The perils of remodeling

The Garrison Project

David J. Thirteen

Publisher: Bad Luck Books

Pub. Date: June 23, 2017

Rating: 4 out of 5 stars

The Garrison Project is an interesting literary slant on a cinematic gimmick called the Found Footage Film. The most famous example of that is, of course, The Blair Witch Project. Actually the closest thing to found footage in novels would be the epistolary novel where the narrative is given by documents, usually letters. David J. Thirteen's take is to follow a researcher of urban legends who comes upon a series of videos that chronicles the remodeling of a house and points to something more sinister.

Molly is looking for the point where a true-life incident makes the leap to horror folk tale. She believes she may have found it in a online video where the family is tearing down a wall for remodeling and discovers a strange shrine. The research comes to a dead end until an unknown person sends her more tapes chronicling the continuing remodeling of the house. We not only follow the video's narration of what took place but also Molly's as she senses something in the videos may be taking a hold on her.

That is where the analogy to found footage ends. We see the viewer's own perceptions and reaction as well as the narration on the videos. The chapters go back and fought, sometimes a little awkwardly, but it does rev up the tension of the story. You not only have a unreliable narrator but perhaps an unreliable video. It's a nice gimmick and one that works most of the way through. The idea communicates the changes in Molly's perceptions rather well which is really the meat of the story.

Overall a brief but entertaining read from a new writer who took some chances and made it work.