The Last Days of Video

by Jeremy Hawkins

Video stores are dying. But most of you don’t care. You’ve got your Netflix and your DVR, so why deal with VHS tapes or scratched DVDs? Why deal with the grumpy guy at the worn-down independent video store?

That grumpy guy is Waring Wax, and he’s usually too drunk to worry about his declining business at Star Video, let alone his quickly evolving extinction in popular culture. But everything changes in his small college town when a bright and shiny Blockbuster Video opens nearby: Clearly, this means war. So, Waring enlists the help of his two reluctant employees, charismatic but conflicted Alaura and desperate virgin Jeff, to hatch a series of wild schemes to save their little store. Together, these three misfits try to save Star Video while confronting, among other things, Waring’s self-destructive tendencies, a life training cult, corporate bicycle gangs, and a Hollywood director who constantly sees the ghost of Alfred Hitchcock.

The Last Days of Video is a hilarious elegy for a bygone era, a quirky and charming story of redemption for a group of loveable cinema freaks, and a love letter to the art of the movies.

Genres: Fiction, Contemporary, Humor, Adult Fiction, Novels, Relationships

288 pages, Paperback

First published January 13, 2015

Reviews

[Jeff · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love it when finding a book with no buzz. Just picking it at random or by the cover and absolutely adoring it. Maybe it's my love of films or working in video stores but this book got to me. I ended up reading it straight through 2 days. Never wanting to leave the characters or their store and world. I highly recommend.

[Bethany Creed · Rating 3 out of 5]

Fellow Luddites be warned: If you are overly sentimental about old-fashioned things like independent video stores, this book is kryptonite. And I live in a town that still has them, but there's the rest of America to weep for. Countrymen! What possesses you to sacrifice the charms of human interaction in physical buildings filled with gloriously tangible things for mere "convenience"? Better not waste a few precious minutes of your Breaking Bad binge marathon to uphold the pillars of your community! But this is my own private rant, not the tone of the book. You will get no recriminations, no guilt trips from The Last Days of Video. It's light, funny, facile, and yet somehow a deeply stirring elegy for the dying institution of the video store.

It's 2007, and Star Video seems to be on its last legs. The drunken, belligerent proprietor, Waring Wax, is behind on his bills and rude to customers. The longtime manager, Waring's friend (and object of unfulfilled longing), Alaura, is beginning to suspect that he can't afford to keep the store—a place that means everything to her. A new Blockbuster has just opened down the street, driving business to a near standstill, and Star Video's deal with its Christian distributor is threatened. As Alaura's anger at Waring—and her grief and confusion over her latest romantic failure—cause her to drift away, the responsibilities of running a small business fall increasingly on the shoulders of the newest hire, college freshman and devout film buff Jeff.

The loveability of these three characters really drives the book. Everyone else—even the other Star Video employees—is pretty flat, but I got attached to Waring, Alaura, and Jeff. I wouldn't call even their characters brilliantly developed; the great-unveiling-of-Waring's-past feels ham-fisted. And yet...I really cared about these three lost people and the fate of their beloved, jeopardized store. I was rapt through every zany, increasingly improbable plot twist. Will Waring's sexual prowess be able to save his distribution deal? Will Alaura quit her job to join a cult? What do the crazy Blockbuster employees mean by their vague, ominous threats? Will Jeff ever get laid? And can a delusional, unraveling Hollywood director save Star Video?

Not all of your burning questions will be answered. You will always have to wonder, for example, about the source of the movie star Tabitha Gray's mysterious power over Match Anderson. I won't pretend the ending ties up every loose end and is perfectly satisfying. Then again, neither is life. This is a very fun little book, and one with the power to make me cancel my Netflix subscription (if I had a Netflix subscription, WHICH I DON'T).

[Nick · Rating 4 out of 5]

Videos and the independent Video Store were a massive part of my life in the 80’s. At first, my folks got a Betamax VCR. When we went to our local video rental store it became obvious that Betamax was losing the VCR war as it was hugely outnumbered by VHS videos. We soon switched to VHS!

VHS could record what was on TV which we used a lot. However, it was the excitement of movie night which made me love VHS. Still went to the Cinema loads but renting a movie on VHS was awesome! I would walk with my family or group of friends to my local shops which now included a Video Rental Store. We talked about what film to watch and hoped there was a copy left. If not, then look around the store at all the videos in different genres until one caught our eyes.

I also watched A Clockwork Orange on a “pirate” VHS as Kubrick had withdrawn it from UK release in 1973. It was finally released in 1999!

The 80's was also the time of the Video Nasties (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Video_n...).

Then along came Blockbuster and killed off the independent video store. The VHS was also on its last legs. DVD was the new format. Rented from Blockbuster throughout the 90’s which was then killed by Lovefilm, an online DVD rental by post which I used loads. Bought by Amazon, continued for a while and then killed off.

Now it’s all streaming.

The story is set in 2007 but definitely has that 80’s nostalgia feel to a degree. Mainly as it brings back memories of my trips to my local video store. Waring Wax is a grumpy old bloke who is the owner of Star Video which faces a threat to its existence from a newly opened Blockbuster. Two of his employees, Alaura and Jeff also get involved in plans to save Star Video. I got attached to all three characters who were completely different in all their ways, apart from their love for movies. Discovered about their lives, their past, their friendship, the decisions to make in their life and what was their future going to hold? What was going to happen to Star Video?

A fun, emotional story, and tribute to a bygone era.

[Becky · Rating 5 out of 5]

This novel is quirky, bawdy, at times irreverent--and totally engaging. You WANT to know how this story will end. Your film acumen will be tested--will you know all the references? Does it really matter? Not one bit. The characters are endearing though often perplexing, but you'll root for them and you'll want them to win in the end. Get ready for a fun read and an even more fun ride. Publication Date--March 2015. It's worth the wait.

[Rand · Rating 2 out of 5]

That's entertainment.

For being a book about curmudgeonly know-it-all assholes specializing in obscurities, the fact that the author presents an alternate spelling of Willie Nelson's first name riled me up. Maybe it was the intentional remnant of a Free Willy joke or maybe not.

I liked the ending, aside from the depositing of one minor-yet-major player from the narrative, but, hey, that's life, right? People appear, stuff happens, and some people just disappear, their problems being literally beyond the scope of those with whom an observer's principal concerns are honed in on. It is what it is.

I really liked this book and really did not like it at the same time. There was a line near the end, in describing a movie that is "satisfying" on a visceral/palliative level without being fully intellectually/morally/emotionally/aestheticallyengaging, a sort of celebration of big budget Hollywood schlock. And that is sort of where I feel that this book hovers, back and forth between comedic brilliance/novelty and the page-turning "beach read". This was my third time attempting to read it since its recent publication; my local library still shelves it with the New Releases after two years. The difference being that this time I actually made it past the first thirty pages and was hooked. At certain points I did become bored, as the story became repetitive and predictable at times, but I kept returning to it because of the fresh humor and the well-developed protagonist.

While reading this book in public, I would show it to people in real life and, if I suspected that they were hip to music and films, would state rather simply that it does for video stores what High Fidelity did for record shops. Which is somewhat untrue; Hornby's first person narrative is more than an ocean apart from this celebration of the commodification of the American South. Plus Hornby's book suffers from the rare inability to perform to the same level as its adaptation, due in part to the technical limitations of books not yet having embedded soundtracks.

But really, the High Fidelity comparison is not so apt. This is more Empire Records due to its bildungsroman-esque trappings imparted by its college-town setting.

Two stars because this is an okay book that could have been excellent. It seemed too long, which is unfortunate as the edition I read clocks in at under 300 pages. The reliance on pop culture references was annoying and distracting and will only further limit this book's immediate grasp upon future audiences. The exact year in which the story took place was difficult to pin down at first, given the general technological progression in the film/home/mobile entertainment industries. The author chooses an out-of-context quote from A Confederacy of Dunces to preface his book but makes no mention of the work which that quotation points to. The book teases with sex and porn but never delivers the goods. It was funny, it was entertaining, it was a way to pass the time.

Like any form of entertainment deemed sub-par by an overly critical audience, this book demands one to evaluate—in light of the simple fact that the thing was not such total rubbish (nor overly demanding, for that matter) to be snubbed entirely and left halfread— the grounds upon which the value and pleasures of literature and art are to be determined. All of which means that for a book I did not care for, I liked it quite a bit.

The idea of a VHS rental place being the setting for a story has been explored by a few different films though. There's Ben Churchill's documentary Video World and something called The Last Video Store and then there's Video Store and, of course, Be Kind Rewind—I've only seen parts of the latter and fell asleep through it multiple times, not that that really means anything because movies = naptime for me, as a general rule.

That's why I read books, for the congruence of cover art.

[Rachel · Rating 4 out of 5]

when I was a kid, there was an independent video store in my town that was staffed by enthusiastic film nerds and had a wide selection of classic and important and cult films. but it was 1993 and i was in 3rd grade so mostly I was renting stuff like "cool runnings" and that bette midler witch movie. but even 8 year-old me could tell it was a pretty special place.

of course, time has not been kind to the places where we used to rent bette midler witch movies on VHS. so that place is dead, but this guy who is from my town and worked there forever wrote a novel about it.

this book was sweet and sad, and about eccentric, relatable fuck-ups who are redeemed through their love of art so blah blah blah of course i liked it

[Trevor · Rating 4 out of 5]

I won't lie - I got emotional as I got to the end of this book, and ruminated on the loss of the small video stores that I loved going to as a kid. This isn't some dry history of video stores - rather, it's a fictional (and quite amusing) story set in a small independent video store in North Carolina in 2007, right in that moment when video stores began to go the way of the dodo. The eternally drunk and grumpy store owner, Waring Wax, can be a hard character to love...but he's always entertaining (and I was very happy to see Hawkins confirm in the book's acknowledgements that he borrowed liberally from the excellent British sitcom "Black Books," as I was definitely getting a Bernard Black vibe from Waring throughout). You really do root for him and the other characters as they try to figure out how to save the seemingly doomed business...and I realized that what I was really rooting for was them to save video stores themselves, even though that moment has passed and I know it's a hopeless wish. I'm betting most readers my age, who share my love of movies, will recognize their own favorite indie video store in Waring's Star Video, which imparts the book with a special kind of nostalgic (and sad) charm. But rather than just let it be a bummer, I'll say the book also brought a smile to my face a lot, and is a nice tribute to an increasingly lost rite-of-passage for movie buffs. I might never again have the chance to walk the aisles of a store like Star Video...but at least this book reminds me that plenty of others share my fond memories of that experience.

[Jeannette · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Last Days of Video by Jeremy Hawkins was a walk down memory lane for me. Younger readers may not remember video stores or even have ever been to one. I not only remember when they came about but also worked in my small college town's video store/movie theater for four years. My mom was such a movie buff that she recorded enough movies onto VHS that we could have run our own store out of our house (had that been legal). Reading this story about an eccentric crew of independent video store employees in their element felt like putting on a comfy sweater. As they battle to save their store from the Blockbuster and Netflix, it made me feel guilty putting the book down to watch something on streaming although I am probably one of the last people in history to still get DVDs from Netflix. Trust me, there are just some things you can only get on DVD now. It's true. If you love movies, you will also enjoy the many movie references. Just be better prepared than I was. I wanted to eat fresh, buttered popcorn the whole time!

[Tom Lehmann · Rating 3 out of 5]

Total fluff that shamelessly namedrops movie after after movie without much of a purpose other than pander to its target audience. Some of the plot machinations are incredibly groan-inducing in their obviousness. But at the end of the day I would have to lie to say I didn’t enjoy parts of this book. Not sure whether I’ll remember any of it half a year from now but it’s pleasant enough to recommend for a breezy read.

[Jake · Rating 2 out of 5]

I loved the movie references, but they mostly felt empty. He's just name dropping movies and references to movies in a way that has no meaning other than the reference. If you get it great, and if you don't, who gives a fuck? This seemed like a first novel in almost every way. Also fuck you guy, John Cusack was great in High Fidelity.

[Victoria Frow · Rating 5 out of 5]

Good. Interesting characters and concept and it took me back to my childhood and teenage years of having to go to the video store and pick out a movie. Hard to get into at first but once I did I really enjoyed it.

[Camille HR · Rating 3 out of 5]

I was surprised to find out that this was about the video store where I worked in college

[Emily K. · Rating 3 out of 5]

Picked this up because in 2021, one of my favorite places in the greater Philadelphia area, Viva Video! closed its doors for good. Real estate, not streaming, was the culpret. Now where can I go to rent the unstreamables, like Andy Milligan's works or the Cat? Why not read a novel about the thing I love that I lost, but this novel is more about the Forum Video and Video Forums that I grew up with, that were displaced by the Blockbuster that was displaced by streaming and Red Box. The Red Box machine sat in the foyer to the grocery store where another video store used to be, before the grocery store shut down and is replaced by a tractor supply store, because Massachusetts gets more country as the world spirals evermore down the drain. To make Jeff happy, I'll say I liked this book. Sometimes the author did a little bit too much, "her breasts titted boobily" when describing Alaura, but the rest of the story and the story's world felt fully realized. A videostore High Fidelity, a pastiche in the most loving sense, a story about a moment in time when everything was changing, still is. But, man, Jeremy, they're called VCRs.

[Kate (lkatemm on Storygraph) · Rating 2 out of 5]

Reading this put me in real nostalgia mode. My boyfriend at the time Jeremy worked with Jeremy Hawkins at VisArt in the early 2000s and I worked at the Newstand on Elliot Rd. Parts of this also remind of the Varsity and independent theaters, but some of those real life people (Bruce Stone, Stuart Hoyle) are better than fiction.

[Dedi Setiadi · Rating 3 out of 5]

3,5 stars!
It’s a bit overlong, especially in the third-act.
But overall, it’s a fun and entertaining book about the dawnfall of video stores as the digital age is rising up *cough* netflix *cough*.

[Rose · Rating 3 out of 5]

This first caught my eyes because of its undeniably, incredibly cool cover. The premise -- about a 2007 independent video rental store that's thrown into economic chaos by the Blockbuster that opens across the street -- seemed undeniably cool, too. New technology continues to supplant things that are of varying importance to the background of my life, and the loss of video rental stores is one of those things. (Besides, as a librarian at a public library, I'm keenly interested in looking at what changing times and changing technologies can do to our way of life.) I was sold.

The book itself turned out to be an interesting, fairly engaging, fun read. I liked the characters, and I quite liked the interweaving of the plot with the personal character arcs of said characters. This is a book about loss and change and transformation, and if it doesn't always succeed in getting quite as deep as it tries to, it comes pretty close a couple of times.

Fun stuff.

[Allen · Rating 4 out of 5]

When a Blockbuster opens in town, Waring Wax and his employees Alaura and Jeff must figure out how to save Star Video.
Due to several years of mismanagement and failure to adjust to new trends.Waring is behind the eight ball in life and business, his second in command Alaura has some troubles in her life as well.She seems to be unable to find what matters to her in life besides movies. Then there is Jeff, just starting college and figuring out his life path.

This is a good book,that has interesting characters and is evenly paced.

[Jess · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 Stars...fun and quirky. The characters were great-especially cranky, disillusioned Waring, whose insults were amazing, my favorite being about a certain Star Wars character whom many found irritating! Perfect for film buffs (which I am not), though anyone with a love of nostalgia like me may enjoy it. It made me think of a video store I often visited in Madison, Wisconsin, when I was a student. It smelled funny, had weird titles that I'd never heard of (nor, most times, had any interest in), but you couldn't help but love it.

[Sohni · Rating 4 out of 5]

I was surprised at how emotional I felt towards the end of the book, I wanted them to make it and save the video but deep down I knew they wouldn't, but I became very attached to the characters. My video stores was called Video Mania my friend worked there and I would ride my bike and hangout there when the owner wasn't around. They had an amazing section of anime, and the love of anime has stayed with me ever since, thank yoi videoamia. And thank yoi to the author for bringing me back to wonderful time of my life, what wonderful book.

[Steve Tripp · Rating 3 out of 5]

Barely edges into 3 stars .. and only because it has a very unique and different plot. The story is centered around the end of the "video store" and life in that era. It has it's clever moments but those are often tempered by the authors tendency to use the book as a vehicle to describe rather obscure movie trivia. Oh yeah .. it also has a great cover.

[Samantha · Rating 4 out of 5]

Snarky hipster characters who are fully realized as flawed and struggling people, against a backdrop of small town life and movies. In other words: a great read! If you love movies, you'll enjoy the commentary on movies in general and specific films. If you like seeing characters find themselves and grow, you'll love the arcs of the main characters in this novel.

[Joan Concilio · Rating 4 out of 5]

I miss my high school days, when my best friend worked for an independent video store and had the job of watching VHS tapes and DVDs customers complained didn't play right. Doing that at 2 in the morning in my living room was the best part of those years of my life, and this book made me feel that way again, however briefly.

[Clint Hannah-Lopez · Rating 5 out of 5]

I feel this book was uniquely tailored to me. Set in a college town in NC (check), a love letter to movies (check), nostalgia for physical media (check), and a good dose of humor (check). Combine some surprisingly moving emotion for me and a reminder that it's sometimes just really hard to be a human, and this was a really, really good read.

[Shay · Rating 2 out of 5]

While in many ways the typical, quirky underdog story, Jeremy Hawkins at least has the guts to not take the easy ending, but that doesn’t save The Last Days of Video from being more nostalgia than substance.

[Sir Nicho · Rating 2 out of 5]

If you're in the mood for nostalgia and like a story with little substance this is the book for you. Also the last third of the book felt tacked on. As if the author realized it wasn't long enough or couldn't figure out how to end it. I have a feeling it's the latter. A decent, easy read.

[Ivy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fresh. Entertaining look back at movie history with some very fun, real characters. Alaura is the central character working for Waring Wax and aided by college student Jeff. College town video store is barely limping along and then...the Blockbuster opens across the street.

[Payal · Rating 3 out of 5]

wasn't as funny as expected. rather sad copy of high fidelity. still an entertaining enough read.

[Erin Tuzuner · Rating 3 out of 5]

Charming genre driven tale of predictable quirks and haphazard resolution.

[Jonathan · Rating 2 out of 5]

The dialogue and writing are so bad, I was surprised this book managed to get published. But the gimmick was entertaining enough at times to get me to the end.

[Michael Blaylock · Rating 4 out of 5]

A fun, easy read for movie lovers, especially those who see that the book cover is designed like a videocasette and get nostalgic (like me).

WHAT NEEDED WORK
Let's get the bad out of the way first.
There's no real "opponent" in this story. Several are brought up, but none of them last, nor do they really have anything to do with each other. We're left with strands that don't tie together. And even Blockbuster, gets forgotten by the book's halfway point, which is problematic because it's set up as the main antagonist, but isn't. It also undermines the book's story about the last days of video when that Blockbuster is JUST opening.
Also, the main character, Warring, is conspicuously sidelined for most of the last quarter or so of the book, as the big things are happening, which robs the book a little. No spoilers, but two people do something, one good and one bad, which each have huge implications. Warren does neither of them, so he's neither the heroic character who overcomes, nor the tragic one who can't change. He doesn't really get a chance to succeed or fail, those things happen without his input.

WHAT WORKED
The three main characters, Warring, Alaura, and Jeff, are all good. Warring is the grumpy, drunk cynic who sees things need to change, but flips the world the bird. Alaura tries way too much to change and has to see that her current qualities are her best ones. Jeff has less of an arc, or at least less of a "shown" one (more "told"), but he's still an intregal character who grows to love film from the other two.
This book is also a fantastic swan song for video stores. Many people my age or thereabouts have incredibly fond memories of renting movies and watching them at home or sharing them with friends. This book caters to that nostalgia and happiness very well, a loving homage to movies. Perhaps the best part about this is that, with three leads, you can get multiple views on movies, so no one "this-movie-good-this-movie-bad" judgment rules the roost, so the book doesn't really exclude many moviegoers. Star Video sounds like a place I would have loved--heck I'd probably love it today.
The final scene is also fantastic. I can't say much without spoilers, but it's a good ending for all involved, a proper capstone to Warring's character, while also giving the audience something to smile about, rather than brooding about the past, life sucks, roll credits. The ending is sad, but in a warm way. Ironically, this makes the lack of an antagonist work in the book's favor, as the enemy is the changing times. It's not evil, just uncomfortable, so you can sigh and pine, but you can also smile in pleasant memories. This scene, and this book, convey that better than anything.

OVERALL
7/10, some stumbling story beats, but ultimately a very likeable movie that I can easily recommend. If you're a film lover, you'll enjoy this, but even if you aren't, the references aren't too dense, so you can still understand the book. And again, for those of us who get happy jitters seeing the video-rental-style cover art, it's a real treasure.