The Whalestoe Letters: From House of Leaves

by Mark Z. Danielewski

Overview

Between 1982 and 1989, Pelafina H. Lièvre sent her son, Johnny Truant, a series of letters from The Three Attic Whalestoe Institute, a psychiatric facility in Ohio where she spent the final years of her life. Beautiful, heartfelt, and tragic, this correspondence reveals the powerful and deeply moving relationship between a brilliant though mentally ill mother and the precocious, gifted young son she never ceases to love.

Originally contained within the monumental House of Leaves, this collection stands alone as a stunning portrait of mother and child. It is presented here along with a foreword by Walden D. Wyhrta and eleven previously unavailable letters.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780375714412
Publisher:	Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
Publication date:	10/10/2000
Pages:	104
Sales rank:	238,687
Product dimensions:	5.10(w) x 8.10(h) x 0.30(d)

About the Author

Mark Z. Danielewski was born in 1966.

Hometown:

Los Angeles, California

Date of Birth:

March 5, 1966

Place of Birth:

New York, New York

Education:

B.A., Yale University, 1988; M.F.A., University of Southern California, 1993

Website:

http://www.onlyrevolutions.com

Editorial Reviews

From the madhouse, Johnny Truant’s mother writes some of the most tender, chilling, faux-psychotic writing I’ve ever read. This dangerous, lucid, confused but very eloquent lady . . . is playful, apologetic, crazed, paranoid, self-abasing, cunning—a tigress with a gift for gab.”
—Robert Kelly, The New York Times Book Review
 
“The Whalestoe Letters are dazzling.”
—Steven Moore, The Washington Post
 
“Danielewski has a songwriter’s heart.”
—John Freeman, Time Out New York

From the Publisher