Tom's Crossing

by Mark Z. Danielewski

Two friends set out to rescue a pair of horses slated for slaughter.

Hard to figure how so much awful horror could've started out with just them two horses and not a one yet named...

While folks still like to focus on the crimes that shocked the small city of Orvop, Utah, back in the fall of 1982, not to mention the trials that followed, far more remember the adventure that took place beyond municipal lines.

For sure no one expected the dead to rise, but they did. No one expected the mountain to fall either, but it did. No one expected an act of courage so great, and likewise so appalling, that it still staggers the heart and mind of anyone who knows anything about the Katanogos massif, to say nothing of Pillars Meadow.

As one Orvop high school teacher described that extraordinary feat just days before she died, Fer sure no one expected Kalin March to look Old Porch in the eye and tell him: You get what you deserve when you ride with cowards.

Genres: Fiction, Horror, Westerns, Historical Fiction, Mystery, Literary Fiction, Audiobook

1231 pages, Kindle Edition

First published October 28, 2025

About the author

Mark Z. Danielewski is an American author best known for his books House of Leaves, Only Revolutions, The Fifty Year Sword, The Little Blue Kite, and The Familiar series.

Danielewski studied English Literature at Yale. He then decided to move to Berkeley, California, where he took a summer program in Latin at the University of California, Berkeley. He also spent time in Paris, preoccupied mostly with writing.

In the early 1990s, he pursued graduate studies at the USC School of Cinema-Television. He later served as an assistant editor and worked on sound for Derrida, a documentary based on the life of the Algerian-born French literary critic and philosopher Jacques Derrida.

His second novel, Only Revolutions, was released in 2006. The novel was a finalist for the 2006 National Book Award.

His novel The Fifty Year Sword was released in the Netherlands in 2005. A new version with stitched illustrations was released in the United States 2012 (including a limited-edition release featuring a latched box that held the book). On Halloween 2010-2012, Danielewski "conducted" staged readings of the book at the REDCAT Theater inside the Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles. Each year was different and included features such as large-scale shadows, music, and performances from actors such as Betsy Brandt (Breaking Bad).

On May 12, 2015, he released the first volume, The Familiar (Volume 1): One Rainy Day in May in his announced 27-volume series The Familiar. The story "concerns a 12-year-old girl who finds a kitten..." The second volume, The Familiar (Volume 2): Into the Forest was released on Oct. 27, 2015, The Familiar (Volume 3): Honeysuckle & Pain came out June 14, 2016, and The Familiar (Volume 4): Hades arrived in bookstores on Feb. 7, 2017, and The Familiar (Volume 5): Redwood was released on Halloween 2017.

His latest release, The Little Blue Kite, is out now.

Quick Facts

He is the son of Polish avant-garde film director Tad Danielewski and the brother of singer and songwriter Annie Decatur Danielewski, a.k.a. Poe.

House of Leaves, Danielewski's first novel, has gained a considerable cult following. In 2000, Danielewski toured with his sister across America at Borders Books and Music locations, promoting Poe’s album Haunted, which reflects elements of House of Leaves.

Danielewski's work is characterized by experimental choices in form, such as intricate and multi-layered narratives and typographical variation.

In 2015, his piece Thrown, a reflection on Matthew Barney's Cremaster 2, appeared on display at the Guggenheim Museum in New York.

Official "Yarn + Ink" apparel inspired by his books House of Leaves and The Familiar is now available through his official website, Amazon and Etsy.

His latest short story, "There's a Place for You" was released on www.markzdanielewski.com in August 2020.

Read more on his Wikipedia page:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_Z....

Reviews

[jen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Before we begin, I’d like to apologize to Johnny Truant, who has just been replaced as my all-time favorite MZD character by a grass-chewing ghost named Tom Gatestone.

A 1200 page litfic Western is not a book that I would usually pick up, but House of Leaves is one of my favorite books of all time. I’m ultimately really glad that I read Tom’s Crossing. HOL is still my favorite MZD book, but I love the characters in TC the most.

Tom’s Crossing is a loooooooong read, and it’s densely packed with a number of subplots and smaller stories, as well as frequent interjections from the peanut gallery: AKA all of the townspeople who have had different thoughts and opinions on the events of the story over the decades that have since passed. That said, if you’re patient with this novel and you give it your time and attention, you will be rewarded with a phenomenal story — even though the ending doesn’t quite stick the landing.

“Most like to dwell on the endin, but fer me, it’s escapin them screes, the landslide, how sometimes in the worst times of your life, with the world givin way beneath your feet, it’s still possible to dance yourself outta harm’s way without so much as a papercut.”

So, what is Tom’s Crossing about?

Imagine that on his death bed, your best friend (whom you may or may not have had a crush on, as evidenced by subtext that we will return to later) left you with his dying wish to free two horses that belong to his rival family’s evil patriarch as soon as they’re put up for slaughter. So, even though you’re just a scrappy teenager who’s still pretty new to a town that’s never accepted you, you risk everything to travel across a dangerous haunted canyon with these stolen horses, and of course everything goes awry, and there’s now a bounty out on the heads of you and said best friend’s sister, who followed you into the canyon to help. Oh yeah, and your best friend’s ghost is there too, but he has lost crucial memories, like how to safely and successfully make this trek that he asked you to do. This is the predicament of Kalin March, the character at the center of Tom’s Crossing.

Of course, this book is 1,228 pages long, so quite a bit else happens too, but this is where Tom’s Crossing kicks things off.

The events of the novel start when a teenage boy named Kalin moves to a small Utah town with his mother in the 1980s, where he just doesn’t fit in. Tom, a guy who can choose any friends he wants, chooses Kalin, and they bond over their shared deep love for horses. When Tom dies of cancer, though, he makes Kalin promise to save their two favorite horses when they’re inevitably put up for slaughter, setting the stage for an eventual epic and dangerous quest.

And oh, some terrible things transpired at the start of this quest, and now the leader of the Gatestone’s terrifying rival family won’t rest until Kalin — and Tom’s sister, Landry — is dead.

There’s a lot going on in Tom’s Crossing, like in House of Leaves. Where House of Leaves’ heart was Will Navidson and Karen Green’s story, Tom’s Crossing’s heart is the epic quest of Kalin, Landry, Tom’s ghost, and their four horses (three living and one ghost), as well as a mule they eventually picked up along the way. I found myself completely immersed in this quest, and every time we left them, I was yearning to get back to the Isatch trio. I ultimately understand why this method of storytelling was used, but I still wish we hadn’t jumped away from them every time things started to get juicy.

My main issue with Tom’s Crossing is with the ending, so if you’re trying to avoid spoilers, stop reading now. This is a beautiful and thought-provoking novel with an epic quest, Tom freaking Gatestone, found family dynamics, breathtakingly beautiful writing, and really powerful themes. Even with my issues with the ending, I’d still recommend it to those who want to read a book that will make you feel something. Take your time with it, and you will ultimately be rewarded.

🚨🚨🚨🚨 SPOILERS BELOW 🚨🚨🚨🚨

Were the frequent diversions away from the juicy bits of the plot frustrating and even annoying? Did I want to throw my massive, 2-inch-thick copy of this book across the room when Landry “died” and then we jumped right to some random gallery owner in the future for hundreds of pages? Did the final battle get teased for the whole book as the “horrible thing that happened” only to appear in the very last sliver? Yes to all of this.

But, BUT, I ultimately didn’t mind this writing choice, even as I’ve seen that this is the biggest issue that most have (rightfully) had with this book.

My biggest issue is this: Tom’s Crossing played it way too safe.

The final battle is awesome, but all the (human) characters who died in this book once the plot got going were either villains or side characters that I didn’t care about. The two saddest deaths are that of Tom which is literally what this entire book is about, and that of a horse named Cavalry. We get not one, not two, but THREE fakeout deaths. Landry fine I get, I didn’t believe it when she died. But the beaver? We can’t even let the beaver die? And then, listen I LOVE Kalin March as if he were my own son (son-in-law I guess because I’ve already claimed Tom as my son and I ship them), but his death should’ve stuck when he got to the hospital. It was tragic, but it made sense that this journey would cost him his life, and that he’d ultimately die in the same room Tom did.

And yes, this does cost him everything: because of all the Porches he killed, horses don’t love Kalin anymore. That is tragic for someone for whom horses are everything. But then he and Landry just move on and get married and have this nice quiet life together, and I didn’t like this ending at all because:

1) it ties things up too neatly, playing into another big issue I had with TC, which is how saccharine and often cutesy it is. Every big moment or random detour is undercut with some life lesson or fable, and it often felt like we were being hit over the head with it.

2) this is a TRAGIC ending to me Landry seemed happy, but for Kalin? Being in proximity of horses but never able to ride them or be loved by them, being married to his friend whom he loves dearly but clearly never had romantic feelings for, and being made to feel like he’s not his true self, that is TRAGIC. And I guess this could be intentional, and there’s an interesting insight to be made that would say that protecting the horses through violence cost Kalin every aspect of his true self, so that he can no longer connect with horses, and has to be in a comphet marriage while desperately hoping that his real love’s ghost will visit him again one day.

But I genuinely think the “love” between Kalin and Landry at the end was supposed to be seen as romantic after the entire book was riddled with subtext making it clear that her feelings were one-sided. Tom is Kalin’s Eurydice, and Kalin is Landry’s Eurydice. Kalin only falls apart when he thinks Tom’s ghost is gone. While dying and needing to find Landry’s body then get back, Kalin risks everything to ride to the end of the Crossing with Tom so that he can soak up every last moment with him. When Kalin sees Landry for the first time since her “death,” the first thing he does is ask her about Tom. And when he wakes up from the dead, he calls out for Tom right away.

I think for me, this was almost a five-star read. A perfect version of this book would’ve ended with Kalin dying after returning from the Crossing, Kalin somehow being reunited with Tom’s ghost (everyone else got a tooth-achingly sweet ending so why the heck not), and there being some clear confirmation of this romantic subtext between them like we got with everything else that was woven in subtly throughout the book.

As it stands, when this ended, all of the sweetness and cookie-cutterness of the ending took away from everything that came before it, and it made the gutpunches hurt less, but not in a way that felt earned. I also know that this was all told from Landry’s POV so this could very well be the point of the ending. MZD is a very clever writer and there was a lot about HOL that I didn’t pick up on until I read a lot of analysis about it later on.

This is an excellent book that deserved a better ending, but it still knocked the wind out of me. Tom Gatestone, may you have the most beautiful afterlife at the Crossing with Ash, whistling and chewing all the grass you could possibly hope for.

-

now reading this beautiful behemoth of a novel and will be leaving little comments in my reading activity!

-

I’m seated. The bookstore employees are scared and asking me to leave because it’s “not October yet” but I’m simply too seated

[Zachary Hardie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Among the lucky few to receive an advance reader's edition, I dove right in, and to be honest, it completely enraptured me. MZD has been one of my favorite authors, dating back to when I first read 'HOUSE OF LEAVES' in college in the early 2000's. His books allways have this way of seeping in at the subconscious level in such a way that you find yourself as not only a spectator to a story, but as if you're on whatever journey the main characters are on as well. This is true whether that be exploring the horrors of a house that is larger on the inside than it appears, or on a perilous trek to save two horses set for slaughter. They're also uniquely challenging, in that they ask you, the reader, to actively follow those references, breadcrumbs, and leads, to further enrich his stories, and the payoff for doing so is immense.

Based on his previous works, I would not ever have guessed his magnum opus would be a 1200+ page behemoth of a tome, a WESTERN even, but here we are, and I will be the first to say, 'TOM'S CROSSING' has all the makings of a new American classic. The story, while deceptively simple, unravels in such a compelling way that it kept me on the edge of my saddle.... errr seat, the entire way. And for a book of this size, that's an impressive feat! The characters run the gamut from endearing and loveable to enfuriating, terrifying, and even downright despicable. Each is brimming with humanity--each beautifully fleshed out with clear aspirations and flaws. The Western genre is not one that I have explored much myself through literature, but moreso through film, and at times it felt very much in the same vein as the Coen Brothers, and perhaps Tarantino. Other times closer to Aronofsky or Malick. The narration is conversational in tone, treating the story as a retelling of a local legend or tall tale, which makes it both easily digestible and tough to put down. At its heart it's an emotional epic. There's a good bit of humor, a great bit of suspense, and yes too, sometimes heartbreak. It would be doing future readers a great disservice to expound too much on the story or themes within but expect the signature MZD flairs--his verbosity allways such a gift, and the long side trails that sometimes snake you away from the main quest allways further serve to enrich the overall narrative. I challenge anyone who is daunted by its length to read the first section, and I'm willing to bet you'll be hooked.

Suffice to say, this story will haunt me for many years to come . . .

[Rowan Hoffman · Rating 5 out of 5]

Mark Z. Danielewski has been a significant part of my life since the Spring of 2009, when I was a meager 15 years of age.

I was introduced to House of Leaves through a web forum that I spent a majority of my time on in my pre-"licensed-to-drive" era, which was for a YA book series by author DJ MacHale called "Pendragon: Journal of an Adventure Through Time and Space." I was immediately grabbed by the disjointed presentation and air of uncertainty as to whether the book was truly fiction - which, of course it is, but it's a testament to Mark's writing that even with all clear indications to the contrary, it can still almost convince you that what you're holding really did happen.

From then on, House of Leaves was my favorite book of all time - I even have an unmarked compass tattooed on my left forearm that was inspired by the compass on the front cover. I attempted Only Revolutions around the same time I finished House of Leaves, but I will admit that it wasn't until 2019 that I managed to finish it; long after I had already gobbled up The Fifty Year Sword and The Familiar. Mark's books have always dared to defy explanation and easy digestion, and Only Revolutions was certainly the most difficult of those endeavors for me, but it quickly cemented itself as one of the most moving pieces of writing I had ever read once I listened to the rhythm and feeling of the text's music rather than attempting to dissect it piece-by-piece.

One thing that has persisted throughout Mark's career post-House of Leaves is a minority of fans that relegate his later works to the halls of gimmick; they grew frustrated with the typographical and formatting experimentation, viewing it to be the sad result of having nothing substantive to say following the success of House of Leaves. I will argue against such interpretations until the end of time, having spent a good deal of my own researching the minutiae making up the larger wholes of Mark's work out of the desire to comprehend it as fully as possible. Each stylistic choice subtly influences a reader's perception of a character's identity, whether that was the choice for Johnny Truant to say "should of" instead of "should have," conveying his supposed lack of education; or the choice for Astair, a character in The Familiar, to have her segments narrated with the use of many nesting parentheses in order to convey the constantly stacking and folding thoughts inherent in being a parent - not to mention how much fun it is to pun (parent)hetical. Regardless, some could not move past these specific storytelling choices for long enough to see how they informed the story, and so missed out on some of my favorite pieces of writing.

Tom's Crossing, then, seems to be Mark's response to the sometimes implied, sometimes explicit question that those people have been asking for the last 20-something years - is Mark all flash without his typographical tricks?

After being one of the lucky few to receive and consume a galley copy of Tom's Crossing in its entirety, I can confidently say that he is the "real horseradish," as our new favorite vile patriarch, Old Porch, might say. You won't find but a minor coating of the usual MZD flair here - formatting hijinks take a back seat to a more straightforward narrative, though we still get a bit of Mark's signature soul in the form of the choice to narrate the book in a sort of written dialectical fashion, with words like "enough" replaced with "enuf," dropping the letter "g" from the ending of words depending on the circumstance, italicizing dialogue rather than putting it in quotations, etc. While at first this can be a bit of a shock for longtime MZD fans, I can confidently assure you that any concerns or misgivings are soon arrested in the first 20 pages alone.

It becomes apparent early on that not only does Mark still stand firm upon a foundation of linguistic mastery, but that to ever question that at all was foolish. Within those opening pages, we are treated to such evocative prose, conveying over the course of many pages a meeting that took maybe minutes of real-world time to play out. The titular Tom Gatestone chances upon a new lifelong friend, Kalin March, and the two get to wagering on who can stand to ride the longest upon some nearby horses, them famously not being the most amiable of creatures. Tom’s observation of Kalin’s uncharacteristic poise upon the backs of those horses may not occupy more than a couple of minutes, but as anybody that’s seen an instant replay knows, sometimes the beauty or tragedy is found in the fractions of a second, no matter how unremarkable it seems at first glance. That is true not just for the memory of motion but for the understanding of the world, at some turns betraying truths not readily apparent at first glance but upon further scrutiny evoking fear, sadness, hope, anxiety, and yes, even love.

As Tom and Kalin bond, they continue to visit those two horses, called Navidad and Mouse. They would sneak them out from Paddock A, where they were kept by Old Porch, and ride them through the mountains nearby. Paddock B was reserved for those creatures that Old Porch saw fit to slaughter the next day, so a promise is soon shared between them – should that detestable man ever move Navidad and Mouse to Paddock B, the two boys would take them to Tom’s Crossing and set them free.

What results is a tale that extends itself into the depths of Hell while still standing tall, piercing the clouds and daring heaven. I found myself anxious, vulnerable, hopeful, excited, unsettled, tickled, and comforted at nearly every turn, often even audibly exclaiming from surprise, relief, hilarity, or contentment, and many times I cried. One thing that I must commend Mark on especially is his ability to somehow take moments that other authors may stumble over, and by some peculiar alchemy make them just as, if not more, compelling than what came before.

There were many moments throughout that left you hanging on to your last breath, only for the story to divest from the central narrative and spend some time building up seemingly tangential pieces of lore. The story is told like a recounting of a piece of local history, where many people that either studied or were affected by the events of those days are referenced to offer varying perspectives on the same event. There was one particular moment that shocked me (which shall remain unspoiled here), when a crucial event was followed then by about 90 pages of time spent on other characters and the repercussive emanations of the events thus far into the world. It’s a testament to the sincerity of Mark’s voice as an author that you can find in these moments that you’re no longer so anxious about learning what happened next after only reading 3 or 4 more pages.

Without spoiling anything, I can promise you all that Tom’s Crossing is something special. It refuses to shy away from the ugliness of the world but also refuses to accept any reality where love and mirth cannot also exist alongside it, finding humor in moments of terror and promising that the future need not be chained by the past. There are also plenty of Easter eggs for fans of Mark’s other works, especially The Familiar, and I can’t wait for my Familiar friends to spot them! In many ways, Tom’s Crossing now contends with House of Leaves as my favorite book, having found me with a kind word amidst uncertain weather and delivering some of the most memorable and impactful prose that I’ve ever had the pleasure of reading. Kudos, Mark!

All that being said,

I’ll see y’all at the crossin. . .

[Jeff Wait · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book tries to be everything: a western, coming of age, academic, legal procedural, literary and a bunch more I’m sure I didn’t catch because I was working through 1,200 pages. Usually I tear through book; this one tore through me. I couldn’t tell how much was done as an artistic choice and how much was done as a way to mess with me (readers). I don’t know how to feel about this book. There’s some really high highs where I’m like “this is the good stuff. This is worth the slow slow slow build.” And then there’s the slow slow slow build. Perhaps as a reader, I was challenged in my patience and belief in the author. But I finished, and what do I have to show for it? A new appreciation for short books, brevity and the like. This would’ve been a masterpiece in 800 pages. At 1200, I can’t get over the length and the pacing and the decision-making that got us here. I’ll stop my rambling here. Brevity.

[Josh · Rating 4 out of 5]

I finished the last page and closed this book for good between 5-7 days ago and I’ve been ruminating on it ever since. I read another book in the process, started others and it’s still been in my thoughts and I’m just now taking the time to write a review.

If you go back to the copious amount of status updates I made while taking nearly 3 months to read this behemoth, you’ll see that I’m mostly complaining about the length. I mean come on, why should a novel be over 1,000 pages, much less at the tune of 1,232 pages? The same could be said about many classics, some post-modern works, but I must admit outside of Tolstoy’s “War and Peace” this is the first time I’ve completed a novel in the 4 character page tier.

Now that I’ve gotten that out of the way, what were my impressions of this work that I spent so much time of my life involved with? Mixed, indeed. The many sessions I spent reading I had this internal voice also keeping me a bit distracted. “Why the hell are you continuing? Why is Danielewski so damned pretentious? Josh, why, oh why, did you start with this rather than House of Leaves?”

I was distracted in the figurative sense. Danielewski spends probably 1/10th of this novel's deep description of the world around his characters whether it be the way a horse looks, thinks, walks or breathes. The way the mountain is steep, cold, snowy, and every part of said mountain. It almost reads like a geographical or topographical textbook at times. Needless to say whenever an author goes into this much description, it loses my interest. I’m more into what a person is thinking, not how a person looks. What a person does that affects others, not what they sound like when they breathe or eat.

What Danielewski does with this book is create an allegory blended with tension, violence and love. On the facade it’s a story of grief, friendship, murder and immorality, while the hidden parts discuss a criticism of the Mormon Church, the destruction of the Native Tribes of Utah, government corruption and what family means and how much that family will stick together no matter the reason or cost.

I do think it was way too long. Do I think this could’ve been wrapped up in 500-600 pages, most assuredly. Will this have an audience that will finish it just as I did? Most definitely. Will I ever come back to Danielewski and read the usual obligatory first experience of his most popular work aforementioned? Yes, but it will be years from now and I may throw it in frustration if it gives me a similar experience.

And now, the rating. I know I don’t have to rate this book, but if you’ve seen my reviews over the last 15 years, you’ll notice that I rarely, RARELY, not give a book a rating. The fact of the matter is, I’ve been ruminating for so long because I was at a loss. Do I rate it for how I feel about it? Do I rate it for the respect (or lack of respect) I have for it?

All cons aside, I am not unhappy that I read and finished this. Within its pages, I encountered great writing and prose and an author that knows how to develop his characters. There were times where it was page-turning and thrilling, but there was so much filler in between, yet I had to finish it.

I liked it. Yes, I liked it.

Update OK, after a week or so and still having this on the brain, I'll bump it up to a 4. There must be a reason why, so there's that.

[Deborah · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is pretty big for its britches. I went into it hoping for something like Lonesome Dove or All the Pretty Horses, both among my favourite books, but this fell woefully short. (Feel free to read into that some irony, as this book is over 1,200 pages. Can “short” be a word in any way connected to this?) Don’t get me wrong. There was some very enjoyable stuff here. After all, I did keep reading to the end to see what happens. It’s set in Utah in the present day (well, in 1982, but I just mean to say not the Old West) and is about a boy who pledges himself to rescue two horses condemned to be slaughtered and turn them loose on the far side of a mountain on protected lands, to live out the rest of their lives free and unfettered. That makes for plenty of heroic adventure, with the thrills that go with that. Add in pursuing villains bent on murder and you’ve got a tale of people with good, brave hearts venturing into grievous danger. And there is a wonderful 600-page book buried in this 1200-page one. Alas, it’s thoroughly larded with extraneous stuff that, far from adding to the story, just detracts from it. There are constant references to Greek myth and comparisons to The Iliad. And, so irritating, something of a Greek chorus, with townspeople debating the events of that journey for decades to come. This author puts his readers through their own challenging journey, with annoyance standing in for danger.

[Kevin Adams · Rating 5 out of 5]

I never know how to begin a Goodreads review for which I loved the book but here I go…

Probably my favorite book of 2025. I read a number of new releases plus others in a full calendar year but no book in 2025 has made me love storytelling more than this. Just flat out beautiful storytelling about friendship and family and nature. Is it a little too long? Sure. But I’m telling you that it really breezed by. 1200 pages is a lot, yes but don’t let that fool you into not reading it. While the entire main story lasts only 5 days Danielewski writes his characters with such heart and depth that I just couldn’t put it down.

I’m one of those older readers (52 as I write this) that loved House of Leaves when I read it 25 years ago. Now, it’s a little tiring and overwritten but still impressive. Tom’s Crossing is just a well written story that seems to have some similarities to his life. I’m thankful for the friends that I have had my whole life and saw so many similarities in Kalin and Tom. Too bad I couldn’t write a masterpiece like Tom’s Crossing.

[garp · Rating 5 out of 5]

[update after reading the full e-version of the book]

Don’t be scared
"The greatest damage caused by this technology is that people can no longer concentrate, can no longer enjoy concentrating. Reading a long novel is one of my greatest sources of pleasure. But most people refuse to do it because reading a long novel isn’t fun if you’re constantly interrupted."
— William T. Vollmann
What William T. Vollmann says can be seen as a manual for reading the 1,232 pages of Tom's Crossing. And if you apply it, you’ll experience the joy of diving into one of the greatest sources of pleasure.
So, reader, don’t be scared and earn this "western" that will repay you a hundredfold.
The quotation marks above are important, and we’ll come back to that.
Mark Z. Danielewski is primarily known for House of Leaves, an extraordinary novel, a work of art in its own right, published in 2000, which, even 25 years later, has not aged a bit, still arousing interest, intrigue, to the point where it is read, reread, and gives rise to all sorts of theories — each reader with their own theory, one might say; in other words: this is definitely for you.
We won’t revisit the other projects/works of Mark Z. Danielewski, all equally interesting and innovative.
Tom’s Crossing.
"Western"
(again, note the quotation marks)
We won’t revisit the story summary, which is very brief, unlike the novel itself.
Just know that you’ll find all the ingredients of a "western" here: Stetsons (including on the cover), horses, poker games, legends passed down orally by the campfire, "duels," villains, the mountains of Utah, etc. Nothing is missing.
But it goes much further than that.
The structure, the words used, their double meanings, their sounds, the poetic beauty of some descriptions, the rhythm (Clop-Clop-clip-Clop), the cinematography of the scenes, the musicality — all of this, and more, pulls you in, forcing you to devour these 1,232 pages while, yes, forgetting everything around you.
The characters? Some are endearing, so much so that you’ll shudder, laugh, and even get teary-eyed. Others are despicable, violent, liars, killers — you’ll want to clench your fists and wish them a horrible death.
And there are secondary characters whose names sometimes sound very Pynchonian, stepping in like the timeline in Only Revolutions.
Not to mention... the ghosts.
(Don’t flinch, it’s so well done that you’ll believe in them too).
Is that the Mark of a good novel?
Certainly.

But Danielewski goes further.
Nothing is left to chance in Tom’s Crossing: from the alteration of certain words to mythological references, and much more.

Everything.

Has.

Meaning.

Even the Easter eggs for HOL, Only Revolutions and The Familiar’s readers.
And it will require a second reading.
Because Tom’s Crossing will haunt you long after you’ve finished it.
We almost forgot: why the quotation marks around "western"?
Because if it is one, it’s much bigger, it goes much deeper on the inside than on the outside.
So: don’t be scared.

And read!

[side note: even for a non native English, don’t need a dictionary to read Tom’s Crossing, its “music” is largely speakable]


Spécial thanks to Pantheon Books for the Teaser Edition (paper) and the e-version of the full book.
And of course: thanks to Allways sixteen Mark.
#NetGalley #TomsCrossing


———————————

After receiving the Teaser Edition of Tom’s Crossing—as living in France, I am really lucky, thank you so much— and savoring all these 159 pages or 1st act — I am not ashamed to claim that’s a masterpiece: the XXIst century western everyone should read.
I know that westerns are, but maybe I’m wrong, especially in my country, a little bit “old fashioned” and more watched on screen than read.
Let me tell you that you never read such a western like that.
Of course, all the characteristics of this literary story are in it: Stetsons, guns, horses, pokers, campfires tales… and more.
But all of these are renewed.
First of all, it’s a tale told by someone, transmitted from one to another (just a thought), and, transcribed. . . But when?
Where? By who? Or . . . what?
Time is also moving from past to future, to past, and a lot of questions are here to maintain the reader in waiting to read the 1232 pages of the full story.
So once you begin to read, and savoring it more and more, you only want to know more.
You won’t be able to put it down: it’s really addictive and you will feel happy, angry, sad, heartbreaking.
Note to those who already known Danielewski’s novels, you won’t be deceived — still some, well, Easter eggs, specially for you.
For those who didn’t read any of his work, this one is for you.
A standalone novel/story that will haunt you for years.
Even if you never loved westerns.
Impossible to be indifferent to the rhythm , the poetry of sentences, the structure, and much more.
So, preorder it right now and prepare yourself to an incomparable journey among UTAH mountains, trails… and ghosts.
Believe me, Tom’s Crossing deserves an NBA.
Don’t miss it!
(and if you remember what I said at the top of this review, all of that only in 159 pages — I let you imagine how mindblowing will be the full book!)

[Lee · Rating 5 out of 5]

Despite straying a little into the sentimental and mawkish towards the end, this is still very much an epic, exhausting, often thriling, occasionally horrifying journey. I'm already suffering withdrawals. What do I do now? Read other books? It doesn't seem right.

[Dreebs Lee · Rating 5 out of 5]

Updated upon finishing.

Blown Away! I find it very hard to summarize this tale because it totally escapes the bounds of the book that pretends to contain it. Instead, I'd rather focus on the experience it offers and the journey it demands. You will not leave Tom's Crossing unfulfilled, but you must persevere in order to summit. I have often found Danielewski's novels to be like machines that take in readers of all types and hone their skill and confidence until they are all together a more imaginative reader (and person) by the end.

How can the rhythm of a book synchronize with a grieving heart? This was the question I asked myself repeatedly while reading Tom's Crossing. I found myself asking other's reading the ARC copies if they were having a similar experience, because at times I truly didn't know if it was my own grief or a power the book had itself. The central loss, is that of a sibling. I couldn't help but to mourn my own brother while reading it. The night I discovered his name in the passages was deeply personal but altogether mystical.

I had to take rests, several days at times, away from the journey to be still and sit in the feelings that Mark's wonderful and challenging prose brought up. This is not a book everyone will be able to read quickly. It is ok, even preferable, to approach it at the pace that feels most comfortable to you. Depending on what you bring to it, you will be carrying a light or heavy pack down the trails. Rest when you can, push on when you have the strength. I longed for the fire side restorations our characters needed. I needed them too.

Sometimes I felt I was reading bits of McCarthy rewriting the Iliad. Or maybe it was McMurtry helping with a screen play for the Coen brothers this time. There are times when the book feels like an amalgamation of every writer who has ever influenced it, all of their harmonies under one gorgeous hymn. Tom's Crossing is not House of Leaves but it similarly asks the reader to sacrifice something in order to finish it. It's not any other work by Danielewski. But just like the book's predecessors, Mark's harmony is there, a gentle composer guiding all other sounds.

You will find Joy here. You will find Elation. You will find beauty. The kind that make you want to weep for the loss of it. That is where you will also find Grief, and pain, and even violence. You will find accomplishment, solace, and catharsis. Inside this sweeping giant of a tale is an opportunity to face what you've been carrying, and to choose how far you're bringing it with you. Finishing this work is not a choice, but a requirement to anyone wanting the experience offered. You will finish Tom's Crossing a better reader. I hope you'll accept the challenge to do so.

[Ian Scuffling · Rating 5 out of 5]

I’ve written in this space before about the powerful impact Mark Z. Danielewski’s House of Leaves had on a younger version of myself, fundamentally reorienting my expectations and understanding of literature. I’ve posited that I would not be the person I am today if a 16-year-old version of myself—long since a stranger from the soul occupying this aging corpus behind the keyboard—had not picked up this tome and committed to its mysterious construction and enigmatic style. In the …twenty-five years…since, I’ve followed MZD’s career as feverishly as one can. You can still find my reading group for The Familiar series on these pages. When the project ended prematurely, I was not surprised, but well disappointed. So, when Tom’s Crossing was announced, my body was ready. While I say all this as a kind of presage to the absolute glazing I’m about to heap on this novel, I want to also qualify that I have discussed this novel with those who are maybe not as enthusiastically MZD-heads like myself to understand that yes, the glazing is warranted, and yes, this novel is a remarkable event in literature and a truly special experience.

Tom’s Crossing is a “western” as it tells you on its title page. While it’s set in 1982 in Utah, it has many of the trappings one might expect when envisioning a “western” that typically is Old West in setting. It has horses, it has guns, it has violence, it has campfires with a pot of beans simmering over it, it has villains that are unequivocally villainous in their villainy, it has heroes of mythic proportion, it has daring feats, it has prophetic and insightful axioms and other proverbial takeaways that give people the feeling of mettle and grit and resilience and individuality. The story concerns two kids, Kalin March and Landry Gatestone, ushering two horses set for slaughter to their freedom in a fabled place beyond the mountains known to the kids as “Tom’s Crossing.” The titular Tom is Landry’s older brother, dead at the young age of 17 within the first handful of pages, eaten by an awful cancer. The saving of the horses a promise made between Kalin and Tom, a dying wish that if Kalin ever sees the horses set for slaughter, then he must free them. Against the kids is a villain for the ages: Orwin “Old” Porch, the horses’ owner, and his cadre of mildly to malevolent sons.

The telling of the story uses a distinctive voice throughout, unwaveringly so, but that voice is so compelling and natural and has a clear audible quality to it, the novel quickly feels like a friend Telling you a story over one of those bean-cooking-campfires with a cold, bright moon glistened with the cascade of the cosmos orbiting overhead. It’s enthralling and captivating and infectiously readable. The campfire telling isn’t one dimensional though, as the depth of detail and incredibly crafted prose often is painting scenes like still image oils on canvas, capturing the naturalistic ruggedness of the terrain and journey Kalin and Landry have embarked on. Single scenes linger for dozens of pages but never once feel belabored or tedious or artificially imposing your progress. Like the duo teens at the heart of the novel, we’re scaling a mountain. But like a mountain, it bequeaths its beauty over and over to anyone willing to look at it, climb it, live among it, however, only once you’ve seen all of it, conquered it, do you feel its power, its fullness, its resonating naturalistic harmony. Oneness with nature.

So, what makes the book so successful? I would argue that it is nearly perfectly executed at all levels of detail and successfully delivers all it promises in its ambitions and ends. That is the novel is in surfeit of and overflowing with characters you feel deep things for. Kalin and Landry are devised almost like something out of a YA novel, and I don’t mean that disparagingly, but more compassionately. They’re one-part mythic superheroes, one-part star-crossed lovers, one-part flawed executors for their lives. Two teens with a preternatural ability with horses, and, in some cases, with guns, making an impossible delivery to free some horses from death. Meanwhile, we also have each teen’s mother: Sondra Gatestone and Allison March. Headstrong women willing to do anything, but ultimately completely powerless to save their children from the horrors of man and the absolute harsh ambivalence of nature to man’s needs. Then we have the aforementioned villain crew: the Porch family. MZD weaves these core characters into a tight history—a century-long feud between two names (Gatestones and Porches) and the absurdity of what feuds truly entail, there’s also a ghost of a friendship that turns into a friendship with a ghost, the power of small-town chatter to create lasting narrative, no matter how incomplete or incorrect they are.

There’s also the naturalistic element. I’ve already likened the book, a 1,229-page whopper, to the very mountains its characters are scaling. At every turn, lurks danger, insurmountable odds, likely death, threats of pursuit, threats of violence, threats of nature, that particular haunted feeling that eons of the land hold, the supernatural as companion and danger. The pulse of the book is how the characters defy nature, conquer it, as they look to return something back to nature. It sustains this with time compressing detail about how daunting and impossible daunting and impossible tasks before us can truly be, and perseverance of ambition, of promise can defy those odds.

Throughout the novel is a “Greek chorus” of voice often retelling, refining, relitigating and re-theorizing about the story being told to us as they continue to tell and re-tell the story among their friends. Much like a crazy story about your hometown you share with people throughout your life, the story of Kalin and Landry takes on mythic proportions, especially as the chorus tries to analogize the tale with the tellings of the ancients, trying to parallel the acts on those mountains by the teens and by the Porches as some kind of Iliad or Odyssey in their own rights. This tie in of myth harkens back to a theme running throughout most of MZD’s work. In House of Leaves it was the minotaur and the labyrinth, man vs. monster. In The Familiar it was prophecy and technology as myth-making machines. Here, the concern seems primed at not just how humans go about re-creating myth over and over throughout time, but maybe questioning, why is our species so attracted to mythic conception?

It's here in the final third of the novel where there’s a significant, but brief, shift in narrative, away from Kalin and Landry, though I won’t spoil more than that, which turns exceptionally meta-fictional. Examining art's purpose and how myth is more than just a story—it’s humanity’s story for time eternal.

All of this without even really talking about the horses. Something that spoke to me with insane power was the way in which animals are depicted in the novel. The horses are companions. But they aren’t agentless beasts acted upon by noble and virtuous teens. No. They are the core of the story. There are moments where the MZD zooms in on the interiority of the animals to give them voice. Something he did to some extent in The Familiar series, but they way it works in this story winds up being so much more resonant and powerful, woven into the narrative in a way that deepens the characters and deepens our understand of what human stewardship means to animals. Do animals have interiority? Maybe not like you and I, but if you have even had one dog or cat in your life, much less a creature like a horse, then you know that there is consciousness of some measure, a way that communication passes between man and animal and why we must be accountable for the righteous care and treatment of animals. The scenes between Kalin and the horses were some of the most beautiful in the book, at times forcing me to pause my reading to collect myself and my thoughts.

And then there’s the ghosts. I won’t linger on this, but as you learn very quickly in the novel, Tom dies and returns almost immediately as a ghost that only Kalin can see and speak with. Whether there’s really ever a ghost present is something to debate and explore, but ultimately, it doesn’t matter as Tom’s ghost represents an absence and a promise. It’s a constant reminder to Kalin why he’s on this perilous journey. The presence of ghosts is not limited to a spectral Tom, but in the first third of the novel, Kalin experiences a swarm of the dead including a native woman who died to the white settlers of the fictionalized town of Orvop. Ghosts of people and ghosts of animals stick with the living on their sojourn, creating a cascading wave of historical dead Kalin cannot see but is aware of as he seeks to free the horses.

During my month spent with this novel—reading it at a fairly aggressive pace because I couldn’t slow myself—I would spend time while not-reading thinking and talking about this book waiting until I had a free moment to pick it back up. While reading it, I would often think excitedly about re-reading the book. Yes, thoughts of re-reading before even finishing. This is instantly a book I will insanely recommend to any and everyone who will hear it. Yes, it’s a 1,229 page mountain, yes it will likely take you months, but those months—as well as Kalin and Landry—will live with you forever. I haven’t read a book so perfectly executed as this since perhaps when I read, ironically, Butcher’s Crossing by John Williams. This novel will fill you. It will give you joy and sadness, heartbreak and terror, but ultimately back to joy, because what a fucking joy to read this novel is. Sensational.

[Daniel Williams · Rating 5 out of 5]

I was lucky enough to receive a galley copy of Tom’s Crossing from Pantheon and I could not have been more ecstatic. Thank you so much.

This book is 1232 pages of beauty. Both in language and plot. I cried several times and laughed out loud even more. Several scenes in this book had my heart literally racing. I could feel the tension in my chest as if I were on that mountain. And the characters truly feel alive. There are several characters who within the span of a few paragraphs become fully realized, reach out, and seize your heart. And of course, there are MZD’s trademark rumination on any topic under the sun. They pull you away from the narrative to drop some of the most gorgeous lines I have ever read only to lead you right back into the plot. They felt like the small side paths on a hike that bring you to the most spectacular view. Don’t be afraid to sit and revel in the view.

1232 pages is daunting for any book, but it is well worth it. I guarantee if you read the first three chapters, you won’t be able to stop yourself from continuing. Perhaps my biggest praise is that I’m already planning a reread.

MZD is, in my opinion, a singular voice. That being said, I can see lots of incredible influences/comparisons such as Melville, Pynchon, “Lone Wolf and Cub,” The Coen Brothers and McCarthy.

And for the eagle eyed MZD fans, this book is full of treasures.

[Jamad · Rating 1 out of 5]

I went into Tom’s Crossing without knowing the author or having any real idea what I was getting into, and that probably didn’t help — but even so, this was a slog.

On paper, the story sounds straightforward enough: a Western-style journey across Utah over a handful of days, with horses, danger and survival. In reality, the telling makes it far more exhausting than it needs to be. The book is enormous, and the writing style constantly gets in the way. There’s a lot of oddly spelled dialogue, slang that’s hard to follow, and endless digressions into tiny details that stall the story just as it starts to move.

Instead of feeling immersive, it often felt wilfully difficult. Scenes that should have had tension or momentum are buried under pages of explanation and stylistic quirks, and I kept losing the thread of what was actually happening. The length doesn’t feel earned, and the novel seems far more interested in showing off its cleverness than telling a compelling story.

I’m sure some readers will admire the ambition and the experimental approach, but for me it was overlong, self-indulgent and strangely joyless. One star.

[Javan Levey · Rating 5 out of 5]

My Dad passed away on the last day of November last year. Over the past 11 months I never felt compelled to share my grief publicly. It’s not that I’ve been particularly private about the matter; I have spoken at length with close friends and family about the cycles and spirals that have consumed my mind in the wake of my unfathomable loss. There was something that felt off about the thought of making a post online about my Dad. It is simply impossible to encapsulate what was special about the relationship I had with him; it is seemingly just as futile to attempt to express the heart-rending devastation caused by his absence. An attempt to capture the immensity of it all within a post of a dozen pictures and a few paragraphs of text (no matter how heartfelt) would be an act of hubris, a fool’s errand. Why bring it up now, then? I still may not be completely comfortable sharing all of the details, but I feel that it is necessary to give some context for my experience with Tom’s Crossing.

Sometimes life finds a way of bringing something to your doorstep at the precise moment that it will have a significant impact on your life, a compass to guide you. It could be a person, an opportunity, an idea, maybe even something as simple as a book. You may call it serendipity, luck, fate, God, or just the chaos of the universe throwing spaghetti at the wall. Whatever it is that you deem this force at work to be, I hope that you have had the pleasure of receiving one of its gifts. My most recent, and likely most profound experience of this phenomenon began in May of this year, and it indeed came in the form of a book.

I was fortunate enough to receive an Advanced Reader’s Copy of Mark Z. Danielewski’s newest novel about six months prior to its release. I have little to no platform for publicity and I don’t write book reviews, but the post stated that there were a few copies set aside for major fans of Danielewski’s work (that’s me). When the publisher posted about the chance to win one of these galleys I submitted a brief paragraph in response about an hour before the deadline. The possibility of actually receiving a copy of the book slid to the back of my mind, so I was ecstatic when I came home from work one day to find the (surprisingly heavy) package on my doorstep with labels from Pantheon Books. My partner expressed concern about what was happening as she watched me sit on the step and impatiently (savagely) tear the box apart, revealing the treasure inside.

I’m going to rewind quickly and provide more context (bear with me and the formless structure of this all, as I stated before I am certainly no book critic (or writer in general!)). Mark Z. Danielewski is my favorite author and has been for quite some time. When I was a sophomore in high school, I discovered House of Leaves through discussions on a literature forum and I was immediately intrigued. I remember the ride home from Borders, feeling intimidated by this monster of a book. Not only was it physically larger than the novels of Orwell and Hemingway that I had recently been consuming, but flipping through this tome I took note of the odd typography, colored text, and seemingly endless footnotes that sprawled across its pages (damn this site for not letting me change my font color in this review). For my 16-year-old brain it was a herculean effort to make it through the labyrinthine book, rereading pages and whole chapters while navigating the maze of its h[allways].

In the years since, my connection to the book has only grown as I’ve revisited that strange house on Ash Tree Lane. I had never truly sunk my teeth into the rest of Mark’s work until his series The Familiar came out. Once again I found myself captivated by this other world that existed within the pages, and I obsessed over the five volumes until the series was unfortunately canceled. While mourning The Familiar I went back and read pretty much everything I could find that Mark had written, further entrenching myself in the magick of that parallel universe.

A few years ago Mark began to talk about his new novel in a series of stories on Instagram, expounding upon his creative process and giving his fans a glimpse into his own (metaphorical(?)) journey to Tom’s Crossing. For an author of works that many consider to be cryptic and seemingly impenetrable, the transparency that Mark exhibits is generous. These posts evolved into longer youtube videos, posted once, maybe twice a year. I was there every step of the way, eager to read this new novel he was working on but also absorbing his thoughts on work and creativity in hopes that I could apply or adapt them for myself. All of my meandering here is in hope that I can provide a sense of the bigger picture, a view from the summit. When you reach the top of the mountain you may see that the path you have been travelling on started long before you realized, reaching far beyond the base where you thought this all began.

Back to me holding Tom’s Crossing for the first time. At this point in time I am a battle-hardened veteran; one that has dug deep into Danielewski’s works and emerged from the trenches victorious. And yet, there is the familiar feeling of intimidation while holding this 1232 page book. An absolute behemoth. I think to myself, “Sure this book is massive, but I’m sure the word count is lower than expected, considering many of the pages will be dedicated to the negative space required for Mark’s signature typography.” WRONG. As I flipped through, I was surprised to see full pages of text and (mostly) traditional spacing and format (besides the trade of dialogue quotation marks for italic font, and a few other subtle quirks). This unexpectedly tame structure somehow made me even more excited to dive in.

I do not enjoy plot synopses in reviews, so you will find minimal descriptions of the plot here. I believe simplicity is powerful when presenting a description for someone before letting them experience it for themself. House of Leaves is about a house that is bigger on the inside than it is on the outside. The Familiar is about a girl who finds a kitten. What I’ll tell you about Tom’s Crossing is that this is a story about two horses and the two friends who set out to free them. A few others tag along for their journey over the mountain. It’s a western set in Utah, in October of 1982. The main sections of this gargantuan book take place over the course of about five days. It goes without saying that this is a sloooow burn tale. I think from this amount of information you can tell if this story, on its surface, is up your alley or not. What I am more interested in is talking about my personal experience with the book and how it made me feel.

The metaphor of a mountain to be climbed and conquered is not an uncommon one, for good reason. I am sure ambitious human beings throughout our history, all over the world, have gazed upon the towering titans of Earth and dreamed of scaling their faces, imagining the view from the dizzying heights, picturing the land that lay on the other side, and on all sides, including back from where they came. And this is not the first mountain in a work of art that has served as a reflection of my own internal struggles. When I played the game Celeste about seven years ago I heavily identified with Madeline’s journey up the mountain, and it played a significant role in my management of my mental health at the time. I know that mountain well, and that mountain knows me. Some days I can sit at the summit and calmly take in my surroundings. Occasionally I will stagger, slip, and fall down the scree, and have to make my way back up again. The path is long, but now familiar. Unfortunately, that climb could never have prepared me for this one; up the particularly cruel mountain of grief that urges me to let go and plummet.

I imagine the peak, I hope for its existence, but I do not believe it is there.

There are many connections I can make that echo my experience with grief in this past year. As I read about the loss that the characters in this novel go through I was constantly tracing lines back to myself. There were also pieces of my Dad that I kept seeing within the story. In short, the title character is described as being charismatic, well-respected and liked by most people within his community, and having a contagious laugh and being eager to share it with all around him. Anyone who knew my Dad could tell you that describes him pretty darn well. He was also about the same age as Tom Gatestone around the time that this story takes place. It was hard not to picture a young version of him in my mind as I was reading. Then who else to visualize as the best friend Kalin March other than Dad’s best friend when he was that age? A friend that he tragically lost during that time period (the parallels and inversions won’t be lost on you if you read this book). Though I obviously never met this friend, I do have a clear image of him in my mind; one imprinted by many years of glimpsing the photo of him that rested on my Dad’s bedside table until his own passing (it now lives within the pages of my Dad’s bible, along with other photographs of loved ones that he kept close). In a way that feels somehow intentional, or inevitable, these characters are now forever bound to these memories inherited. One last ride for them in my mind.

To me this book is about honoring your dead.
Let their presence be felt in absence.
Let them walk beside you as you continue to learn from them.
Let them shine a light down the path that guides you through the dark.
Much of this does not require action, these stones have been laid before you.
It requires the strength to remember and the awareness to notice.
We do have the responsibility of telling their stories.
How will we work to preserve their memory?
How will we carry them forward when our collective history becomes myth?
And beyond remembrance, we are entrusted to aid them in living on in spirit.
Will you lift up and care for those who were also left behind?
Will you spread the love and joy that the bodies of the dead can no longer contain?
Can you be their hands and close the loop of what they have left unresolved?

Jumping now to the end of this journey, I did eventually conquer the mountain that is Tom’s Crossing. Reaching the final pages left me feeling unimaginably grateful, lucky, and a bit empty and lonely (as incredible books often do). This story had taken on so much of my burden, more than its fair share of the load, and still I wished for more. I was not ready to say goodbye (are we ever?). I remember closing the book and holding it in front of me. It felt small in my hands. What had once appeared to be colossal and fathomless was now shrunken and meek. Though I cannot use a tape measure to prove it, this house is undeniably bigger on the inside. This is not unique to this novel, but for me the magnitude of its capacity is incalculable and unlike anything else I have experienced in fiction. I wonder how these simple printed pages contain such profound comfort for me in the wake of calamity; how is it possible that it can hold even a portion of my pain? I may not understand it but I will endlessly acknowledge and appreciate it.

Rewinding once more to the middle. There were countless moments that touched me throughout Tom’s Crossing, often moving me to tears. There are two passages in particular that struck me like lightning, and I would like to highlight them as I look down on the path that led me here. Light spoilers ahead. As I was reading the book this past summer (I believe I was a little more than halfway through), I came across a phrase that felt deeply resonant and strangely familiar to me. I read the words over again and again; I just couldn’t seem to place where I had read them before. I was fully distracted now, and I wandered into the other room to look at my bookshelf. I glimpsed an envelope tucked in the corner next to my other Danielewski books and then I remembered: the Christmas card I had received from Mark’s mailing list back in December, postmarked the day after my Dad passed away. It had arrived in the days after his sudden passing so I had barely processed its existence. I opened the envelope to see the two horses greeting me, then unfolded the card to confirm my suspicion:

“How in a Hollow to become a Heart? How in Power to be Kind?”

Words that I was not ready to receive that lied in wait on my shelf and in the back of my mind. A seed planted and grown to fruition without my conscious awareness. A token to remind me that even when on the verge of collapse there are invisible threads holding it all together.

One thing I admire about Mark’s work is the community that has formed around it (and has been fostered by the empathy and care he displays through his writing). Through these books that I have treasured for so long, I have inadvertently been caught in the web crafted by them and the devoted readers that have reached out and caught each other's hands. As I understand it, this community has been going strong online since House of Leaves was first published 25 years ago. Mark and his team continue to be active participants, and they have established a consistent dialogue with the fanbase over the years. The Christmas cards are just one of the many ways he reaches out and strengthens the connection between author and reader.

My final vignette begins with a social media post on Mark’s Instagram, about a year ago. A peculiar message calling to “bring forth your dead.” I responded to the request with two names. Kenneth and Martin Levey. Kenneth being my grandfather (Dad’s dad) who passed away in 2019. Martin being the stray cat my Dad took in after I left for college, who passed in 2022 (possibly ridiculous submission, but cats have a significant place in the MZD universe (and I loved the little bastard)). This was all before Tom’s Crossing had been announced, I had no idea what the intention of this collection of the dead was. Shortly after this my Dad died; the world proceeded to spin as I was stuck in place. Months passed and then in February a follow up request to “bring forth your dead.” I unfortunately had another name to offer so I emailed my Dad’s name as well. The world spun. More time passed and I was now reading Tom’s Crossing. I was anticipating that the names of the dead would be utilized in some way within or surrounding this novel, in what way I had no clue. I won’t describe the details in case you decide to read it, but about a quarter of the way through the book there is a scene where spirits of the dead join the horses on their expedition. The imagery is stunning and powerful, you will have to read it for yourself for the full scope of it all. As a group of the arisen dead approaches, the page is turned, and a list of hundreds of names fills the next two pages of text. Among the first few names I see my grandpa and my cat. I scanned the names eagerly and eventually saw the one I was hoping to find: T.J. Levey

I am simply incapable of describing the emotions I felt as I processed the significance of this inclusion. I was overwhelmed looking at this list of names of people who were cared for and lost, each with their own stories to tell, each with their own friends and family who are grieving just as I am. Not only has Tom’s Crossing supported me in my personal, internal grief process, it also serves as a memorial for my Dad and a way to preserve his memory and name. A collective monument to carry forth the late loved ones of this community. Despite the darkness, I feel fortunate to have my family be a part of this masterwork that Mark Z. Danielewski has crafted.

I do not believe in any kind of afterlife, as much as that would relieve the weight of the events of this past year. But I now have an image in my mind of my Dad catching up with his father (and that cat that they both adored) as they journey up and over the mountain, to the crossing where grief is quelled and peace is plentiful. I hope that we will all meet there someday.

Maybe it's not necessary to believe it. Maybe hope is enough.

[Panda · Rating 3 out of 5]

Audiobook (58 hours) narrated by Susan Dalian
Publisher: Books on Tape

Susan Dalian is an excellent narrator who immediately pulled me into the western feel of the story.
While Dalian was a finalist for one Audie Award and won just one, she has received several accommodations across entertainment platforms for her immaculate voice acting skills. Fans of Naruto likely recognize her name for her years of voicing Haku:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Susan_D...

I picked up Tom's Crossing as Mark Z. Danielewki's latest novel while contemplating reading House of Leaves. House of Leaves isn't available in audiobook as it is written in an experimental format. I have picked up a copy and I have a plan of attack. in the meantime I have spent the past ten days reading Tom's Crossing.

I really love the flow of the words, the feel of the atmosphere, and the choice of story delivery.

I am not a huge fan of westerns although my favorite series begins with The Gunslinger and is another western horror. This one however is a ghost story.

At 58 hours long for the audiobook this story is an investment. I have to say, however, that I felt a lot of the times as if I was on traveling on horseback or on foot. I could almost smell the grass, the trees, the rain. The mood surrounds the words, enveloping all that happens in such a way that the novel has a feeling which to me translated into a slow southern day. Even when things were happening, I felt like everything came at a slower pace, as if everything just was, no hurry... if there were to be violence it would happen, eventually.

Due to my personal preferences, this is a strong 3 stars for me. For someone who is into westerns I would imagine that it would be rated at least a four, as long as they are also OK with ghosts.

[Jack Waters]

A book by MZD set in Utah? Sign me up. I'm lucky to have been sent an Advanced Reading Copy by Pantheon Books. The early pages talk about the cities "Orvpo" (read: Provo, where MZD went to high school just a few minutes south from where I went to high school) and "Rome" (read: Orem) -- Utah's small version of Twin Cities. I look forward to when it takes us into the mountains I'm familiar with. "Zurich Steel Mill" is in place of the actual Geneva Steel -- a nicely done Swiss-named switcheroo. The large, but shallow, "Mud Lake" is Utah Lake. "Isatch Range" is Wasatch Range (mountains). The "Battle Crick Massacre" is the Battle Creek Massacre, which happened in Battle Creek, which is now called Pleasant Grove, where I went to high school. "Cassidy Ski Resort" is Sundance Ski Resort. "Mount Katanogos" is Mount Timpanogos. "I Mountain for the I on its front" is Y Mountain. "Milkinson Center" is Wilkinson Center. There are also reference to real places with their actual names -- Timpview High, Springville, Squaw Peak, Strawberry Reservoir, Wallsburg, Etc. etc. All this is in the first 38 pages.

Now, what I mean by all this isn't that only those familiar with Utah will like it, or that slightly arranging names is revolutionary writing -- but rather it shows the depth of the research done to situate this story in a place. A sometimes bittersweet thing about being thoroughly familiar with a topic/place covered in a novel is that it is easy to see when shortcuts are taken and surface-level details are prioritized over in-depth ones, etc. MZD did his duty on the research that I recognize so I can extend that trust to the rest when he might expand beyond what and where I know.

Now onto those horses. Giddy up.

[Paul Dembina · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wow! Quite some ride - literally.

I will try to avoid describing details of the story as the book covers only a 5 day period and part of the enjoyment is the revealing of the various plot points. Apparently it's based on something from MZD's other mega-novel series One Rainy Day in May - The Familiar and in fact the one mention of that word is printed in a greyed-out font much as the word is printed in a distinctive colour in that series of books.

Be prepared for a very slow pace but in the company of an intriguing narrator plus at various stages the chipping in from various other folk who act as a sort of Greek chorus. Commenting on the action.

There seems to be an preoccupation death with all the Greek chorus characters having their demises mentioned plus some involvement of people from beyond the grave. There's also much made of parallels between this modern myth and some espisodes in the Iliad.

These are just jottings, I'm not much for detailed reviews, just a few random thoughts.

If a book this long (1200+ pages) can keep my interest to the very end then I think it's pretty darned good.

[Rob · Rating 5 out of 5]

A longer review is coming, but for now: all the stars. Every single one.

The proper review, one week later:

25 years after its publication, Mark Z. Danielewski’s House of Leaves still represents a daunting task for many readers.

I always encourage people to read it, but I do so with the caveat that it’s a book that’s more about the journey than the destination.

This is also true of his subsequent novels, all of which feature a variety of stylistic shenanigans with diminishing returns. I say this as a fan. I always appreciate his experimentation – we need more bold weirdos willing to push the limits of what a narrative can do – but I’ve often found myself wishing he’d try his hand at a “normal” book.

The wait is over.

Tom’s Crossing is Danielewski’s first conventional novel, but it still clocks in at more than 1,200 pages. If that sounds just as intimidating as House of Leaves, hear me out:

This is a book that’s about journey AND destination, and if you give yourself over to it, it’s going to be one of your new favorite books.

I don’t use that phrasing – “give yourself over to it” – lightly.

This is a book that you have to read on ITS terms.

You can’t breeze through it or read it with one eye on your phone.

You have to surrender to it. But if you do? It’s going to make off with your heart.

The story itself is deceptively simple. It’s 1982. Two teenage boys – Kalin March and Tom Gatestone – decide to steal a pair of horses that local wealthy asshole (and Gatestone family rival) Orwin Porch has earmarked for the slaughterhouse. They’ll lead the horses, Navidad and Mouse, through the canyons outside town and ultimately set them free in the meadowland on the other side.

That never stops being the story. It is always thus: Steal the horses, set them free.

But the truly remarkable thing about Tom’s Crossing is the way Danielewski gives this simple story the epic weight of mythology. The act of stealing the horses (and a tragic accident that occurs shortly thereafter) ignites the long-simmering Gatestone/Porch conflict.

The ensuing acts of vengeance are operatic in their extremity.

And here’s where I’ll tread lightly in regard to how the story plays out. By using the townspeople as a sort of Greek chorus, commenting on the events of 1982 from various points in the future, we know from the book’s early pages that the Porches’ thirst for vengeance ends violently. But there are so many surprises in store for readers that I don’t want to risk spoilers by talking more specifically about plot points.

So, in lieu of that, what makes this book so special? I’ll give you a list:

1. The friendship between Kalin and Tom and, later, Kalin and Landry (Tom’s adopted sister), is one for the ages. All three central characters are immediately likable and sympathetic, and the way we latch onto them makes their adventure all the more harrowing. And the Porch family, on the other side, is a vile, repellent collection of characters who somehow never seem cartoonish. In fact, patriarch Orwin is a Machiavellian schemer who stands as one of the most compelling villains I’ve ever encountered. And I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention Sondra Gatestone and Allison March. As the mothers seeking a peaceful resolution for their children, these two dissimilar women become an unlikely and utterly delightful team. Taken collectively, this book represents Danielewski’s best character work by far.

2. Tom’s Crossing takes place in and around Orvop, Utah, which is – and Danielewski admits as much in the book’s afterword – a thinly-veiled Provo. Isatch Canyon, just outside Orvop where many of the book’s early chapters take place, is very nearly Wasatch Canyon, which is right outside Provo. The book is very clearly grounded in real places, and – cliché as this expression has become – the setting becomes an additional character. The canyons, the mountains, the meadows: Danielewski describes them in such vivid, exquisite detail that you feel as though you could see them through your window.

3. Along those same lines, it bears mentioning that Provo/Orvop is a Mormon stronghold and the home of Brigham Young University. As the revenge story plays out, Danielewski doesn’t shy away from exploring the hypocrisy of church politics and the way the church’s response to the book’s events actually exacerbates the situation. Danielewski never mentions Mormonism by name, but the way the church dominates Orvop’s culture makes the reference clear. And in this way he draws some obvious parallels with current events, where we routinely see religious people hypocritically excusing all manner of abhorrent behavior from those in power.

4. I alluded earlier to the thing that truly sets Tom’s Crossing apart from other books: It is, in every way, a novel about the making of a myth. You can even see this from the title page, where the author’s name is anonymized by initials and we’re told the book is merely a transcription, creating its place in the oral history tradition. Throughout the book, Danielewski references the townspeople’s reactions from various points in the future, and in doing so, we see how the events of the story continued to ripple outward, impacting people for decades. One entire chapter is devoted to describing a fictional museum exhibit consisting of artwork inspired by Tom, Kalin, and Landry’s adventure. It’s a simple story that Danielewski imbues with the weight of mythology.

5. And that brings me back to where I started. The most compelling thing about the novel is its simplicity. Despite all the bells and whistles I just described, there’s a relentless drive to the narrative, especially once the revenge arc kicks into gear. But it never deviates from its central motivation: Steal the horses, set them free.

I don’t know what else to say other than I’ve never read another novel like this one. It’s a towering accomplishment.

I’ll leave you, I guess, with a line that represents the book’s central message, a line that still gives me a little thrill every time I think of it:

“You get what you deserve when you ride with cowards.”

Fuck yeah. This book, friends.

This book.

[Robert · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is an epic story indeed. For those familiar with House of Leaves, this story is straightforwardly written.
There is a lot of language and storytelling which sometimes takes too much of a detour imho before returning to the main story. Nonetheless, it is very worth sticking to it and taking in the story as a whole.
The writing is amazing. For example, here is a random sentence:
What remains of paramount importance here was how these immediate moments unfoldin before little Landry’s eyes, either a miracle of weirdness or a foul conjurin that betwixt her yearnins for reunion with her dead brother and her chariness before a display of such odd pantomimes, dazzled her wits and left poor Landry stutterin some for common sense.
I found the story at times required some patience (it’s 1229 pages) but it was worth the journey.

8 days later:

A fascinating video (link below) by Mark Danielewski about how he relates to this book, how an inner voice was advancing the story, the process of writing and going through 10 drafts, how sad he is to leave the characters, writing as an art, etc.

Really interesting!

https://youtu.be/cR0eG0WjKg0?si=HS8kV...

[Benjamin · Rating 5 out of 5]

Update after re-read: After reading the ARC last year, I finally listened to the audiobook, and LOVED it. The narrator is just perfect. I was also satisfied to see that two specific things from the ARC that’d bothered me had been changed for the published version. Before the second time through, I was worried I wouldn’t like it as much, or realize it hadn’t been as good as I’d thought it was. But it was just as amazing as it was the first time. I really love this book.

Finishing this book (I just read the last page not two minutes ago) feels so surreal. It lived up to and exceeded every expectation I had, and so many expectations I wasn’t smart enough to have.
For MZD fans, this is everything you’ve been waiting for. For non-fans, this will convert you. Nobody else writes like this.
I don’t want to say anything about plot, except to say that it’s breathtaking.
But the things I do want to say: these characters are so fully realized—they make real choices with real consequences, there are high stakes, honest emotions, incredible dialogue.
The setting, more than any books coming to mind (except maybe House of Leaves, makes sense), becomes a contributing member of the cast in such surprising and beautiful and terrifying ways.
But it’s really on the sentence- and word-level that so much action takes place. The syntax of these sentences, the explosive sounds of the words, the specificity of words, and the deliberateness of crafting phrases that feel meaning-full down to the syllable… it’s unrelenting, and fills up your whole brain.
It’s a book that makes you think different while you’re not reading it, which I think means it’s something especially special.

[Justin Gerber · Rating 5 out of 5]

“Some say the universe bends toward Justice, but when it don't, stories mend the trajectory. As Tom's great-great-somethin-grand-father on Tom's daddy's side would put it: ‘Stories are a rebalancin of injustice, whether enacted within their narrative or purposed to enact certain reactions by the listeners. Stories are the lexical fashionins of vengeance. At least the good ones are.’”

Great ones, too. Clop-clop-clip-clop…

[Laura · Rating 1 out of 5]

DNF - The writing style, the digressions, the pace just didn't work for me. The author has some incredibly devoted fans but after trying to get through this, and slogging through House of Leaves, I'm not one.

eARC provided by publisher via Netgalley.

[Dylan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Tom’s Crossing is understandably divisive. First, the length: it’s almost 550,000 words long. Furthermore, the chapters are quite lengthy, as there are 26 chapters. It covers a short period of time amounting to 5 days (more or less). Lastly, it’s a slow burn from beginning to end. Even in the moments you think it’s going to pick up the pace dramatically, it introduces an art gallery which is around 100-200 pages long. It can be viewed as very indulgent. A friend on Goodreads stated, “it has all the ingredients… but can feel bogged down in the middle." All these elements should be known. That said, I adored this book from beginning to end.

The Wild West is one of the most mythologised periods in American history. The Cowboys symbolising heroism and freedom. It’s only fitting Mark Z. Danielewski used that framework to conjure his own myth. This is immediately apparent with all the Greek allusions and references. Is it the most realistic that random characters will say Kalin's action is akin to [Insert] Greek mythological figure? No, but neither were the myths the most realistic. Anyhow, depending on your interpretation, they are baked into the narrative. I don’t want to say more, as that aspect took me completely by surprise and elevates this book to more than just a Western.

The book is structurally very unique. Everyone knows Mark Z. Danielewski is famous for footnotes and unorthodox storytelling. While that type of storytelling is not featured here, Tom’s Crossing still manages to weave what could be considered “footnotes” in another book as a part of the core narrative. Sometimes to comical effect, a dramatic and serious moment just occurred, and then this was inserted, being completely isolated from that dramatic moment:

Zina Felt, from Rome, Utah, who earned her degree as an astrophysicist from the I, a degree she put into practice until she settled in Reykjavík, Iceland, where she and her Icelandic husband helped raise their three grandkids, now and then checkin in with the likes of Blaine Todicheenie, Tabitha Karush, Tatum Watkins, and both Wendy and Bruce Oldroyd, would observe:

It is a tad silly, and this is what I mean in terms of it never being a fast-paced book. As I’ve finished the book and after a month of contemplation, I’ve hypothesised a couple reasons for the decision.

Firstly, this is a chronicle of a period of time, embellished with the scene-by-scene description. Even more so than a memoir. The writing is beautiful and evocative, evoking those myths it is so inspired by, like the Iliad or Odyssey. There’s a certain amount of distance with the writing, events that are recalled decades after the fact. Hence the interpretation Zina Felt has for a particular set of events. It’s complemented the folklore element, further mythologising this event. This is something I can’t articulate perfectly well, but I illustrate something similar in the Iliad. In that epic, there’s that infamous boat, ship, and laundry list of names that most people will never remember. However, there are those moments, common soldiers from the Trojans and Myrmidons, where we get a small biographical paragraph of their entire life before they pass away. In the Iliad there were many interpretations of why Homer did that, the main reason that most resonated with me. If those soldiers were actual people (as the Iliad is viewed partly as a historical document), Homer has made them immortal by acknowledging their lives. Honouring the dead.

Obviously Tom’s Crossing is a fictional tale, but that design choice is so deliberate. As it represents a good chunk of the word count. It isn’t just seeing the interpretation of the many people viewing these events, as a footnote could easily serve that purpose, as Zina Felt's mini biography won’t change how you view the core characters or events. I’m wavering between many interpretations of how the tale of this tragedy has affected common folk across the globe in some way or fashion. Like how people are still enamoured by the words of Homer 2 millennia later. The book has an oral tradition aspect to it, it reads like a campfire, where it forces you to slow down. But also, people add to that oral telling, sometimes becoming far different from what was originally envisioned. I haven’t even commented upon the obvious juxtaposition. While we spend the majority of the book depicting these 5 days, we read an outline of somebody's entire life and sometimes their deaths in a few paragraphs at most. I would be lying if I said it doesn’t puzzle me, but of a story so rich and filled with subtext that’s natural. I forgot to mention, this book is written by Unknown, their name is redacted. This adds so much, which is impossible to discuss without spoiling.

I read somewhere that Mark Z. Danielewski considers this novel his best work of fiction and spent a decade crafting it, and I believe it. It isn’t particularly dense in the way of David Foster Wallace, but the writing has so many layers to it and reads so beautifully. Even when there’s not much transpiring, you can’t help but feel transported. From the description of Orvop, the Porches gambling at night, kids on a campfire ready for a journey, rescuing two horses going up a mountain filled with stories, entering a special cave, and riding what should be impossible to traverse. From cinematic style of storytelling to intimate character moments, it’s masterfully crafted.

At the end of the day, all of this doesn’t matter without the characters. I wouldn’t find a book of this length enjoyable without amazing characters, and thankfully there are plenty. The characterisation of Tom is brilliant; you understand immediately why everyone loves this dude. The bond between him and Kalin is akin to brothers. Landry Gladstone is an interesting subversion of what you expect from a heroine. In most Westerns, if there’s a female character taking the spotlight in terms of riding the horse, etc., 9 out of 10 times, it will be a white, blonde person. Meanwhile, Landry Gladstone is the adopted sister of the family whose heritage is part Samoan and part African American. Kalin March could be considered the main protagonist, and his journey was amazing. My favourite character and plotline have to do with Allison March, she’s the mother of Kalin, and she is incredible. A very vulnerable person, who is completely distraught from the circumstances she is witnessing, and her relationship with Sondra (Tom's and Landry's mother) is beautiful. The two mothers are reconciling and finding solace with each other’s company. At a certain point, my interpretation leant towards a romantic relationship. Whatever it blossomed into, it's the highlight for me.

For a good Western, especially of this length, it needs an engaging antagonist, and the Porches are just that. You will love to hate the majority of these men. The most likeable of the Porch would be Hatch and the inner struggles between his duty to his family or profession. Old Porch, aka Orwin Porch, is the worst but such a great character. Every time he opens his mouth, you want to punch him; he’s so unlikable. But he has charisma to him that draws people into his circle. I really like how lies and disillusionment are handled. They repeat a certain lie so many times that at a certain point the real memories are distorted with the fake ones they repeated. So these men become so vengeful that the fake memories they implanted themselves almost override the real ones. So, their quest, from their perspective, becomes an honourable one of duty.

In terms of characters, what makes this so unique to this novel alone are the horses. I’ve never read or watched a piece of fiction whose love for horses is this stark. Even in contrast to Spirit, the 2002 animated film whose protagonist is a horse. Just to give an example, Tom’s dad was writing a novel about Xanthos, a horse that belonged to Achilles, from his perspective. Jojo, Navidad, Mouse, Cavalry and Ash are legitimate characters that have depth. I will be curious if there’s another novel of this quality that loves horses as much as Mark Z. Danielewski, but it was certainly a unique experience.

In conclusion, it will be divisive because of its sheer length, I can’t help but adore it. The characters are so rich, the setting of Orvop, Utah, is so well realised, the writing is beautiful, and I felt the ending to be quite powerful. I understand why people could be split about the ending, but it felt appropriate to me. I would recommend this book, it can go on tangents, but if you embrace it and slow down, maybe you will enjoy it as much as I do.

9.5/10

[R.]

Speculations

Maybe it is, and will remain, literally untitled - so much so that "untitled" isn't even a proper title - a book with literally no name, just a blank space and an ISBN

- 1,200+ pages, but caution the fact that quite a few of those will be either blank or a single sentence, or a sideways word.

- Update: wrong on the "untitled" speculation - I like the title Tom's Crossing...has an Americana vibe, a sad vibe, an echo of Cormac McCarthy and Mark Twain

- Update: The very brief description, that it's about some guys trying to save some horses from some slaughter gives some Cormac McCarthy vibes - the speculation, as it was, is now over. But, hey, when I was reading Passenger and Stella Maris? Got a strong Mark/Poe vibe w/r/t the brother/sister dynamic. Just chiseling it down.

[Liz Hein · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is worth it.

[Dana · Rating 5 out of 5]

An absolutely magical read.

Upon starting this novel, I at first felt overwhelmed and unsure if I was ready for the tale. This is a giant book, in prose and in weight, a daunting read. It took a couple hundred pages to draw me in, but at that point I was done for.

The book had me, heart and soul, and neither of us was letting go.

The way Danielewski serenades you through the story was like falling in love. Slowly at first, then all at once. I was WITH Kalin and Landry on their journey, cold and hungry and scared. I despised the Porches, needing retribution and justice for their evil ways. Jojo and Mouse and Navidad were individuals in my mind and on the page, written so well that it was easy to forget they were horses.

And Tom and Ash. Adding in a supernatural element doesn't seem like it should work in a story like this. But it did, and the story was better for it. The relationships between Tom and Kalin, and Tom and Landry were perfectly done. Sibling love in different ways. I wanted their parts of the story to never end.

I could write endlessly about the relationships in this story, side characters and minor characters were written with as much depth as the main, but I'll leave that to the readers to find out. I wouldn't be able to do it justice anyway. Just know it's masterfully done.

Landry, Kalin, Tom, Jojo, Mouse, Navidad, and Ash, I will miss you. I hope your stories are told forever.

Thank you to NetGalley for the advanced copy.

[Dan · Rating 5 out of 5]

If I’m honest, this is a hard book to rate(stay tuned I may change my original 5 star as I give this more thought). I love long stories if they are well written and this certainly fits the long part well at 1200+ pages. For the most part this is extremely well written. Where I struggled a bit was the 50+ pages of the Time Gallery, a bit too much Greek mythology and last but not least, the unending list of names thrown in for no purpose I could figure out (but maybe that’s me). That all said; what a story at the core of this. I loved it!

[Keith Good · Rating 1 out of 5]

Gave this one a hundred pages before I packed it in. I enjoy some of Danielewski's other work but Tom's Crossing fully displays his tendency to over-write scenes. The dialect was more distracting than not. The characters weren't compelling enough, the prose not zippy enough to get me through 1,100 more pages.

[♡ retrovvitches ♡ · Rating 4 out of 5]

okkk he sorta ate on this one 🤣 this was super long, no surprise there. but i actually had to stop annotating because i was never going to finish it LOL. this was such a solid book, the characters, the plot, the outside perspectives. just everything about this was genuinely good. but man did the plot move at a snails pace 😭 otherwise wow, what a writer

[Jeffrey Jr. · Rating 5 out of 5]

“A Western with Ghosts & Heart”

Mark Z. Danielewski’s work has helped to shape my creative world. House of Leaves left a profound impact, influencing the way I think about story, structure, and the importance of emotional resonance. Keeping all of that in mind, and of my journey reading through his other work since I first visited Ash Tree Lane all those years ago, I didn't know what to really expect from this new epic, crossing something like 1,200 pages. But Tom’s Crossing is unmistakably Danielewski. The premise was surprising... but the experience was fresh and haunting in its own right.

No one talks to the dead for free... that tagline, so evocative and concerning to me, lingered as a constant reminder throughout my reading of the book and hung over every sentence.

I was lucky enough to receive an advance reader copy and included with the package was a neatly folded letter inside the cover. When the publisher asked that I “get the word out,” I felt compelled to do more than just that. I wanted to immortalize the feeling that this whole experience brought over me. The synchronous events that followed this bizarre little side project, what began as simply a journal and read-along review...

Well, I'll never forget it. allways.neocities.org

To fans of MZD and his canon: there’s something here for you. It made a lasting impression on me and it's one that I’m eager to share.