The Familiar, Volume 1
One Rainy Day in May
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- $11.99
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- $11.99
Publisher Description
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.)
Like the print edition, this eBook contains a complex image-based layout. It is most readable on e-reading devices with larger screen sizes.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Set mostly in the L.A. area during a rainy day in May, our first heroine in this metanarrative of typographical trickery is the precocious 12-year-old Xanther, who embarks, with her stepfather, Anwar, on a trip to get a dog instead, they find a kitten dying in the rain and Xanther's desperate attempts to save it are intercut with unspooling story fragments. There's Anwar's past as developer of a mysterious game engine, his vanished partner Mefisto, and copious hints that reality itself might be a dream or program. Other story lines include the cyberpunk adventures of two programmers in Marfa, Tex., on the run from their own creation; a dogfighter named Victor on the verge of encountering a miracle; a repentant criminal in Singapore; an ace detective named Oz and so forth. The narratives pile on (each with its own signature font), though none of them of contain any real significance or a three-dimensional character. Danielewski's (House of Leaves) interest is clearly not in storytelling, but in faux profundity; hence the book's multitude of wise-sounding quotations, random punctuation, fake code, blank pages, cheap pop-cultural citations, and The Matrix aping techno-clich s make for familiar reading indeed.
Customer Reviews
Mark Z Danielewski drove me crazy.
I would like to thank him.
Amazing Story, Acquired Taste
I’ve been a longtime fan of Danielewski for years now. House of Leaves changed the way I thought about Only Revolutions reshaped narrative construction for me, and Fifty Year Sword made me wish that the performative aspect of it was still on tour.
The Familiar is an amazing series that I hope comes back one day (it is currently on pause at the time of this writing after ‘Season 1’, the first five volumes of a planned 27 came out). The characters are insanely well-written, the plot construction is amazing, and the writing style, like House of Leaves before it, is inventive and groundbreaking for the medium.
Each chapter is told from the point of view of one of nine central main characters, each with a different writing style, voice, font, and page layout. Some are fairly easy to understand, like Xanther, Astair, Anwar, and Cas, who are all written in pretty standard English, yet do have some slightly unconventional tendencies, like Astair’s layered parenthesis that represent her anxious thought process.
It takes a more devoted reader than usual to get through some of the other characters' sections, especially those with Jingjing, a character who speaks (and and is written) in multiple languages, primarily in Singlish. Other characters still, Luther, Isandorno, Oz, and Shnork, are told with a healthy amount of jargon and slang that helps to add to the insanely dynamic and interesting voices of each character, but often times makes understanding them difficult.
The plot also takes a while to get going, but that didn’t really bother me. This is a pilot episode to a VERY intricate and and drawn-out story (remember, it’s the first of five released and 27 planned volumes) series crafted like a long-running serial TV show. The plot picks up significantly near the end and only gets more and more exciting as the series goes on.
This book will pull you in, especially if you loved House of Leaves, but it will take its time doing so. It needs a lot of attention and sometimes loses steam in the harder to understand chapters, but I think it’s well worth it to try and get through to see the beginnings of a marvelous story. The second volume certainly is easier to get through once you’re used to the way the story is told, and by the third one, you’ll be breezing through it. I highly recommend this book and this series, and hope you take the chance on it.
Spiraling...
Heartbroken that is book is so unreadable. I adored House of Leaves. I think this guy is cracking up.