Mark Z. Danielewski read from both House of Leaves and his latest, Only Revolutions, at Joseph-Beth Booksellers last night in Pittsburgh. I’d put the crowd at 100+, and every single person stood in line to get books signed. Which was worth it, because Danielewski used brightly colored pens and personalized each autograph. Cool.
The Q&A session had a few clunkers, including a question about how to get famous authors to blurb your publish-on-demand book (huh?). But a few weren’t so bad.
Q: How do you describe House of Leaves to people?
MZD: It’s a story about a family that moves into a house that’s bigger on the inside than on the outside.
on the genesis of House of Leaves –
MZD: It’s how I see the world. I see stories as a compilation of narratives and viewpoints.
on what publishers want –
MZD: All they want is something that’s done, that they can put a piece of cardboard on, and a barcode.
on literary criticism about his work (like Writing Machines) –
MZD: The reality is, most of it’s right, in my experience. Very smart people are spending a lot of time digesting, analyzing these texts. It’s interesting how much of it is spot-on.
on writing –
MZD: I like to write. I like to sit down and talk to my gorillas.
