Marvellously weird, beautifully written. Having just abandoned a book that wanted to be creepy, weird, suffused with menace, and deeper meaning, and wanted to capture a strong sense of place, and feel for a particular time, but failed (for me) miserably, I have to say that this book is the Real Deal.
The premise is genuinely weird and unsettling-- movies on VHS tapes, rented from a small store in a tiny town in Iowa, start to feature unsettling black and white scenes spliced randomly into the action of the movie. The payoff is great. The sense of place feels very real -- you can feel the ennui and coziness of small town life seeping into your pores as you read. Darnielle makes clever use of movie references, to ground the lives of his characters, and to add to the strangeness of the situation he has created, and the sense of lives taken over by an obsession.
Excellent, challenging.
This reminded me, in a good way, of "Pattern Recognition," by William Gibson. If you enjoyed (or were baffled by) this, you might find that novel interesting. Brief outtakes from a surreal film are being released online, and fans construct all sorts of theories about their creation, and the supposed narrative they add up to. The central character is drawn into the mystery of how, where and why they have been created.
The premise is genuinely weird and unsettling-- movies on VHS tapes, rented from a small store in a tiny town in Iowa, start to feature unsettling black and white scenes spliced randomly into the action of the movie. The payoff is great. The sense of place feels very real -- you can feel the ennui and coziness of small town life seeping into your pores as you read. Darnielle makes clever use of movie references, to ground the lives of his characters, and to add to the strangeness of the situation he has created, and the sense of lives taken over by an obsession.
Excellent, challenging.
This reminded me, in a good way, of "Pattern Recognition," by William Gibson. If you enjoyed (or were baffled by) this, you might find that novel interesting. Brief outtakes from a surreal film are being released online, and fans construct all sorts of theories about their creation, and the supposed narrative they add up to. The central character is drawn into the mystery of how, where and why they have been created.
