The Caretaker of Lorne Field

In Dave Zeltserman's psychological horror novel The Caretaker of Lorne Field, Jack Durkin is the ninth generation of his family bound by an ancient contract to weed a lonely New England field from sunrise to sunset. To the rest of the skeptical town and his increasingly miserable wife, Lydia, Jack is an underpaid eccentric wasting his life on an outdated town myth for a meager stipend. However, to Jack, his back-breaking labor is a vital, one-man crusade to protect the world from the Aukowies—a terrifying species of monster weeds capable of multiplying exponentially and wiping out humanity in a mere two weeks.

The fragile stability of Jack's isolating routine begins to unravel when his oldest son refuses to inherit the thankless family legacy, and the town starts actively pushing to dissolve the centuries-old agreement. As external pressures mount, his wife attempts to monetize the field, and escalating, bizarre events threaten Jack's ability to clear the land, the narrative expertly shifts between multiple perspectives. Zeltserman masterfully builds slow-burning tension, leaving readers to question whether Jack is a delusional man succumbing to extreme obsession or the literal savior of humankind desperately fighting a losing battle against a very real nightmare.