THE FAMILIAR
a fanpage by DJay for a novel by Mark Z. Danielewski

Hey, how's it going. Have you read The Familiar? If not, I highly recommend it. If you want to read a little more about it, I can say some stuff.

So, uh, it's a series of books by Mark Z. Danielewski, who is most famous for his first book House of Leaves. That was a heady love story in the horror genre, about a film that doesn't exist, about an endless dark maze. He also wrote Only Revolutions, a novel composed of two mathematically-structured poems that together tell the story of two god-teenagers in love on a road trip across American history. It's not absolutely necessary to read either of those books if you want to enjoy The Familiar, but they are connected in a particular way. Which is why I brought them up.

Also, the colors in the titles are parts of the titles. But if it's alright with you, I'm gonna stop using them for the remainder of this little ramble. I just want to tell you about The Familiar. And, if you're here, you want to read about it. Cool? Cool.

Overview

The Familiar is a novel about a girl who finds a cat. There are nine protagonists and three narrators. It is very scary and very beautiful.

It is structured like a TV series, with each book ("Volume") being an episode, and five Volumes making up a Season. Each Volume is 900 pages long (though because of Reasons they read a lot more like 300 pages) and consists of 30 narrative chapters divided into five Acts (six Chapters each). In addition to this, each Volume also contains four side stories at the beginning, one side story at the end, and a visual treat between each Act (the Entr'actes, some of which are also ongoing side stories). This structure is rigorous and makes it very feasible to keep track of the immense canon.

Like, nine protagonists??? That sounds very busy. But, see, they're all color-coded, font-coded, and design-coded!

• Xanther - pink - font is Minion - text design is fairly "standard" but with the most dramatic exceptions.
  She finds the cat. She is extraordinary.
• Astair - orange - font is fdfdsf - text design is fairly "standard" (but nests tangents (within parantheses (lots of them))).
  Mother of Xanther. She is studying to be a psychotherapist. She really wanted a dog.
• Anwar - green - font is fdfdsf - text design is fairly "standard" [but nests tangents {within coding-themed brackets <lots of them>}].
  Stepfather of Xanther. He is a game developer. He is the gentlest goddamn dad in the world.
• Luther - black - font is fdfsf - text design is fairly "standard" but with large text and frequent Spanish.
  bla
• Özgür - grey - font is fdfdsf - text design is fairly "standard" but concentrated across the top two-thirds of the page.
  bla
• Shnork - brown - font is fdfdsf - text design is split into two square blocks diagonally arranged per page, like a checkerboard pattern.
  bla
• The Wizard - red - font is fdfdsf - text design is stretched onto the outside of an emerging circle of negative space, except when looking into her Orb, whereupon text will exclusively be within the circle.
  bla
• Isandòrno - yellow - font is fdfdsf - text design is confined within a narrow block towards the center of the page.
  bla
• Jingjing - blue - font is fdfdsf - text design is evenly spread through the page, with negative space between each line.
  He knows the person who used to have the cat.

todo: gather the font names. fill in remaining characters. I would like to draw all nine too, but god I suck at drawing people.

Supplemental Material

There are some short pieces that add onto The Familiar's canon. Links will go here when this page is further along.

Parable #8 / Parable #9 / Clip #4

V1: One Rainy Day in May

The series begins with a volume fixated on the events of one single day: Saturday May 14, 2014. As Astair looks after their house and other two daughters (Shasti and Freya) in excitement, Anwar takes Xanther to get a dog, as a surprise. First they stop for breakfast, then Xanther has an appointment with her therapist, then Anwar takes her to work with him, and then on the way to get the dog, Xanther leaps out of the car and rescues a drowning kitten that was somehow calling to her.

Meanwhile, Luther and his L.A. gang are charged with looking after a strange young man (Hopi) who is much too gentle for their ways.
Özgür crosses paths with a baffling murder scene tainted with bleach (the Android case).
Shnork, beaten by a confusing court ruling, begins the solemn task of helping professor Mnatsagan document the testimonies of the Armenian genocide.
Cas, the Wizard, spends her day with husband Bobby, looking into her Orb at Xanther.
Jingjing and "auntie" Tian Li attend to a billionaire's dying son, but there's not much they can do, as Tian Li's magical cat is missing.
And Isandòrno, tasked with overseeing the delivery of crime lord The Mayor's three crates, doesn't make it in time to see the mysterious fourth crate, unaccounted for.

V2: Into the Forest

summary here. xanther begins the slow process of discovering just how strange her cat is, as well as the new powers and visions she has.

V3: Honeysuckle & Pain

summary here. xanther learns of rage and meets a lion. freya starts showing signs of being haunted, bafflingly, by the house.

V4: Hades

summary. xanther starts thinking of names for her cat. anwar takes her to see a ballet. anwar encounters galvadyne. luther encounters ozgur at the gun range. jingjing arrives in l.a. and meets luther.

V5: Redwood

summary. season 1 finale, takes place in one night. luther tracks down domingo. ozgur meets shnork. isandorno does his job. shnork drives jingjing to meet astair, anwar, and xanther. jingjing offends the cat. xanther gives the cat his Name. and someone dies.