If you want an example of how to sell an impulse-buy print book directly to me, look no further than David James Keaton’s Head Cleaner (2023), a novel involving employees of “the Last Blockbuster” that is packaged to physically resemble an old VHS tape case. Well, done, Marketing! But how about the book itself?
Set in Toledo, Head Cleaner introduces us to Jerry, Eva, and Randy, three throwback slackers eking out a retail existence renting video tapes deep in the era of instant streaming. They’re an unambitious lot, for the most part, but Jerry can’t help but rise to the challenge when Eva suggests they partner up to “repo” unreturned items from the White Whale of deadbeat renters. The two of them venture out into the night on a reckless adventure, which eventually entangles their crass boss Randy, a mission that makes them aware of the existence of a VCR that can rewrite the endings of movies — and possibly also reality.
Head Cleaner feels like an Angry Robot book, which as it turns out, it sort of is; Datura Books is AR’s crime imprint, although honestly there’s more than enough specfic energy present to satisfy the science fiction crowd. I enjoyed it sentence by sentence; its rapid-fire banter is full of amusing non sequiturs, comical bickering, and movie trivia. It certainly resonated with Gen X coming-of-age memories, and there’s a theme worth excavating about obsolescence and change, the trusty permanence of old media and the elusive impermanence of modern times. Parsing the logistics of the action, on the other hand, is a rather hellacious challenge; a judicious sign post here or there wouldn’t have been amiss, to give the narrative a smidge more coherence. And holy hell, the copy editing is atrocious. Still, though, a fun ride with a wacky, bracing energy, especially for those who lived through the pop-cultural era it zanily, lovingly resurrects.
