House of Leaves - Paperback

by Mark Z. Danielewski (Author)

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 uses poems, screenplay excerpts, playful typography, assorted appendices, and a succession of stories within stories to create a novelistic mosaic that simultaneously reads like a thriller and like a strange, dreamlike excursion into the subconscious." --Michiko Kakutani, The New York Times

"Thrillingly alive, sublimely creepy, distressingly scary, breathtakingly intelligent--it renders most other fiction meaningless." --Bret Easton Ellis, bestselling author of American Psycho

"This demonically brilliant book is impossible to ignore." --Jonathan Lethem, award-winning author of Motherless Brooklyn

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 made available in book form, complete with the original colored words, vertical footnotes, and second and third appendices, the story remains unchanged. Similarly, the cultural fascination with House of Leaves remains as fervent and as imaginative as ever. The novel has gone on to inspire doctorate-level courses and masters theses, cultural phenomena like the online urban legend of "the backrooms," and incredible works of art in entirely unrealted mediums from music to video games.

Neither Pulitzer Prize-winning photojournalist Will Navidson nor his companion Karen Green was prepared to face the consequences of the impossibility of their new home, 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.

Front Jacket

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.

Author Biography

Mark Z. Danielewski was born in 1966. House of Leaves is his first novel.