The Fifty Year Sword

PUBLISHERS WEEKLY AUG 27, 2012

This first American edition of Danielewski s novella, published in a different form in the Netherlands in 2005, has the theatrical quality of a children s ghost story, complete with stitched-art illustrations (designed by the author), sweeping themes, and fairy-tale tropes. But the tale told by the Story Teller, hired to entertain the children, is nested in the all-too adult story of Chintana, a seamstress suffering through the aftermath of a painful divorce. The smallest daily rituals opening a can of bitter tea leaves, putting on shoes require terrific force, and she has visions of inflicting violence. At her twin s urging, Chintana attends a Halloween party at an East Texas ranch, where she comes face-to-face with the source of her marriage s destruction and discovers the Story Teller s thirst for revenge. Danielewski (House of Leaves) knows that typographical landscaping can be a narrative tool. With rare exception, he unfurls his tale down one side of the page in quoted speech of different colors representing five orphans whose obscure connection is hinted at in an author s note; text is juxtaposed or shares space with illustrations. Tension builds visually; some scenes slows to a sentence per page (a trick the author s fans will recognize), vertically tearing the white space (readers resistant to textual hijinks may be frustrated). More of a narrative poem than a novella, this would be well suited to an oral reading and may be best thought of as an objet d art that chillingly holds us accountable for our worst thoughts. Illus.