House of Leaves Paperback - 2000
by Mark Z. Danielewski
House of Leaves: The Remastered Full-Color Edition by Mark Z. Danielewski is a terrifying and astonishing novel that commands a devoted following. With its original colored words, vertical footnotes, and newly added appendices, this book will captivate readers, from marginalized youth to older generations, as they unravel the dark secrets hidden within a seemingly ordinary home.
Summary
Reader reviews for House of Leaves
Review summary
Reader reaction to Mark Z. Danielewski’s House of Leaves is sharply divided. Admirers hail it as a groundbreaking, immersive, and unsettling experiment in form—an ergodic, puzzle-filled artifact whose typographic play and layered narratives create a visceral, lingering experience; many singled out the ‘house’ sections as genuinely frightening and the book’s physical design as essential. Detractors counter that its story is thin, its footnotes and academic pastiche tedious, and its Johnny Truant digressions juvenile or pretentious; several reported frustration with its ambiguity and lack of resolution. Most agree it demands patience and active engagement, rewarding those who enjoy codes and interpretation more than those seeking a tidy, conventional horror plot.
Readers say this book is:
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From the publisher
From the jacket flap
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.
Details
- Title House of Leaves
- Author Mark Z. Danielewski
- Binding Paperback
- Edition 2nd
- Pages 736
- Volumes 1
- Language ENG
- Publisher Pantheon Books, New York, New York, U.s.a.
- Publication date 2000-03-07
- Illustrated Yes
- Features Illustrated, Index, Table of Contents
- ISBN 9780375703768 / 0375703764
- Weight 2.45 lbs (1.11 kg)
- Dimensions 9.25 x 7.1 x 1.3 in (23.50 x 18.03 x 3.30 cm)
- Category Fiction - Horror
- Library of Congress subjects Horror fiction, Dwellings
- Library of Congress Catalogue Number 99036024
- Dewey Decimal Code FIC
Media reviews
Citations
- Booklist, 03/01/2000, Page 1194
- Commonweal, 12/01/2000, Page 26
- Kirkus Reviews, 02/01/2000, Page 134
- Library Journal, 02/15/2000, Page 195
- New York Times, 03/26/2000, Page 9
- New Yorker (The), 03/20/2000, Page 139
- Publishers Weekly, 01/24/2000, Page 291