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House of Leaves

Title	House of Leaves Mark Z. Danielewski's House of Leaves
Author	by Zampanò
Publication	Doubleday
Size	XXIII, 709p
Language	ENG
ISBN	9780385603102
Topics	American fiction--Suspense American fiction--Love
Notes	House of Leaves begins with a first-person narrative by Johnny Truant, a Los Angeles tattoo parlor employee and professed unreliable narrator. Truant is searching for a new apartment when his friend Lude tells him about the apartment of the recently deceased Zampanò, a blind, elderly man who lived in Lude's building. In Zampanò's apartment, Truant discovers a manuscript written by Zampanò that turns out to be an academic study of a documentary film called The Navidson Record, though Truant says he can find no evidence that the film ever existed. The rest of the novel incorporates several narratives, including Zampanò's report on the fictional film; Truant's autobiographical interjections; a small transcript of part of the film from Navidson's brother, Tom; a small transcript of interviews of many people regarding The Navidson Record by Navidson's partner, Karen; and occasional brief notes by unidentified editors, all woven together by a mass of footnotes. There is also another narrator, Truant's mother, whose voice is presented through a self-contained set of letters titled The Whalestoe Letters. Each narrator's text is printed in a distinct font, making it easier for the reader to follow the occasionally challenging format of the novel (Truant in Courier New in the footnotes, and the main narrative in Times New Roman in the American version). The format and structure of the novel is unconventional, with unusual page layout and style, making it ergodic literature. It contains copious footnotes, many of which contain footnotes themselves, including references to fictional books, films or articles. Some pages contain only a few words or lines of text, arranged in strange ways to mirror the events in the story, often creating both an agoraphobic and a claustrophobic effect. The novel is also distinctive for its multiple narrators, who interact with each other throughout the story in elaborate and disorienting ways. While some have attempted to describe the book as a horror story, many readers, as well as the author, would define the book as a love story. Danielewski expands on this point in an interview: "I had one woman come up to me in a bookstore and say, 'You know, everyone told me it was a horror book, but when I finished it, I realized that it was a love story.' And she's absolutely right. In some ways, genre is a marketing tool. [wikipedia]

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