Tucked into a Publisher’s Weekly profile of John Darnielle was news that the Mountain Goats frontman turned author has already been signed for two more novels to come after the release of Universal Harvester, his second book and one of our most anticipated of 2017. According to the article, the publishing house behind Harvester—which is out February 7—will be handling those future projects, in addition to a special vinyl audiobook release of Harvester that’s read by Darnielle and includes original music from the author. When asked what those other novels might be about, Darnielle mentioned his interest in a subject that’s a far cry from the game designers and small-town video store clerks of his first two books:
“I’m casting my net around, is what I’m doing,” Darnielle said. “I was reading Geoffrey of Monmouth’s The History Of the Kings of Britain a few years ago, and there’s all these very short ones that not much is known about. And every once in a while a sentence will leap out at you and you’ll go, ‘Well, there must have been more of a story there.’ There’s all kinds of really interesting little details strewn about, and I feel like there’s a lot I want to do with that stuff.”
Darnielle’s first novel, Wolf In White Van, was a New York Times best seller and one of our favorite books of 2014. His follow-up,Universal Harvester, tells the story of a employee at a video rental store in Iowa who finds some disturbing footage spliced into the place’s VHS tapes and tries to track down their origin.