[The Familiar] is not only [Mark Z. Danielewski's] best book since his acclaimed opera prima, House of Leaves; it's even better, and also more accessible. Conceived as the book version of a long-running TV show, its . . . volumes tell the tale of a smart, fragile and epileptic little girl who finds a cat that may or may not be magical. Their encounter sets off a chain reaction that starts with her immediate family and will probably reach almost every corner of the world. There is no writer in America that resembles Mark Z. Danielewski even remotely. His books are disturbing Freudian fairy-tales, monumental and intimate at the same time, discordantly polyphonic, populated by wise children and lost parents, soldiers and storytellers, magical weapons, sentient houses and familiar spirits. Their words interweave on the page with paintings and knitting and calligrams, creating painfully beautiful objects, almost like printed sculptures. They're also Literature in High Capitals, contemporary counterparts of Bouvard et Pécuchet, Mallarmé and Joyce, heirs to the almost mystical hubris of High Modernism, almost too ambitious for their own good and rabidly opposed to the weightlessness of our times. - Javier Calvo, O