John Darnielle

From New York Times bestselling author and Mountain Goats’ singer/songwriter John Darnielle—“a master at building suspense” (Los Angeles Times)—comes an epic, gripping novel about murder, truth, artistic obsession, and the dangers of storytelling in Devil House. Gage Chandler is descended from kings. That’s what his mother always told him. Now, he is a true crime writer, with one grisly success—and movie adaptation—to his name, along with a series of subsequent lesser efforts that have paid the bills but not much more. But now he is being offered the chance for the big break: To move into the house—what the locals call “The Devil House”—in which a briefly notorious pair of murders occurred, apparently the work of disaffected 1980s teens. He begins his research with diligence and enthusiasm, but soon the story leads him into a puzzle he never expected—back into his own work and what it means, back to the very core of what he does and who he is. John Darnielle has long been known to millions of Mountain Goats fans as a storyteller of uncanny sensitivity and mythic power. In Universal Harvester and Wolf in White Van before it, he has proven himself a novelist of the highest order. With Devil House, Darnielle rises above with a novel that blurs the line between fact and fiction, that combines daring formal experimentation with a gripping tale of crime, writing, memory, and artistic obsession.

A Novel

Devil House

Creating fantastical mail-order role-playing games from his apartment where he endures a life of solitude after a disfiguring injury, Sean is blamed for a disaster involving two high school student clients, an event that compels him to reevaluate his own past.

Wolf in White Van

Life in a small town takes a dark turn when mysterious footage begins appearing on VHS cassettes at the local Video Hut Jeremy works at the Video Hut in Nevada, Iowa—a small town in the center of the state, the first “a” in Nevada pronounced “ay.” This is the late 1990s, and while 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 She’s All That, a new release, and complains that there’s something wrong with it: “There’s another movie on this tape.” Jeremy doesn’t want to be curious. But he takes a look and, indeed, in the middle of the movie the screen blinks dark for a moment and She’s All That is replaced by a black-and-white scene, shot in a barn, with only the faint sounds of someone breathing. Four minutes later, She’s All That is back. But there is something profoundly unsettling about that scene; Jeremy’s compelled to watch it three or four times. The scenes recorded onto Targets are similar, undoubtedly created by the same hand. Creepy. And the barn looks much like a barn just outside of town. There will be no ignoring the disturbing scenes on the videos. And all of a sudden, what had once been the placid, regular old Iowa fields and farmhouses now feels haunted and threatening, imbued with loss and instability and profound foreboding. For Jeremy, and all those around him, life will never be the same . . .

Universal Harvester

John Darnielle describesMaster of Reality in the voice of a fifteen-year-old boy being held in an adolescent psychiatric center in southern California in 1985. The narrator explains Black Sabbath like an emissary from an alien race describing his culture to his captors: passionately, patiently, and lovingly.

Black Sabbath's Master of Reality

Il lupo nel furgone bianco

From New York Times bestselling author and Mountain Goats' singer/songwriter John Darnielle - a master at building suspense" ( Los Angeles Times ) - comes an epic, gripping novel about murder, truth, artistic obsession, and the dangers of storytelling in Devil House . Gage Chandler is descended from kings. That's what his mother always told him. Now, he is a true crime writer, with one grisly success - and movie adaptation - to his name, along with a series of subsequent lesser efforts that have paid the bills but not much more. But now he is being offered the chance for the big break: To move into the house - what the locals call "The Devil House" - in which a briefly notorious pair of murders occurred, apparently the work of disaffected 1980s teens. He begins his research with diligence and enthusiasm, but soon the story leads him into a puzzle he never expected - back into his own work and what it means, back to the very core of what he does and who he is. John Darnielle has long been known to millions of Mountain Goats fans as a storyteller of uncanny sensitivity and mythic power. In Universal Harvester and Wolf in White Van before it, he has proven himself a novelist of the highest order. With Devil House, Darnielle rises above with a novel that blurs the line between fact and fiction, that combines daring formal experimentation with a gripping tale of crime, writing, memory, and artistic obsession.

A New York Times Bestseller Nominated for the National Book Award, Finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize for First Fiction, and Winner of the Alex Award, "One of the Most Compelling Books of the Year" (Blake Butler, Vice) Isolated by a disfiguring injury since the age of seventeen, Sean Phillips crafts imaginary worlds for strangers to explore. As the creator of "Trace Italian"-a text-based role-playing game that's played through the mail-Sean guides subscribers through his intricately imagined terrain, turn by turn, as they search out sanctuary in a ravaged, savage future America. But when Lance and Carrie, two teenaged seekers of the Trace, take their play outside the game, disaster strikes, and Sean is called on to account for it. In the process, he is pulled back through time, toward the beginning and the climax: the moment of his own self-inflicted departure from the world in which most people live. Beautifully written and unexpectedly moving, Wolf in White Van is "an indelible novel, a hymn for those who inhabit lonely universes, and a harbor for anyone who has sought refuge in a reality other than their own" (Patrick deWitt).

Mays 20

In einer Videothek in einer Kleinstadt inmitten Iowas tauchen seltsame und unheimliche Filmschnipsel auf den Leihkassetten auf. Dunkle und grobkörnige Szenen, die in einer Scheune aufgenommen wurden. Sie dauern nur ein paar Minuten und zeigen möglicherweise S/M-Spiele, vielleicht sogar eine Folterung. Der Videotheksmitarbeiter Jeremy will nichts mit der Sache zu tun haben, doch als die Dorflehrerin Stephanie die Scheune in den Videos wiedererkennt, muss er handeln. Die Suche nach der Wahrheit hinter den Videos führt Jeremy und Stephanie in die Vergangenheit.

Rekorder

From the author of the acclaimedWolf in White Vancomes a horror-infused thriller set in a tiny Midwestern town. Jeremy works at the counter of Video Hut in Nevada, Iowa. It's the 1990s, pre-DVD, and the work is predictable and familiar; he likes his boss, Sarah Jane, and it gets him out of the house, which has felt desolate and empty since his mother died six years before. But when Stephanie Parsons, a local schoolteacher, comes in to return her copy of Targets, she has an odd complaint- 'There's something on it,' she says. Two days later, Lindsey Redinius brings back She's All Thatand complains that something is wrong- 'There's another movie on this tape.' Curious, Jeremy takes a look. And what he sees on the videos is so strange and disturbing that it propels him out of his comfortable routine and into a search for the tapes' creator. As the once-peaceful fields and barns surrounding Nevada begin to seem sinister and threatening, Jeremy must come to terms with a truth that is as devastatingly sad as it is shocking. Creepy and poignant by turns, Universal Harvesteris a deep dive into damaged lives and the different ways people try to escape grief, loss, and darkness.

John Darnielle

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