WEBVTT
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Although I've been your choose happiness. The statement is supposed
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00:00:13.720 --> 00:00:19.719
to be uplifting, empowering, a daily affirmation meant to summon
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00:00:19.960 --> 00:00:26.359
positive thinking. But when you're depressed, daily affirmations don't do
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00:00:26.600 --> 00:00:30.719
much to snap you out of it. Finding the will
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to overcome black thoughts carries a weight no Pithy's statement
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can lift. Still buried beneath the platitude is the hope
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that another life may be possible. But what if choosing
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00:00:48.000 --> 00:00:53.799
happiness isn't an option? What if your struggle isn't just
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00:00:53.880 --> 00:01:01.039
about saving yourself but saving the entire world? Welcome back
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00:01:01.079 --> 00:01:05.760
to the Voracious Reader podcast, where stories are served course
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00:01:05.840 --> 00:01:11.719
by course and nothing leaves the table unexamined. I'm your host,
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Maggie Tuk. Tonight's reservation is for a lonely house in
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the Pacific Northwest, where strange rituals hold apocalypsic bay on
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the menu. The Caretaker by Marcus Klere, a young woman
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confronts the hungry ghosts suffer past while battling an unknown
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force hell bent on bringing about the end of the world.
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Our table is waiting at first bite. Kluer's novel reads
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like an allegory for what it is like to live
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with depression. The enemies are both outside the house and
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inside Macy's own head, with a malevolent and proving just
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as dangerous as her own intrusive thoughts. As the boundary
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between her thoughts and the reality of the house begins
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to blur, the novel settles into a moody atmosphere of menace.
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It becomes apparent that choosing life is difficult enough without
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adding the fate of everyone else to the job description.
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If she hasn't already hit rock bottom, Macie Mullins is
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close to it. She has a teenage sister she has
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cared for since her father's death. She can't hold a job,
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and the rent for the tiny studio apartment that they
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share is past due. Worse, Macie is desperately, so crushingly depressed.
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To her, the world appears gray and hopeless. It takes
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enormous effort just to get out of bed in the morning.
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She is ready to throw in the towel when she
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sees an ad on Craigslist. It's for a caretaker position
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at a house on the coast. Three days only, competitive pay.
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This is one job Masie thinks she can handle, but
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the job is odd. There are rules. A videotape from
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the house's deceased owner says she needs to follow the
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rights or there will be consequences. Dire consequences, the kind
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of consequences that end with humanity no longer existing. At first,
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the rights seem to be easy. Turn off the house
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lights keep the rabbits outside, but the simple city of
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the rules makes them somehow more difficult to maintain, and
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the hostile voice in her head leaves no room for error. Soon,
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Macy finds herself making mistake after mistake, slipping further into
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the mystery man, the horror of the house she's taken
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care of, and by the time the first visitor with
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cold blue eyes knocks on the front door, Macie realizes
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that the caretaker job is more than just a weekend
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side hustle. The premise gets us through the door. Now,
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00:04:42.120 --> 00:04:47.240
let's see what keeps us at the table. The caretaker
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00:04:47.319 --> 00:04:52.480
pushes all the usual horror buttons, a lone female protagonist,
53
00:04:53.079 --> 00:04:59.240
isolated location in the woods, mysterious videotapes and strangers, and
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00:04:59.360 --> 00:05:04.639
yellow ring coats, but it manages to rearrange the ingredients
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to create a new recipe. The book works almost like
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a choose your own adventure story from the nineteen eighties.
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Macy's choices create one clear chain of cause and effect,
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carrying the story from point A to point B, but
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the possibilities of what could have happened haunt the reader.
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We are always aware that if she just switched off
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one light sooner, or caught one rabbit before it escaped,
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the entire course of the story might have changed. We
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find ourselves almost yelling and frustration when Macy messes up
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another rite, like a moviegoer screaming at the screen. We
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feel Macy's anxiety and frustration with herself, but we also
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want to reach through the pages and help her get
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the job done. The experience isn't cathartic. Instead, it asks
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us to shoulder part of her burden. The familiar ingredients
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may get us to the table, but the themes are where
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the meal develops its real bite. In the book, Macie
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considers herself to be a failure when she can't follow
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the rights. This feeling is compounded Ultimately it becomes a
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self fulfilling prophecy. She can't imagine herself succeeding, so she doesn't.
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This is partly a result of her severe depression, but
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also a consequence of the burden of being responsible. She's
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responsible for her sister, for earning money, for keeping herself alive,
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the job of caring for the house. The burden of
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responsibility becomes a curse. Having to go through the rituals
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of everyday life feels just as soul sucking to Macy.
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As performing the rights to prevent the apocalypse. Even the
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smallest instructions like turning off a light, checking a door lock,
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keeping a rabbit outside, begin to feel impossible once her
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mind convinces her she will fail. Getting up in the morning,
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going to work, scrolling through Netflix. These are just the
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small actions everyone performs to keep our own personal armageddon
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from occurring. However small, these repetitions give life structure and meaning.
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Macy's failures begin to feel almost deliberate. The temptation to
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unburden oneself can be irresistible. Macy cuts loose from the
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anchor of reality. The release of worry and attachment can
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feel like freedom, even if it ends the world. Confronting
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the ghosts of the past is never easy. It takes
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self awareness and a willingness to confront the choices and
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wounds that continue to shape the present. The yellow rain
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coated visitors who knock on the doors of the house
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are manifestations of Macy's past, representing both people who shaped
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her life and fears she is never faced. Their familiar
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voices and unsettling personal knowledge make each encounter feel less
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like an invasion than a memory forcing its way back inside.
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The rituals force Macy to deal with those unres solve
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feelings rather than keep burying them. Each task appears practical
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on the surface, but it requires her to remain present
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when every instinct tells her to retreat. Her inability to
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complete the tasks results in violence and more terror. Nothing
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is resolved. What she refuses to face only grows more powerful.
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What were once monsters hiding under the bed become demons
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invading the room. Maci eventually becomes the ghost of her
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own story, haunting the life she could live but is
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unable to inhabit. But the familiar demon that haunts Macie
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is the manifestation of her own depression. It is a
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clawed monster, Its talons dug deep into her flesh, casts
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the biggest shadow over her life. When Macy finally sees
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a visitor up close, she sees not just a terrible,
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lumbering entity that engulfs all the space in the room,
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she also sees an image of herself. Macie has nowhere
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to look but at within. She recognizes herself in the
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monster's apathy. When the rules are broken, even though it
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knows the consequences will be devastating for her, her sister,
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and the world. Macy becomes the Lovecraftian villain, the potential
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destroyer of worlds. She loses her will to be in
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the world and retreats into a state of emotional numbness.
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The book gives us plenty to chew on, but not
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every bite goes down easily. Let's talk about what doesn't work.
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Although Macie is a compelling protagonist, her repeated inability to
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follow the rights becomes predictable. The suspense begins to fade
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once the reader expects every task to end in failure.
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If she had just once turned a light off on time,
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or kept a rabbit out of the house, it would
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have added tention to the narrative. The novel's second weakness
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comes from what it deliberately refuses to explain. As a whole,
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it has elements of a found footage movie, videotaped messages,
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instructional letters with clues. This technique creates a rar more
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immediate experience for the reader, but it also withholds information
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necessary to understand the house's mythology. The vagueness that results
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requires the reader to fill the blanks. For the most part,
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this ambiguity works, allowing the reader to make up the
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backstory of the house and its previous inhabitants. But I
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was left wondering some crucial questions. What was it about
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the house and its property that made it so special?
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What really happened to its former owner? Ambiguity can deepen
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a mystery, but here it occasionally feels like missing pages.
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We've tasted what works and picked and what doesn't. It's
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time to serve the final course. On the plate, The
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Caretaker looks like a familiar spread. It arrives with the
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usual horror accouterments, with portions of the lonely locale, the endangered,
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and the threat of impending doom. But the combination of
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flavors differs from what we expect. It is flavored with
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melancholy and leaves an aftertaste of regret and missed opportunities.
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The novel makes us think how marginalization caused by poverty
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or mental illness can create despair and emotional paralysis. Macy's
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struggles seem universal. Depression and anxiety have become impossible to ignore.
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It raises the question are we creating our own apocalypse
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by ignoring both? A few ingredients may be missing, but
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the caretaker still serves a haunting meal, one whose bitter
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aftertaste is difficult to forget. The readers who prefer their
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cosmic horror, intimate, melancholy, and psychologically sharp, this is a
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reservation worth keeping. The plates have been cleared and closing
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time is fast approaching. If you like another seat at
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the table, you can find us on Instagram at the
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Voracious Reader podcast TikTok Appidacious Voracious, or reach out to
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our email at The Freezer Queen thirteen at gmail dot com.
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From all of us at other Brother Productions in the
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heart of East Tennessee. Thank you for listening and until
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our next reservation for two, keep your appetite sharp, your
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shells full, and your stories just a little dangerous day?
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Okay you nor fixing my feature? Yeah? I was like, OK,
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you think
1
00:00:00.320 --> 00:00:13.720
Although I've been your choose happiness. The statement is supposed
2
00:00:13.720 --> 00:00:19.719
to be uplifting, empowering, a daily affirmation meant to summon
3
00:00:19.960 --> 00:00:26.359
positive thinking. But when you're depressed, daily affirmations don't do
4
00:00:26.600 --> 00:00:30.719
much to snap you out of it. Finding the will
5
00:00:30.960 --> 00:00:35.679
to overcome black thoughts carries a weight no Pithy's statement
6
00:00:35.759 --> 00:00:41.560
can lift. Still buried beneath the platitude is the hope
7
00:00:41.799 --> 00:00:47.880
that another life may be possible. But what if choosing
8
00:00:48.000 --> 00:00:53.799
happiness isn't an option? What if your struggle isn't just
9
00:00:53.880 --> 00:01:01.039
about saving yourself but saving the entire world? Welcome back
10
00:01:01.079 --> 00:01:05.760
to the Voracious Reader podcast, where stories are served course
11
00:01:05.840 --> 00:01:11.719
by course and nothing leaves the table unexamined. I'm your host,
12
00:01:12.159 --> 00:01:17.120
Maggie Tuk. Tonight's reservation is for a lonely house in
13
00:01:17.159 --> 00:01:24.000
the Pacific Northwest, where strange rituals hold apocalypsic bay on
14
00:01:24.120 --> 00:01:29.239
the menu. The Caretaker by Marcus Klere, a young woman
15
00:01:29.480 --> 00:01:34.439
confronts the hungry ghosts suffer past while battling an unknown
16
00:01:34.599 --> 00:01:38.599
force hell bent on bringing about the end of the world.
17
00:01:39.719 --> 00:01:47.280
Our table is waiting at first bite. Kluer's novel reads
18
00:01:47.359 --> 00:01:50.400
like an allegory for what it is like to live
19
00:01:50.519 --> 00:01:55.719
with depression. The enemies are both outside the house and
20
00:01:56.200 --> 00:02:01.640
inside Macy's own head, with a malevolent and proving just
21
00:02:01.680 --> 00:02:06.920
as dangerous as her own intrusive thoughts. As the boundary
22
00:02:06.959 --> 00:02:10.759
between her thoughts and the reality of the house begins
23
00:02:10.800 --> 00:02:15.840
to blur, the novel settles into a moody atmosphere of menace.
24
00:02:16.800 --> 00:02:21.879
It becomes apparent that choosing life is difficult enough without
25
00:02:21.960 --> 00:02:25.879
adding the fate of everyone else to the job description.
26
00:02:27.919 --> 00:02:32.439
If she hasn't already hit rock bottom, Macie Mullins is
27
00:02:32.520 --> 00:02:35.960
close to it. She has a teenage sister she has
28
00:02:36.000 --> 00:02:39.840
cared for since her father's death. She can't hold a job,
29
00:02:40.400 --> 00:02:43.240
and the rent for the tiny studio apartment that they
30
00:02:43.319 --> 00:02:51.199
share is past due. Worse, Macie is desperately, so crushingly depressed.
31
00:02:52.159 --> 00:02:57.840
To her, the world appears gray and hopeless. It takes
32
00:02:58.159 --> 00:03:01.199
enormous effort just to get out of bed in the morning.
33
00:03:02.400 --> 00:03:05.759
She is ready to throw in the towel when she
34
00:03:05.879 --> 00:03:11.439
sees an ad on Craigslist. It's for a caretaker position
35
00:03:12.039 --> 00:03:17.879
at a house on the coast. Three days only, competitive pay.
36
00:03:19.319 --> 00:03:24.560
This is one job Masie thinks she can handle, but
37
00:03:24.639 --> 00:03:31.479
the job is odd. There are rules. A videotape from
38
00:03:31.560 --> 00:03:35.680
the house's deceased owner says she needs to follow the
39
00:03:35.800 --> 00:03:44.039
rights or there will be consequences. Dire consequences, the kind
40
00:03:44.080 --> 00:03:50.759
of consequences that end with humanity no longer existing. At first,
41
00:03:51.120 --> 00:03:54.800
the rights seem to be easy. Turn off the house
42
00:03:54.879 --> 00:04:00.479
lights keep the rabbits outside, but the simple city of
43
00:04:00.520 --> 00:04:05.560
the rules makes them somehow more difficult to maintain, and
44
00:04:05.599 --> 00:04:10.800
the hostile voice in her head leaves no room for error. Soon,
45
00:04:11.479 --> 00:04:17.480
Macy finds herself making mistake after mistake, slipping further into
46
00:04:17.519 --> 00:04:21.199
the mystery man, the horror of the house she's taken
47
00:04:21.279 --> 00:04:25.519
care of, and by the time the first visitor with
48
00:04:25.720 --> 00:04:31.079
cold blue eyes knocks on the front door, Macie realizes
49
00:04:31.639 --> 00:04:35.600
that the caretaker job is more than just a weekend
50
00:04:36.199 --> 00:04:41.959
side hustle. The premise gets us through the door. Now,
51
00:04:42.120 --> 00:04:47.240
let's see what keeps us at the table. The caretaker
52
00:04:47.319 --> 00:04:52.480
pushes all the usual horror buttons, a lone female protagonist,
53
00:04:53.079 --> 00:04:59.240
isolated location in the woods, mysterious videotapes and strangers, and
54
00:04:59.360 --> 00:05:04.639
yellow ring coats, but it manages to rearrange the ingredients
55
00:05:05.199 --> 00:05:10.399
to create a new recipe. The book works almost like
56
00:05:10.399 --> 00:05:13.399
a choose your own adventure story from the nineteen eighties.
57
00:05:14.360 --> 00:05:18.600
Macy's choices create one clear chain of cause and effect,
58
00:05:19.399 --> 00:05:23.360
carrying the story from point A to point B, but
59
00:05:23.519 --> 00:05:28.720
the possibilities of what could have happened haunt the reader.
60
00:05:29.519 --> 00:05:34.120
We are always aware that if she just switched off
61
00:05:34.319 --> 00:05:38.680
one light sooner, or caught one rabbit before it escaped,
62
00:05:39.199 --> 00:05:44.519
the entire course of the story might have changed. We
63
00:05:44.639 --> 00:05:49.399
find ourselves almost yelling and frustration when Macy messes up
64
00:05:49.480 --> 00:05:54.480
another rite, like a moviegoer screaming at the screen. We
65
00:05:54.680 --> 00:05:59.560
feel Macy's anxiety and frustration with herself, but we also
66
00:05:59.639 --> 00:06:02.160
want to reach through the pages and help her get
67
00:06:02.199 --> 00:06:08.920
the job done. The experience isn't cathartic. Instead, it asks
68
00:06:09.000 --> 00:06:15.240
us to shoulder part of her burden. The familiar ingredients
69
00:06:15.560 --> 00:06:18.879
may get us to the table, but the themes are where
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00:06:18.920 --> 00:06:25.040
the meal develops its real bite. In the book, Macie
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considers herself to be a failure when she can't follow
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the rights. This feeling is compounded Ultimately it becomes a
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self fulfilling prophecy. She can't imagine herself succeeding, so she doesn't.
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This is partly a result of her severe depression, but
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also a consequence of the burden of being responsible. She's
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responsible for her sister, for earning money, for keeping herself alive,
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the job of caring for the house. The burden of
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responsibility becomes a curse. Having to go through the rituals
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of everyday life feels just as soul sucking to Macy.
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As performing the rights to prevent the apocalypse. Even the
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smallest instructions like turning off a light, checking a door lock,
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keeping a rabbit outside, begin to feel impossible once her
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mind convinces her she will fail. Getting up in the morning,
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going to work, scrolling through Netflix. These are just the
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small actions everyone performs to keep our own personal armageddon
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from occurring. However small, these repetitions give life structure and meaning.
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Macy's failures begin to feel almost deliberate. The temptation to
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unburden oneself can be irresistible. Macy cuts loose from the
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anchor of reality. The release of worry and attachment can
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feel like freedom, even if it ends the world. Confronting
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the ghosts of the past is never easy. It takes
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self awareness and a willingness to confront the choices and
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wounds that continue to shape the present. The yellow rain
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coated visitors who knock on the doors of the house
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are manifestations of Macy's past, representing both people who shaped
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her life and fears she is never faced. Their familiar
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voices and unsettling personal knowledge make each encounter feel less
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like an invasion than a memory forcing its way back inside.
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The rituals force Macy to deal with those unres solve
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feelings rather than keep burying them. Each task appears practical
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on the surface, but it requires her to remain present
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when every instinct tells her to retreat. Her inability to
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complete the tasks results in violence and more terror. Nothing
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is resolved. What she refuses to face only grows more powerful.
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What were once monsters hiding under the bed become demons
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invading the room. Maci eventually becomes the ghost of her
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own story, haunting the life she could live but is
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unable to inhabit. But the familiar demon that haunts Macie
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is the manifestation of her own depression. It is a
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clawed monster, Its talons dug deep into her flesh, casts
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the biggest shadow over her life. When Macy finally sees
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a visitor up close, she sees not just a terrible,
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lumbering entity that engulfs all the space in the room,
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she also sees an image of herself. Macie has nowhere
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to look but at within. She recognizes herself in the
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monster's apathy. When the rules are broken, even though it
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knows the consequences will be devastating for her, her sister,
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and the world. Macy becomes the Lovecraftian villain, the potential
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destroyer of worlds. She loses her will to be in
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the world and retreats into a state of emotional numbness.
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The book gives us plenty to chew on, but not
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every bite goes down easily. Let's talk about what doesn't work.
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Although Macie is a compelling protagonist, her repeated inability to
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follow the rights becomes predictable. The suspense begins to fade
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once the reader expects every task to end in failure.
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If she had just once turned a light off on time,
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or kept a rabbit out of the house, it would
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have added tention to the narrative. The novel's second weakness
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comes from what it deliberately refuses to explain. As a whole,
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it has elements of a found footage movie, videotaped messages,
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instructional letters with clues. This technique creates a rar more
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immediate experience for the reader, but it also withholds information
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necessary to understand the house's mythology. The vagueness that results
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requires the reader to fill the blanks. For the most part,
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this ambiguity works, allowing the reader to make up the
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backstory of the house and its previous inhabitants. But I
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was left wondering some crucial questions. What was it about
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the house and its property that made it so special?
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What really happened to its former owner? Ambiguity can deepen
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a mystery, but here it occasionally feels like missing pages.
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We've tasted what works and picked and what doesn't. It's
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time to serve the final course. On the plate, The
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Caretaker looks like a familiar spread. It arrives with the
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usual horror accouterments, with portions of the lonely locale, the endangered,
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and the threat of impending doom. But the combination of
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flavors differs from what we expect. It is flavored with
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melancholy and leaves an aftertaste of regret and missed opportunities.
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The novel makes us think how marginalization caused by poverty
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or mental illness can create despair and emotional paralysis. Macy's
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struggles seem universal. Depression and anxiety have become impossible to ignore.
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It raises the question are we creating our own apocalypse
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by ignoring both? A few ingredients may be missing, but
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the caretaker still serves a haunting meal, one whose bitter
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aftertaste is difficult to forget. The readers who prefer their
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cosmic horror, intimate, melancholy, and psychologically sharp, this is a
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reservation worth keeping. The plates have been cleared and closing
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time is fast approaching. If you like another seat at
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the table, you can find us on Instagram at the
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Voracious Reader podcast TikTok Appidacious Voracious, or reach out to
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our email at The Freezer Queen thirteen at gmail dot com.
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From all of us at other Brother Productions in the
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heart of East Tennessee. Thank you for listening and until
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our next reservation for two, keep your appetite sharp, your
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shells full, and your stories just a little dangerous day?
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Okay you nor fixing my feature? Yeah? I was like, OK,
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you think
