Mark Z. Danielewski

A young family 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.

In this story set in East Texas, a local seamstress named Chintana finds herself responsible for five orphans who are not only captivated by a storyteller’s tale of vengeance but by the long black box he sets before them. As midnight approaches, the box is opened, a fateful dare is made, and the children as well as Chintana come face to face with the consequences of a malice retold and now foretold.

They were with us before Romeo Juliet. And long after too. Because they're forever around. Or so both claim, carolling gleefully "always sixteen." Sam and Hailey, powered by an ever-rotating fleet of cars, from Model T to Lincoln Continental, career from the Civil War to the Cold War, barrelling down through the Appalachians, up the Mississippi River, across the Badlands, finally cutting a nation in half as they try to outrace History itself. By turns beguiling and gripping, finally worldwrecking, Only Revolutions is unlike anything ever published before, a remarkable feat of heart and intellect, moving us with the journey of two kids, perpetually of summer, perpetually sixteen, who give up everything except each other.

NATIONAL BEST SELLER 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.)

Between 1982 and 1989, Pelafina H. Lièvre sent her son, Johnny Truant, a series of letters from The Three Attic Whalestoe Institute, a psychiatric facility in Ohio where she spent the final years of her life. Beautiful, heartfelt, and tragic, this correspondence reveals the powerful and deeply moving relationship between a brilliant though mentally ill mother and the precocious, gifted young son she never ceases to love.Originally contained within the monumental House of Leaves , this collection stands alone as a stunning portrait of mother and child. It is presented here along with a foreword by Walden D. Wyhrta and eleven previously unavailable letters.

The Familiar, Volume 1 Wherein the cat is found . . .The Familiar, Volume 2 Wherein the cat is hungry . . . From the universally acclaimed, genre-busting author of House of Leaves comes the second volume of The Familiar, a "novel [which] goes beyond the experimental into the visionary, creating a language and style that expands the horizon of meaning . . . hint[ing] at an evolved form of literature." In The Familiar, Volume 2: Into the Forest, the lives of the disparate and dynamic nine characters introduced in “One Rainy Day in May” begin to intersect in inexplicable ways, finding harmonies and echoes in each other. What once seemed remote and disconnected draws closer—slowly, steadily—toward something inevitable. . . . At the center of it all is Xanther, a twelve-year-old girl, for whom the world around her seems to be opening, exposing doors and windows, visions and sounds, questions and ideas previously unknown. With each passing day, she begins to glimpse something she does not understand but unequivocally craves—the only thing that will bring her relief and keep her new friend alive.

The exciting and radical literary event continues with Honeysuckle & Pain, the third episode in the multi-volume novel from the universally acclaimed, genre-busting author of House of Leaves.In The Familiar, Volume 3: Honeysuckle & Pain, Xanther, the 12-year-old girl at the center of our story, discovers a new inner strength as the world around her begins to shift inexorably. The hackers Cas and Bobby feel trapped, but are planning a dramatic and dangerous action that may be the key to their freedom. And on the other side of the world, Tian Li’s missing cat is an itch too powerful to resist, and so she and Jingjing set out to recover what has been lost. With the spectacular visuals and vibrant wordplay that are his trademark, this is a beautiful and singular reading experience that could only come from Mark Z. Danielewski—“America’s foremost literary magus” [The New York Times Book Review].

When a viral video puts twelve-year-old Xanther under a spotlight of scrutiny at school, her little white cat—still slumbering, still unnamed—offers the only escape, though it comes at a price. Not even Xanther’ parents can deny the strange currents now shuddering around their eldest, touching off inexplicable happenings. Entities troubling the dreams of the twins seem to have singled out Freya. Despite invitations to a gala at The Met, Anwar fears the solution to their financial difficulties might expose more than just his family to dangerous consequences. Something greater is at hand, something terrible is at stake. And all the while, faces unfamiliar to the Ibrahims draw closer and closer: Jingjing, in Singapore, clutching charms, boards a plane for Los Angeles; Cas and Bobby, with visions of Xanther in Mefisto’s Orb, must elude attacks from the sky. Strangers collide . . . though will those intersections lead to alliances or war? And does the dance at the center of Volume 4 augur the liberation of our better angels or the release of a creature set to feast on the wings of hope?

The Season One finale of this riveting multisensory masterpiece from the visionary author of House of Leaves. The Familiar Volume 1 Wherein the cat is foundThe Familiar Volume 2 Wherein the cat is hungryThe Familiar Volume 3 Wherein the cat is blindThe Familiar Volume 4 Wherein the cat is toothlessThe Familiar Volume 5 Wherein the cat is namedThe astonishing series about a young girl who befriends a cat hunting humanity continues with Volume 5, the Season One finale, in which the consequences of how we encounter one another come into poignant and terrifying relief—especially on one September night, when an unexpected phone call demanding the return of the little white cat challenges everything the Ibrahims hold dear. They are not alone. Jingjing must contend with a rival he could never have anticipated, while Xanther must relinquish all she thought she knew as a far greater responsibility is set before her. Light wavers and pomegranates reveal their price as the effects of a great transition start to reverberate around everyone. Shnorhk’s efforts to resume playing music cannot escape history’s ghosts. Cas, in upstate New York, comes face-to-face with her lifelong nemesis in a candlelit rendezvous that presages the international crisis soon to come. As more lines tangle, Özgür and Luther brawl with a future that may have chosen them long ago, and Isandòrno crosses a line that will force him over the border into a country he has until now stead­fastly refused. All the while, a terrible power roaming the world con­tinues to grow . . .

We all have fears, but if we can’t face the small ones how will we face the big ones? Kai is afraid to fly a little blue kite. But Kai is also very, very brave, and overcoming this small fear will lead him on a great adventure. Remember: all great adventures start with one little moment. You know the one. It’s like a gentle breeze whispering in your ear what you already know by heart: not even the sky is the limit . . .

The best-selling author of the million-copy classic House of Leaves returns with a magisterial, page-turning epic, about two friends determined to rescue a pair of horses set for slaughter.While folks still like to focus on the crimes that shocked the small city of Orvop, Utah, back in the fall of 1982, not to mention the trials that followed, far more remember the adventure that took place beyond municipal lines in mountains ready to shrug even the bravest from their backs, as one Orvop local would put, with another characterizing the astonishing journey as crazy as it was foolish as it still is just plain beyond imaginin. But them kids went for it anyway.Not that such daring was entirely unexpected considering how some of those involved included the likes of young Tom Gatestone, already a bit of an Orvop legend, and his friend Kalin March, new to the area, the two of them takin it upon themselves to rescue a couple of neglected horses from the Porch paddocks on Willow and Oak. Who knows what would have happened if they hadn’t? For sure no one expected the dead to rise but they did. For sure no one expected the mountain to fall but it did. For sure no one expected an act of courage so great, and likewise so appalling, that it still staggers the heart and mind of anyone who knows anything about the Katanogos massif to say nothing of Pillars Meadow. As one Orvop high-school teacher would describe that extraordinary feat days before she died: Fer sure, no one expected Kalin March to tell Old Porch: You get what you deserve when you ride with cowards.In this sweeping tale of mythic proportions, populated by extraordinary characters, the ghosts of the American West, and bursting with unexpected humor, Danielewski tells a masterful story of determination, perseverance, and humanity in the face of long odds and adverse fate.

A lifelong interest of mine has been the question of space. How we need it, fear it, want it, find it, make it, make peace with it, measure it, defend it, go to war for it, give it away, deny it, seduce it, cultivate it, think and feel because of it; whether it’s in our minds, our hearts, on the page. It’s a subject that happily sustains enduring conversations with architects, artists and musicians. Not to mention physicists. Philosophers too. (Consider how the construct of Space and Good might very well converge; let’s discuss!)At the start of this year, I wrote a short story called “There’s a Place for You.” I designed it for The New Yorker. The New Yorker passed. As I’m now in the midst of a new novel, rather than redesign the story for another publication — something I’m not entirely convinced is possible — I’ve decided to release it online.So here’s that New Yorker story you’ll never read in The New Yorker.Find your columns, grow your hair, the light you sought was never in your eyes.Tear your temples down.— Mark Z. Danielewski

Originally published in: Black Clock (15): 164–186.

A collection of three teleplays (written episodes) for a proposed television series of House of Leaves.

LOVE IS NOT A FLAME, Parts 1 – 4"Love cannot help but call. Love cannot help but answer.”And yeah, there’s a peacock, a raccoon, and a coyote. And someone else too . . .A short story in four parts originally published in Gagosian Magazine Quarterly in 2019.