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House of Leaves: A Novel
by Mark Z. Danielewski

House of Leaves: A Novel Cover

Only 2 left in stock at $13.95!

Powells.com Staff Pick

"Saints be praised, this is the best book of the new millennium. A veritable tour de force. Pynchon meets Stephen King meets Robert Hughes meets Borges meets Dante. Joycian. Jungian. Mythic. Any clich used by fawning literary critics applies. Yadda Yadda Yadda. Impossible to put down. Impossible to believe it's his first book. I spent several hours trying to figure out if Danielewski was an anagram, which is a fraction of the time I spent deciphering the many anagrams, puzzles, hidden meanings and symbols which make this book so rich. It's an allegory/horror story/love story/philosophical soft porn/psychological thriller. It scared the crap out of me. It made me cry. It filled me with joyous rapture. I stopped eating, sleeping, working, (please ignore that boss) just to finish it. Then I started it again and it's better the second time. Hurrumph. Yammer. Gawk. OK I'm back. It's a book about a guy who finds a manuscript about a film about a family who have moved into a house that is smaller on the outside than it is on the inside. If I told you any more I'd have to kill you (or maybe you'd have to kill me.) I've already said too much." John M., Powells.com

Synopses & Reviews

Publisher Comments:

Years ago, when House of Leaves was first being passed around, it was nothing more than a badly bundled heap of paper, parts of which would occasionally surface on the Internet. No one could have anticipated the small but devoted following this terrifying story would soon command. Starting with an odd assortment of marginalized youth — musicians, tattoo artists, programmers, strippers, environmentalists, and adrenaline junkies — the book eventually made its way into the hands of older generations, who not only found themselves in those strangely arranged pages but also discovered a way back into the lives of their estranged children.

Now, for the first time, this astonishing novel is made available in book form, complete with the original colored words, vertical footnotes, and newly added second and third appendices.

The story remains unchanged, focusing on a young family that moves into a small home on Ash Tree Lane where they discover something is terribly wrong: their house is bigger on the inside than it is on the outside.

Of course, neither Pulitzer Prize-winning photojournalist Will Navidson nor his companion Karen Green was prepared to face the consequences of that impossibility, until the day their two little children wandered off and their voices eerily began to return another story — of creature darkness, of an ever-growing abyss behind a closet door, and of that unholy growl which soon enough would tear through their walls and consume all their dreams.

Review:

"An amazingly intricate and ambitious first novel...that puts an engrossing new spin on the traditional haunted house tale....One of the most impressive excursions into the supernatural in many a year." Kirkus Reviews (Starred Review)

Review:

"[A] wonderful first novel....[F]unny, moving, sexy, beautifully told, an elaborate engagement with the shape and meaning of narrative." Robert Kelly, The New York Times Book Review

Review:

"Danielewski's eccentric and sometimes brilliant debut novel is really two novels....One — the horror story — is a tour-de-force....[T]he novel is a surreal palimpsest of terror and erudition, surely destined for cult status." Publishers Weekly

Review:

"This stunning first effort is destined for fast-track cult status....This work is a kaleidoscopically layered and deconstructed H. P. Lovecraft-style horror story. It hums and resonates with wonder, dread, and insight." Eric Robbins, Booklist

Review:

"Danielewski employs avant-garde page layouts that are occasionally a bit too clever but are generally highly effective....It is simultaneously a highly literary work and an absolute hoot....[P]owerful and extremely original..." Library Journal

Review:

"This demonically brilliant book is impossible to ignore, put down, or persuasively conclude reading. In fact, when you purchase your copy you may reach a certain page and find me there, reduced in size like Vincent Price in The Fly, still trapped in the web of its malicious, beautiful pages." Jonathan Lethem, author of Motherless Brooklyn

Review:

"House of Leaves actually gave me nightmares: I had to stop reading it before bedtime. I'm sure klaxons will be set blaring around it and klieg lights will be trained on it, and so they should. Its secrets are rich and obscure. Danielewski's textured novel is about apprehensions, in all senses of the word: to anticipate with dread, to seize, to understand. If you can imagine that Peter Pan's enemy is not Captain Hook but Neverland itself, or that the whale that swallows Jonah is Moby-Dick, you'll begin to appreciate what this book is about. Anticipate it with dread, seize, and understand. A riveting reading experience." Gregory Maguire, author of Lost and Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West

Review:

"A great novel. A phenomenal debut. Thrillingly alive, sublimely creepy, distressingly scary, breathtakingly intelligent — it renders most other fiction meaningless. One can imagine Thomas Pynchon, J. G. Ballard, Stephen King, and David Foster Wallace bowing at Danielewski's feet, choking with astonishment, surprise, laughter, awe." Bret Easton Ellis

Synopsis:

A family relocates to a small house on Ash Tree Lane and discovers that the inside of their new home seems to be without boundaries.
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About the Author

Mark Z. Danielewski was born in 1966. House of Leaves is his first novel.
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What Our Readers Are Saying

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Average customer rating based on 2 comments:
jhor0107, March 8, 2008 (view all comments by jhor0107)
The multiple story lines and the odd way that this book is put together makes it hard to believe that it was written by Danielewski and not by the tatoo artist in the book. Its about a tattoo artist that finds a critique of a documentary of a house that is larger on the inside than it is on the outside. As the artist begins to piece the critique together he begins to doubt the world around him and goes crazy. Although difficult to read sometimes its worth it.
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Coni, January 30, 2007 (view all comments by Coni)
It?s a story of a tattoo-artist that finds a manuscript from a blind old man, who just died, talking about a non-existent documentary about a house that is bigger on the inside than on the outside.

It is freaky with crossed out passages and footnotes that can go for pages. The footnotes are also sometimes upside, backwards and sideways. Then there are the pages with only a paragraph, sentence or word on them. It?s quite an adventure to read. The author is the brother of the singer Poe and the remix of her song Hey Pretty has her brother reciting from one of the tattoo-artist?s footnotes in the book.

I enjoyed this book. They keep talking about a film that documents the crazy house that is bigger on the inside than the outside and talking about real life people?s opinions on it. There are times that you forget it is fiction and wonder if you can go find the film or the article that is mentioned in the footnotes. Then you remember this is all just craziness that is in the book.

I liked both parts of the book: (1) the decription of the documentary of the house and all the crazy parts involved there and (2) the tattoo artist guy telling his story in the footnotes about what going through the book is doing to him and his life.

I recommend it. It?s quite insane and crazy! Everyone should read a book that makes you turn it upside and sideways. It?s the thing to do.
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Product Details

ISBN:
9780375703768
Author:
Danielewski, Mark Z.
Publisher:
Pantheon Books
Author:
Danielewski, Mark Z.
Introduction:
Truant, Johnny
Location:
New York :
Subject:
Literary
Subject:
Poetry (poetic works by one author)
Subject:
Horror
Subject:
Horror fiction
Subject:
Horror tales
Subject:
Experimental fiction
Subject:
Horror - General
Copyright:
2000
Edition Number:
2
Publication Date:
March 7, 2000
Binding:
Paperback
Language:
English
Illustrations:
Y
Pages:
736
Dimensions:
9.16x7.06x1.26 in. 2.27 lbs.
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