Thrillingly alive, sublimely creepy, distressingly scary, breathtakingly intelligent--it renders most other fiction meaningless." --Bret Easton Ellis, bestselling author of American Psycho Thrillingly alive, sublimely creepy, distressingly scary, breathtakingly intelligent—it renders most other fiction meaningless." —Bret Easton Ellis, bestselling author of American Psycho Simultaneously reads like a thriller and like a strange, dreamlike excursion into the subconscious." --Michiko Kakutani, The New York Times 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. Simultaneously reads like a thriller and like a strange, dreamlike excursion into the subconscious." -Michiko Kakutani, The New York Times

This demonically brilliant book is impossible to ignore.” —Jonathan Lethem, award-winning author of Motherless Brooklyn This demonically brilliant book is impossible to ignore." --Jonathan Lethem, award-winning author of Motherless Brooklyn Navy and Johnny were two sides of the same coin, bound together by the mysterious scratches of a dead, Milton-esque man. Their stories were so disparate and yet so interconnected. The fabric between them was everywhere from rough and roughly hewn to diaphanous and metaphysical. The footnotes of footnotes were layers upon layers -- toying with the reality in which the contents of the book existed. Rules were set up and broken, and yet, everything was cohesive as long as the reader had the endurance to follow along. While many have attempted to describe this book, I believe that words fail in the face of a request for synopsis. The headaches implicit with just attempting such a feat can be debilitating. I've heard it described as, "A story about a guy who may or may not be real that finds a dissertation written by a guy who may or may not be real about a man who may or may not be real who discovers that his house hosts a labyrinth." I believe that's still putting it generously, but causes a headache in-and-of itself.

This book came into my possession in 2003. I was stationed in Iraq, hanging out with a battle buddy. He and I were hanging out in the recreation tent at Baghdad International Airport (BIAP, aka Camp Sather) watching DVDs and perusing books. Sam, my battle buddy, hands me a battered copy of this book, and says, "I tried reading this-- but I think it's more your speed." So Johnny finds this manuscript, reads it, edits it, adds his own footnotes relating to research he's done on Zampano's life and the manuscript contents (translations of foreign phrases, for instance), but also personal tangents about his own life and stream of consciousness ramblings. In the prologue where he explains how he found the manuscript, he also says that The Navidson Record doesn't actually exist. Johnny's editors also appear in footnotes and in the first say they have never met Johnny Truant in person, only communicating via letters and rare phone calls. Weird, right? The pathways that we are taken along are presented to us in such a way as to force us to feel the way that the story moves, not just read it. We feel the helplessness, disorientation, distraction, boredom, hope, melancholy, and sorrow of these characters because we are following the same paths as them in an attempt to understand what is, in all truth, beyond understanding - ourselves. Our guilt and our grief. Who is real and who is not doesn't matter - the toll is just the same. Johnny's friend, Lude, knows Zampano because he lives in the same apartment building. The old man, ominously, tells Lude he's going to die soon, and does. After the body is gone, Lude and Johnny sneak into the apartment to take a look around at Zampano's things. They find a crazy manuscript, which Johnny takes home with him.

This demonically brilliant book is impossible to ignore." -Jonathan Lethem, award-winning author of Motherless Brooklyn 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. THE MIND-BENDING CULT CLASSIC ABOUT A HOUSE THAT’S LARGER ON THE INSIDE THAN ON THE OUTSIDE • A masterpiece of horror and an astonishingly immersive, maze-like reading experience that redefines the boundaries of a novel.House of Leaves became a seminal event in my life when I finished reading it. The darkness in my life, punctuated with walking away from a war with my life and body in tact, became that much clearer from the light-- and I somehow began finding awe and inspiration with greater ease. Some have said that it's a story about people coming to grips with loneliness and/or depression. Some have said it's a love story. This is not a horror novel, nor is it a mystery novel or a fantasy novel. This book is, among many other things, a personal story about the author's parents presented as experimental literary fiction that's thinly veiled as a horror novel. Confused? Good, stay that way for now, and don't think too hard about what I just said. I'm not that into horror novels, and I generally like post-modern and experimental stuff, and I knew what I was getting into when I bought this. Know what you're getting into, that's all I'm trying to say. 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."

On the figurative side, the book still won't hold your hand and spell out what it all means in flashing neon. That's up to you to figure out by gathering all the evidence together and deconstructing the book on several different levels by asking yourself what's true and what isn't, what matters and what doesn't, what's literal and what's figurative, what's the metanarrative, what's the subtext. Ultimately it's up to you to decide when you're satisfied with your answer. To that end, I've ended up buying different copies of this book, like a madman collecting any copy of JD Salinger's "Catcher in the Rye" they could get their hands on, or a person who absolutely could not would not leave the house without a pair of gloves to shield their hands from the world. Whenever I mentioned the book to a friend, they usually ended up being the recipient of the copy I bought. And by "reading this book", I meant devouring it, like Bastian did as he holed himself in the attic of his primary school, surrounded by food, covered in a rough blanket, sequestered from the rest of the world, pouring through a mighty tome about a story without an end. Thrillingly alive, sublimely creepy, distressingly scary, breathtakingly intelligent-it renders most other fiction meaningless." -Bret Easton Ellis, bestselling author of American Psycho Our appendices, the index, and Pelafina's letters provide a deeper understanding of some of the recurring themes throughout both of these stories, while also continuing to call in to question which aspects are real or if all of the characters really participated in this authorship, which ultimately leads to the question of - does it really matter? We are treated early on to Johnny making the bold declaration that he [added the word "water" in to TNR before the word "heater." (hide spoiler)]. Authorship has lost its sacred hold on authority, and even the "contrary evidence" to TNR's seeming non-existence calls in to question just who is the liar here.A] tour de force first novel. [It] can keep you up at nights and make you never look at a closet in quite the same way again . . . Staggeringly good fun." Johnny Truant is the name of our introductory character, who for all intents and purposes can be considered our secondary narrator. For the purpose of this review, I will be referring to the Editors, who can arguably be considered to be Mark Z. Danielewski himself, as our principal narrator. The final version of our story is distributed at their hands, and the compilation of appendices and the index serves as that proof. Johnny Truant would be our secondary, as previously stated, followed by Zampanò, the author of The Navidson Record. While Pelafina's letters and influences are felt all throughout House of Leaves, I hesitate to call her a narrator, unless you belong in the camp of [Pelafina authoring the entire story herself as a way to cope with her own grief. (hide spoiler)] THE MIND-BENDING CULT CLASSIC ABOUT A HOUSE THAT'S LARGER ON THE INSIDE THAN ON THE OUTSIDE  A masterpiece of horror and an astonishingly immersive, maze-like reading experience that redefines the boundaries of a novel.