Universal Harvester

Universal Harvester by John Darnielle, 214 pages

Universal Harvester brings us back to late 90s in small town Iowa where VHS was the standard format and very few people had cell phones. Jeremy lives a simple life. He is 22 years old, works at a locally owned video rental store, lives with his father, and is in no hurry to do anything else. His life was put on hold when his mother dies in a car accident six years prior. His comfortable, though limited, life is disrupted when a customer complains that a violent scene has been spliced into a film. He and his manager find themselves pulled into a decades-old mystery as they find more movies with scenes spliced in.

This is not my typical genre. I probably wouldn’t have given it a second glance if it was written by any other author. But I am a die-hard fan of his band, The Mountain Goats, and would read the ingredients list on a shampoo bottle if he wrote it. I am glad I did!  

For those who like audiobooks, it is read by the author. I have read the book and listened to the audio and preferred the audio. 

The Ghost at the Table

The Ghost at the Table by Suzanne Berne (2006) 304 pages

Imagine a Thanksgiving visit with sisters, Cynnie and Frances, who have very different views about what happened in their childhood, with a seriously ill mother and a father who started an affair with the tutor of one of his daughters while his wife was still alive. As the Thanksgiving visit--which includes their now frail father-- progresses, the story makes multiple passes to the time of the mother's death, with suggestions that perhaps it wasn't entirely natural that it occurred when it did.

About forty pages before the end of the book, I abruptly decided that I didn't like any of the characters anymore.

However...there are many moments of lucidity and insight in Cynnie's narration. This novel is layered like an onion, with bottled emotions, shouting, misunderstandings and deception...and maybe even a bit of caring...peeling off in turns.