House of Leaves

House of Leaves is the debut novel by the American author Mark Z. Danielewski, published by Pantheon Books. The novel quickly became a bestseller following its March 7, 2000 release, having already developed a cult following through gradual release over the Internet. It was followed by a companion piece, The Whalestoe Letters.

One feature of some paperback editions of the book is that the cover of the book is slightly smaller than the pages themselves, causing the edges of the pages to peek out of the side of the black cover.

While characters are navigating claustrophobic labyrinthine sections of the house's interior, the text is densely, confusingly packed into small corners of each page; later, while a character is running desperately from an unseen enemy, there are only a few words on each page for almost 25 pages, causing the reader's pace to quicken as he flips page after page to learn what will happen next.

Continuing the ergodic nature of text-reflecting-tale, the chapter in which Navidson, Karen, and Reston hear a knocking from somewhere deep inside the house, a knocking patterned after the Morse code emergency signal SOS - three short, three long, three short - the text itself is broken into a similar pattern. The breaks are often arbitrary, sometimes even in mid-sentence, and done seemingly for the sole purpose of imitating the SOS signal.

It has been noted that the font used for the narratives of different people is relevant. Johnny's font is Courier, Zampanò's font is Times, the Editors' font is Bookman, and Pelafina's font is Dante.

Throughout the entirety of House of Leaves (even including the cover and publishing information), the word house is colored blue (grey for non-color editions of the book and light grey for red editions)