Synopses & Reviews
From the author of the international best seller
House of Leaves and National Book Award–nominated
Only Revolutions comes a monumental new novel as dazzling as it is riveting.
The Familiar (Volume 1) ranges from Mexico to Southeast Asia, from Venice, Italy, to Venice, California, with nine lives hanging in the balance, each called upon to make a terrifying choice. They include a therapist-in-training grappling with daughters as demanding as her patients; an ambitious East L.A. gang member contracted for violence; two scientists in Marfa, Texas, on the run from an organization powerful beyond imagining; plus a recovering addict in Singapore summoned at midnight by a desperate billionaire; and a programmer near Silicon Beach whose game engine might unleash consequences far exceeding the entertainment he intends.
At the very heart, though, is a twelve-year-old girl named Xanther who one rainy day in May sets out with her father to get a dog, only to end up trying to save a creature as fragile as it is dangerous...which will change not only her life and the lives of those she has yet to encounter, but this world, too—or at least the world we think we know and the future we take for granted.
(With full-color illustrations throughout.)
Review
“Excellent.... It reminds you of the novel’s unknowable potential. Danielewski does this better than anybody. It’s like he crinkles up a page with words and then straightens it out and pastes it into the book, so that only the most important words remain legible, while teasing you to try to figure out the blurry, scarred sentences hiding in the margins.... I love Xanther, love her, and I can’t stand the thought of something bad happening to her, and, yes, I’ll keep reading this series as long as her story continues.” S. Tremaine Nelson, Green Mountains Review
Review
“[Danielewski is] America’s foremost literary Magus.... He transmutes the pages of base books into rare new forms and formats.... [The Familiar: Volume 1] is a ‘remediation’ of television series like Twin Peaks and Breaking Bad...[and also] resembles Altman-inflected movies...or the time and place-skipping novels of David Mitchell.... I’m definitely in for Volume 2.” Tom LeClair, The New York Times Book Review
Review
“Danielewski has somehow created a format, an experience, that mimics the best of the digital future we’ve been told to expect, while exploiting the best of print, that which we’ve been told to mourn.... The reader is called upon to commit, to actively participate and engage in the unconventional structure and its relationship to the sprawling, eight-plot narrative, but also to enjoy: as serious as this all may seem, Volume 1 has a playfulness, a mischievousness, not unlike a cat." —Allison K. Hill, Los Angeles Daily News
Review
“Thrilling and magnetic.... The Familiar: Volume One is a boldly original, gorgeous, and suspenseful work of literature.... Thoroughly encoded with the language of our design-conscious, cinema-saturated, tech-centric era. We’re fluent in it because we’re living now.” Laura Collins-Hughes, The Boston Globe
Review
"Most everything about this vast, elusive, sometimes even illusory narrative shouts tour de force." Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
Review
"This novel goes beyond the experimental into the visionary, creating a language and style that expands the horizon of meaning...[and] hints at an evolved form of literature." Library Journal (starred review)
About the Author
Mark Z. Danielewski was born in New York City and lives in Los Angeles. He is the author of House of Leaves, The Whalestoe Letters, Only Revolutions, The Fifty Year Sword, and The Familiar.