Slade House

Slade House, by David Mitchell, is a strange combination of Gothic literature, not-too-horrific horror, inventive fantasy, and a hard-boiled who-done-it. The characters of the elusive estate on Slade Alley include an awkward 11-year-old boy, a discontented policeman, an introspective college student, and a very observant window-cleaner with an immaculate memory. But the real star of Slade House is the creepy mansion itself... and its contents. Odd and fascinating, David Mitchell's Slade House is a major accomplishment. Recommended By Dianah H., Powells.com

Whether you're a first-time reader or a longtime fan of David Mitchell, Slade House has something waiting inside, just for you. Step into this dense little tale of a creepy house and — before you lose yourself completely — take note of its moments of bitter sweetness. Recommended By The Dot, Powells.com

The New York Times bestseller by the author of The Bone Clocks and Cloud Atlas | Named One of the Best Books of the Year by San Francisco Chronicle, NPR, Los Angeles Times, The Guardian, The Telegraph, National Post, BookPage, and Kirkus Reviews

Keep your eyes peeled for a small black iron door.

Down the road from a working-class British pub, along the brick wall of a narrow alley, if the conditions are exactly right, you’ll find the entrance to Slade House. A stranger will greet you by name and invite you inside. At first, you won’t want to leave. Later, you’ll find that you can’t. Every nine years, the house’s residents—an odd brother and sister—extend a unique invitation to someone who’s different or lonely: a precocious teenager, a recently divorced policeman, a shy college student. But what really goes on inside Slade House? For those who find out, it’s already too late....

Spanning five decades, from the last days of the 1970s to the present, leaping genres, and barreling toward an astonishing conclusion, this intricately woven novel will pull you into a reality-warping new vision of the haunted house story—as only David Mitchell could imagine it.

"A haunted house story that savors of Dickens, Stephen King, J. K. Rowling and H. P. Lovecraft, but possesses more psychic voltage than any of them." Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

"I gulped down this novel in a single evening. Painstakingly imagined and crackling with narrative velocity, it’s a Dracula for the new millennium, a reminder of how much fun fiction can be." Anthony Doerr, author of All the Light We Cannot See, winner of the Pulitzer Prize

"Plants died, milk curdled, and my children went slightly feral as I succumbed to the creepy magic of David Mitchell’s Slade House. It’s a wildly inventive, chilling, and—for all its otherworldliness—wonderfully human haunted house story. I plan to return to its clutches quite often." Gillian Flynn, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Gone Girl and The Grownup

"Entertainingly eerie...We turn to [Mitchell] for brain-tickling puzzle palaces, for character studies and for language." Chicago Tribune

"A ripping yarn...Like Shirley Jackson’s Hill House or the Overlook Hotel from Stephen King’s The Shining, [Slade House] is a thin sliver of hell designed to entrap the unwary....As the Mitchellverse grows ever more expansive and connected, this short but powerful novel hints at still more marvels to come." San Francisco Chronicle

"Diabolically entertaining...dark, thrilling, and fun...a thoroughly entertaining ride full of mind games, unexpected twists, and even a few laughs." The Daily Beast

"A fiendish delight...Mitchell is something of a magician." The Washington Post

David Mitchell is the award-winning and bestselling author of Slade House, The Bone Clocks, The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet, Black Swan Green, Cloud Atlas, Number9Dream, and Ghostwritten. Twice shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize, Mitchell was named one of the 100 most influential people in the world by Time in 2007. With KA Yoshida, Mitchell translated from the Japanese the internationally bestselling memoir The Reason I Jump. He lives in Ireland with his wife and two children.