The novels of John Darnielle: This back road doesn't go where you think it's going

I'm still doing this weird one-person book club thing,  and it's still paying off to a breathtaking degree. I took a few months off, but kicked into it again earlier this year with the excellent Space Invaders by Nona Fernández, and I've just finished Alice Ash's Paradise Block, a terrifically eerie set of kitchen sink surrealism shorts.

I had some strict rules about this thing, but rules are made to be broken. I'm supposed to be concentrating on novels - I find most short story collections to be really tiring, because having to learn a whole new world and bunch of character every 20 bloody pages - but the connective tissue of Ash's book makes it so much easier to digest.

And I just did my first repeat author, coming back for more from the same voice. And I'm a little embarrassed about it, because this whole thing has been about get out of my comfort zone, and reading more books by women and non-English writers, and the first one I come back to is a white cis guy from an indie rock band.

But John Darnielle's Universal Harvester was so good, and the premise for his Devil House novel sounded so interesting, and different from the rest of the books on offer. (Browsing through the back covers every month mean you notice a lot of trends creeping in, there were months where every second book was about someone going home for a parent's funeral, and now the shelves are awash with women suffering ,which is starting to feel a little pervy, to be honest.)

It did turn out to be something different. Like the earlier novel, Devil House really is not what it looks like, because you think it's going to be something about the satanic panic of the 1980s, and there are a cast of young people ready to be railroaded into injustice, and the way these stories are reported and repeated and change over time.

And then it's not about that at all, it's about the weird artistic thrill that everyone goes through when they transition from school life to the adult world. And then it's about something else, and then it's something else again and I still don't know what it means, but I like that sensation so much, and will always love a story that leaves me a bit baffled.

(I can't give any more details about the specifics, because the less you know, the more you enjoy it.)

As much as broadening my horizons, that was another reason for the book club - to have stories that linger and are worth thinking about, and take you down back roads you didn't know existed. Who fucking knows where you might end up?