“Slade House’: Author’s horror story builds his ‘uber-novel’

By Rob Cline, correspondent

I first encountered David Mitchell's 'Slade House” when the author published the first portion of the novel as a series of tweets. It was interesting and impressive to watch Mitchell, an English author with an international reputation built on books like 'Black Swan Green,” 'Cloud Atlas” and 'The Bone Clocks,” deliver prose within the confines of Twitter.

What's even more impressive, however, is the full novel. 'Slade House” is a horror story in which a brother and sister, who by rights should be long dead, prolong their lives by luring a person to their mystical home every nine years and eating his or her soul.

Mitchell handles the book's creepy metaphysical plot brilliantly. As different characters narrate their own experiences, the author successfully conveys their individuality as well as their confusion as the world stops making sense and they find themselves trapped. 'Slade House” has a rhythm, but the story's beat is falling out of time with each cycle as the siblings struggle to maintain their lives and their hold on the minds of their prey.

An offhand reference to Cedar Rapids late in the book was so unexpected, I wondered for a moment if my mind was being controlled, causing me to see a reference to my hometown in a book set far from the American Midwest. It's a striking moment for local readers.

As is his wont, Mitchell includes characters from and allusions to his other novels in 'Slade House,” adding the book to what the author has called his uber-novel. But 'Slade House” works perfectly well as a stand-alone novel for readers new to Mitchell's work.

In the run up to the book's release, which was published, appropriately, right before Halloween, Mitchell returned to Twitter, creating an account for one of the characters who appears in the final chapter of 'Slade House.” What might be called the Mitchell-verse has clearly expanded into the Twitterverse.