Five years earlier in 1981, the town was also the site of another death, and the case was turned into a book and film, The River’s Edge. At the urging of his literary agent, he buys and occupies a house in Milpitas, California which was the scene of a locally notorious double murder in 1986. Above all, he does not want his books to follow a narrative about a ‘hero’ and victims.
His latest novel, Devil House, follows Gage Chandler, a true crime writer wrestling with the ethics of writing about people, alive and dead. Reading his fiction requires some concentration and an almost blind trust in the author. Darnielle has also written a number of novels ( Wolf in White Van, Universal Harvester) and those are very different from each other and from his lyrics, experimenting with genre and style, and ambitious in execution. Tremendously prolific, Darnielle has released more than 20 albums, and in my very humble opinion, is one the greatest songwriters in this dimension, with lyrics that are beautiful, profound and moving.
John Darnielle is the singer and songwriter for the astonishing band, the Mountain Goats.
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