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    Universal Harvester: A Novel
    Universal Harvester: A Novel
    Universal Harvester: A Novel
    Audiobook5 hours

    Universal Harvester: A Novel

    Written by John Darnielle

    Narrated by John Darnielle

    3.5/5

    ()

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    About this audiobook

    Jeremy works at the Video Hut in Nevada, Iowa. It’s a small town in the center of the state—the first a in Nevada pronounced ay. This is the late 1990s, and even if the Hollywood Video in Ames poses an existential threat to Video Hut, there are still regular customers, a rush in the late afternoon. It’s good enough for Jeremy: it’s a job, quiet and predictable, and it gets him out of the house, where he lives with his dad and where they both try to avoid missing Mom, who died six years ago in a car wreck.

    But when a local schoolteacher comes in to return her copy of Targets—an old movie, starring Boris Karloff, one Jeremy himself had ordered for the store—she has an odd complaint: “There’s something on it,” she says, but doesn’t elaborate. Two days later, a different customer returns a different tape, a new release, and says it’s not defective, exactly, but altered: “There’s another movie on this tape.”

    Jeremy doesn’t want to be curious, but he brings the movies home to take a look. And, indeed, in the middle of each movie, the screen blinks dark for a moment and the movie is replaced by a few minutes of jagged, poorly lit home video. The scenes are odd and sometimes violent, dark, and deeply disquieting. There are no identifiable faces, no dialogue or explanation—the first video has just the faint sound of someone breathing— but there are some recognizable landmarks. These have been shot just outside of town.

    So begins John Darnielle’s haunting and masterfully unsettling Universal Harvester: the once placid Iowa fields and farmhouses now sinister and imbued with loss and instability and profound foreboding. The audiobook will take Jeremy and those around him deeper into this landscape than they have ever expected to go. They will become part of a story that unfolds years into the past and years into the future, part of an impossible search for something someone once lost that they would do anything to regain.

    This program is read by the author and includes original music.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherMacmillan Audio
    Release dateFeb 7, 2017
    ISBN9781427282873
    Author

    John Darnielle

    John Darnielle is the author of the novels Devil House, Universal Harvester, and Wolf in White Van, all three New York Times bestsellers. Wolf in White Van was a National Book Award nominee and a finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize for first fiction. Universal Harvester was a finalist for the Locus Award. Dwight Garner wrote in the New York Times that Devil House is “never quite the book you think it is. It’s better.” Darnielle lives in Durham, North Carolina, with his wife and sons when he's not on the road touring with his band the Mountain Goats.

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    Reviews for Universal Harvester

    3.5/5

    60 ratings5 reviews

    What our readers think

    Readers find this title to be a unique and experimental work of literary fiction. The author's outstanding job in creating a first person omniscient narrator is praised. While some readers found the book confusing and hard to follow, others appreciated the profound exploration of trauma and loss. The audio version of the book, beautifully read by the author, added to the overall experience. However, there were a few readers who couldn't finish the book or found it lacking in structure. Overall, this title offers a thought-provoking and emotional journey for readers.

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words

    • 1/5
      Couldn't finish this one, hard time paying attention to it, and normally I'm a fan of author narration but not with this one at all.

      1 person found this helpful

    • 1/5
      What was it about?? I should have DNF’d it but I finished it. I’d skip this if I were you, it’s too late to save me.
    • 5/5
      I went through a lot with this book. From around half way, to almost to the end, I thought my review would be only 3 letters: "wtf". However, as it neared the end, I found myself touched and appreciative of what the book ended up meaning for me. While there is still much "wtf" in the book
      (I happen to generally like confusion and mystery, though), I felt that the author was able to communicate how the profound pain of trauma and loss is shared and re-experienced with others in often confusing, random, unpredictable and disturbing ways. We can find ourselves entangled in someone's traumatic history, and in this experience reconnect with our own grief and loss.
      I listened to an audio version of this book and it was beautifully read by the author.

      8 people found this helpful

    • 5/5
      Love this book to death. I think it's a real shame the publisher decided to market it as horror, when it fits better under literary fiction. Doesn't get the love it deserves as a result. One of those misfiled books that is missing out on awards. The author did an outstanding job, and I hope they will continue to write such wonderful, experimental, weird stories in the future. Thank you for giving me the first person omniscient narrator I've been searching for for over a decade - it was everything I'd hoped it would be and more.

      1 person found this helpful

    • 2/5
      This story doesn't have a reason or any conclusion either.

      1 person found this helpful