PREMISE: Two kids steal two horses from the town’s local asshole and he and his equally assholey sons go after them.

That’s it. That’s all I’m putting. Well, that probably won’t be true by the time I’ve finished writing this bit. I never plan that far ahead. In fact this very sentence I’m writing now I had no idea at all five minutes ago that I’d be writing it. Although I guess I’ve just summed up the very action of writing. I wonder if Mark Z. Danielewski (MZD from now on) writes that way or whether he knows exactly what each line, sentence and paragraph is going to say. Because man, can he write. And this novel is 1200 pages long and – perhaps strangely for MZD, based on his previous books – aside from one page, this is all solid, full-page writing, so he’s written a lot.

More than any other book I’ve written about on this blog, this is the most difficult to fully elucidate why I recommend it, without spoilers. And without contradicting myself at every turn. Because it’s fair to say that this won’t be for everyone. It’s painfully slow paced, but in a good way. Like the pain you get when you’re having a tattoo done. Oddly addictive. It’s self-indulgent in places but so intelligently well-written that that self-indulgence is so enjoyable. It’s frustrating in a few places too when the story goes off on a tangent that changes the pace somewhat, but you end up just being excited as to where it’s now going. This is a story that most writers would have told in 200 pages. Or 400 pages with a bit of padding. Or 600 pages with a shed load of backstories, plus extra padding. Or 800 pages with a shed load of backstories, extra padding plus a couple hundred pages of inane rambling. Or 1000 pages with all of the above plus pictures every 4 pages. That MZD has told this story over 1200 pages and yet still made it so unbelievably readable is some sort of miracle.

You know what I think this book is? It’s a book that contains a story which you read because you love writing. Or the form of writing, the art involved, the actual act and skill of creating a story, a novel and a book. There’s essentially nothing unique or different about the story itself; it’s all about how the story is told and how, as a reader, you approach and enjoy how it is being told. That’s the bit that I recommend.

In my usual way, I’m going to finish by referencing a Goodreads review – just the one as it’s pretty breathtaking in it’s level of utter dumbfuckery. It’s posted by Roy, who hasn’t included a picture of himself as it’s more than likely he’s got multiple facial features more than the rest of us as a result of decades of familial inbreeding. Here’s a couple of lines from the Royster:

“Every female character is intelligent and flawless, with most of them insufferable with their attitudes towards the male characters, who are all eventually portrayed as pathetic, cowardly and/or terrible father figures. It’s nauseating to see in modern media that the only way female characters can be strong is by putting down and insulting white male characters. The only male character that doesn’t suffer from this is the effeminately written character of Kalin.”

Yep, Roy’s gone the misogynistic, racist route. And incorrect as well. Every female character is not flawless (did you even read the scenes with Allison and Sondra? I’m assuming not as you got one of their names wrong) and quite how you’ve read MZD’s portrayal of Kalin as effeminate I’ve no idea. I’d like to see you do what Kalin did in this story. Still, I’m too mature than to poke fun at a stranger this way so I’ll just finish by saying that Roy is clearly an old white guy with a small willy.