![]() Like so many Midwestern white boys on the cusp of adulthood, Jeremy isn’t sure where he belongs or what he’ll do next. The novel opens on Jeremy Heldt, an early twenty-something working at a video store in small-town Iowa at a time when VHS tapes were still available to rent. But visit the Midwest any day in October to see just how culturally ingrained the phenomenon is: If a “haunted tractor ride” doesn’t spook you, a tramp through a “haunted corn maze” might.įew books in recent memory have mastered the Midwestern uncanny as well as John Darnielle’s strange and lyrical Universal Harvester. ![]() When farmers today report hearing voices in the field-an occurrence more common than city dwellers might think-psychologists chalk it up to radio waves bouncing off metal farm equipment. ![]() The first European settlers suffered Prairie Madness-a mental affliction symptomized by depression and bouts of violence-that developed after months of exposure to the land’s ruthless tornadic winds. In describing the family’s isolation, the town’s collective misperception of its own safety, and the killers’ lack of motive, Capote captures an underlying truth to the Midwest that strangers to the region rarely see outside of slasher flicks like Children of the Corn: the nation’s bread basket is terrifying. ![]() Truman Capote’s In Cold Blood chills as much today as it did in 1965, and not merely for its account of a gruesome murder in middle-of-nowhere Kansas. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |