagination when reading, I do like there to be somewhat of a definitive plot, with some resolution. Universal Harvester is well-written (although the book shifts perspective every time the narration is building up steam, thereby cutting the plot off at the knees) but for me, ultimately unsatisfying, yet I couldn't stop reading it!

NetGalley and Farrar, Straus and Giroux provided me an advance copy of the book in exchange for an unbiased review. Thanks for making this available!