Book summary

A man buys a house for his girlfriend and her two children. When a new door appears in a wall, they find a space that appears to be infinite, even though the outside form of the house remains the same. In five expeditions, the characters explore this vast space, and each try is documented in a different kind of narrative, each in its own typeface. Constructed of these self-referential texts, this metafiction examines the effects of a possibly haunted house on a group of people, each one more peripherally involved with it than the last. A New York Times Notable Book for 2000 and nominated for the 2000 Bram Stoker Award for Best First Novel.

Media reviews

"[A] vast exploration and meditation on the paradoxical spaces that open out from--or as--our awareness. To make sure the word 'meditation' doesn't daunt you into a coma of respectful abstention, let me say right off that his book is funny, moving, sexy, beautifully told, an elaborate arrangement with the shape and meaning of narrative. For all its modernist maneuvers, postmodernist airs and post-post-modernist critical parodies, HOUSE OF LEAVES is, when you get down to it, an adventure story...."