To properly represent this massive, odd, aggravating, stunning riddle of a book, it would be necessary to print the words sideways, upside down, inside out, piled on top of each other, in margins, footnoted, illustrated, colliding, sometimes to add layers of meaning, sometimes merely to confuse, almost always to intriguing effect. Instead, first of all, it can be said there are two main plots that interweave here: Will Navidson and his partner Karen Green explore their new house, which turns out to contain an anomaly of space, which leads to more explorations, deeper and deeper into a mysterious and chilling blackness; Johnny Truant comments on the manuscript we are reading, which we are led to believe was left behind by a man named Zampanò, and Johnny’s footnotes and comments intrude further and further into the tale—sometimes taking over many pages—with a chemical-fueled tale of their own. But the main figure in the book remains Danielewski himself, simultaneously sending up critical theories, trying out some outrageous idea every few pages, driving the typesetter crazy with new ways to present the text on the page, and yes, sometimes merely showing off, but ultimately writing a novel that is haunting in a very real, traditional way, a novel about guilt and fear, about knowing and not knowing, and the obsessions that can result when the two collide. - Gilligan