Dear Mrs. Sample,

First and foremost, kudos to you for reading House of Leaves at your own leisure. It took me being in your son’s Post Print Fiction class for me to tackle this “book”. And even then, I wish I hadn’t!

Like you, I am confused at the authenticity of the Navidson Record and quite honestly, the book. We have spent the last three weeks of class dissecting this book and I have given myself an ulcer (figuratively speaking, of course) trying to coddle all these complexities. After reading this book and an interview with the book’s author, I am at a standstill. Would you be angry with me if I said it could go either way? I say that because Danielewski seems to inject tinges of his personal life in the upside down typography, colorful fonts, and foreign languages. His father died when he was in the midst of writing the beginning (or a segment) of the book. Johnny Truant seemed to navigate through life fatherless as well, seeking some kind of paradigm to follow through the life and work of Zampano.

On the other hand, I don’t doubt this book being an ostentatious trophy of Danielewski — one he notes that he has received high praise from. Talk about a jerk, right? Your son seems to think that there are a lot of errors in this book that are accidental. But knowing Danielewski at this point (I read his interview so we’re practically best friends at this point), I feel that this book was and is a postmodernist satire of the traditional book coda.

So, I guess my verdict is that it is utterly fabricated for the sense of creating a spectacle!

Keep reading,

Lauren Lauzon