Enigmatic Author for a Winter’s Read
Carmichael’s presents Mark Z. Danielewski
6:30 p.m., Tuesday, Dec. 9
7300 Jefferson Blvd. (South Central Regional Library)
Free
carmichaelsbookstore.com
Welcome back, my friends, to the Western novel that never ends.
Or so it might seem, when you first heft Mark Z Danielewski’s latest tome. But if you’re already a fan of this author, or curious about what it’s like to find the rewards in very particular challenging reads, then here’s something unique to get you through (quite) a few long winter nights.
“Tom’s Crossing” takes up over 1,200 pages. And it isn’t just a protracted epic of a more-or-less modern west, a la Cormac McCarthy’s Border Trilogy of connected novels, but a bit more horrific.
Danielewski hyper-details the few days of a daring horse rescue, then adds some wild time jumps in narrative perspective, and then adds something wilder: ghosts. Because after all, this is the author of “House of Leaves”—did you think that all that the titular Tom crossed was Utah’s Provo River?
It’s been a quarter-century since “Leaves” leapt into contention as possibly the greatest haunted house book ever. But part of what made that doorstop a treasure among many fans of postmodern literature was the playful metafictional use of page white spaces, footnotes, etc. “Tom’s Crossing” is more straightforward as a tale, but it’s also been crafted to come down from the shelf as a somewhat more traditional page-turner.
That might add appeal to those who prefer “Moby-Dick” to the encyclopedic directional and tonal shifts of, say, “Gravity’s Rainbow.” But the manner and degree to which Danielewski makes demands on his readers is part of what makes his appearances into an event. Come to South Central Regional Library and see what makes him more than just a superbly entertaining cult hero to the highly literate.—T.E. Lyons
This article appears in Dec. 1-31, 2025.