The Veldt Institute

a novel by
Samuel M. Moss
003 250 pp 5" x 7.5" x 0.585" 0.7 lbs September 2025 978-3-16-148410-0 $22
A spiritual journey past the limits of knowing.
Endless fields of grass. A sky so bright there are barely shadows. At the center of this expanse is The Veldt Institute, an austere structure governed by austere routine. The patients perform their tasks, bathe in the veldtlicht, contemplate silence, all following the prescriptions of the institute’s doctors, seven in all, each with his or her specialization. Doctor Mellinger practices Movement Activities. Doctor Yin heals by absence. Doctor Peltus says we all suffer from a malady as unique as the treatment it requires, but our narrator’s malady remains elusive, even after so much time at the Institute, time that has long blurred into a present as expansive and unchanging as the veldt. To make sense of this, our narrator documents life at the Institute. Consider its architecture, the vast library, and the veldt itself, a source of unease as much as a source of healing. Why does its light have such a profound effect on patients? How foolish is the Holy Fool? What, if anything, lies at the end of the Inner Path? The only way to know for sure is to walk it.

File Under

absolute center, the aura of objects, behind the curtain, brutalism, convalescence, cruel artifice, doctor’s orders, drone mysticism, the eternal present, groupthink, impenetrability, the ineffable, inexact sciences, lost minds, negative space, the numinous, obscurantism, pareidolia, primacy of the commentary, psychogenesis, purity, quiet horror, repetition, repetition, the rest cure, sacred geometries, the sheer magnitude of things, spiritual journeys, states of mind, strained belief, superposition, unknowing, vanishing points, walking the labyrinth, white noise, wholeness

See Also

Beyond the Black Rainbow (2010)
Dino Buzzati - The Stronghold
Camilla Grudova - The Doll’s Alphabet
Jacqueline Harpman - I Who Have Never Known Men
The Hourglass Sanatorium (1973)
Institute Benjamenta (1995)
Franz Kafka - The Castle
Thomas Mann - The Magic Mountain
David Markson - Wittgenstein’s Mistress
Gerald Murnane - The Plains, Inland
Marie Redonnet - Hôtel Splendid
Cristina Rivera-Garza - The Taiga Syndrome

Excerpts

“Dr. Lysergus” - minor literature[s]
“The Veldt Light” - new_sinews

Discourse

Events

2025-09-18 Under the Influence with Colin Winnette, Lucy Corin, and others at Et al. Gallery, San Francisco (poster)

Author

Samuel M. Moss lives in rural Cascadia. He is an associate editor at 11:11 Press and runs ergot., a site for innovative horror.