Customer Reviews

House of Houses

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4 star:		(2)
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In HOUSE OF HOUSES, author Kevin L. Donihe has hit his stride. The plot, a man falling in love with his house, seems almost too gimmicky to work over the course of a 100-plus page novel, but Donihe pulls it off with generous doses of surrealism, humor, and even something like house spirituality. The narrator, Carlos, begins his story by waking up to find his house collapsed around him. Naturally, he's confused. When he is finally able to escape the ruins, he finds a neighborhood greatly changed and a new life filled with loss and regret. Because Carlos didn't just live in his house, he loved his house. He was planning on marrying his house (whose name is Helen). He had even kept himself virginal, saving it for their wedding night. He had drilled a hole in her wall in preparation for this. Now she's gone. Once out of the house he meets Tony, a neighborhood guardian who looks kind of like a black Man-At-Arms from the He-Man cartoons. Tony introduces Carlos to "quasi-dimensional psychopomps" and his defense mechanism, "sexpounding." Sound weird? It gets weirder. Carlos enters a world, House Heaven, a polarized version of his normal world. House Heaven is run by a cruel tyrant named Manhaus, who seems to be part man and part house. Will Carlos be able to locate Helen's spirit body and escape?

Donihe surprised me on nearly every page of this book. It starts out as something that sounds like a joke, becomes an exploration (through the examination of house metaphysics and politics) of the human spirit and how it is dampened, and ends up being something rather sensitive and poignant.

Carlos, the narrator, is a self-proclaimed recluse who is in love with Helen, his house. Normally, this would not be a problem save for the fact that Carlos considers his house a human being, so much that he gets married to Helen. The problem arises the day after their marriage, when Carlos awakes to find Helen, as well as the rest of the houses in the world, collapsed. Looking for answers, Carlos bumps into Tony (also spelled R'yony,) a self-declared superhero who just so happens to have an over sized member capable of "sexpounding" quasi-dimensional psychopomps into submission. As the two traverse the locale formerly known as Carlos' neighborhood, they encounter a man who identitifies himself as "Manhaus." Apparently, Manhaus shares characteristics similar to those of houses and humans, making him quite a unique character.

Manhaus eventually reveals himself as the interlocutor for "House Heaven" (the place where houses go when they die) and invites both Carlos and Tony to "House Heaven" as a "term of endearment" for their nonreciprocating love toward houses. As the story progresses, Carlos and Tony quickly realize that "House Heaven" was designed specifically for houses, and not humans. As Carlos faces challenges one would only face in "House Heaven," HOUSE OF HOUSES manages to create a surreal atmosphere one could only find in a Kevin Donihe book. Houses replace humans in "House Heaven" and humans become houses.

What is a fish zombie? What is a quasi-dimensional psychopomp? How do House Politics work? Do houses actually talk? Find the answers to these questions and more in the tale of Carlos' journey to "House Heaven." HOUSE OF HOUSES will make you feel sorry for your house and any superheroes you might know. As Carlton Mellick III said, "Donihe is the best kept secret of the bizarro fiction genre." After reading HOUSE OF HOUSES, you will never look at a house the same way again.

Admittedly, I haven't read very much of Kevin Donihe's work. That's about to change, as House of Houses was one of my favorite bizarro books this past year. Strangely enough, it's a bizarro romance, between a man named Carlos and his house, which he calls Helen. He loves this house, but her silence tortures him. He only wishes for a meaningful relationship with her. This idea might seem like it would be purely exposition, but Donihe soon takes us on an odyssey. We travel from this world and into House Heaven, exploring the human spirit's capacity for pure love. Though Carlos understands that loving his house is a bit strange, he never doubts that feeling, even when every house on the planet suddenly collapses for no apparent reason.

Joining Carlos' quest to find out what happened to Helen is Tony, the black Man-at-Arms (who is just awesome in so many ways). The journey they take leads to House Heaven, a vast afterlife run by millions of houses, who now live in disturbing puppet-like forms. Humans are nothing to the houses but raw material. How is Carlos to survive, much less find Helen? That's the beauty of Donihe's story. Despite this ridiculous situation and the astronomical odds, Carlos never gives up. He is utterly dedicated to Helen, and he doesn't even know if she loves him back. She is a house and he is a human, after all. Helen and Carlos' relationship--bear in mind that she is now a large house-puppet creature with some very strange nethers--is actually heartwarming. Donihe's storytelling is well paced and everything flows towards the natural conclusion of any good romance.

House of Houses will make you laugh and make you cry. This is bizarro with heart, carefully balanced between that which is gross and that which is lovely.

House of Houses is one of my favorite bizarro books and easily the best by author Kevin L. Donihe. Carlos, the narrator, loves his house, names her Helen and gets married to her. Then the day after marriage, all the houses in the world are destroyed. Carlos is shocked and beings his journey to figure out what happened. He meets Tony, a super hero who Donihe makes a great fun character which works well because Carlos is more conservative. They then make it to House Heaven where the strange and bizarre kicks into full force. Such a unique and original book, a must buy for anybody who likes bizarro.

This book will literally take your mind and lock it away while reading. You will forget about all your daily routines, chores, work, etc...

It's unlike anything you've ever read, and is unlike anything you will ever read after it. Brilliant story, very vivid text, and ending is phenomenal.

Can't wait to read more from this author!

(i suggest reading Foop! and Help! a bear is eating me, if you liked this book!)

Carlos is in love with Helen. Helen is no ordinary girl...it's his house. He loves her so much that he plans on marrying her. Unfortunately, he soon finds all the houses in the neighborhood collapsing for no apparent reason, including his beloved Helen. Tormented and without answers, Carlos leaves, determined to find out what happened to his love. He meets Tony, a self-proclaimed superhero with sexpounding powers. He joins Carlos on his quest, and they soon find themselves in House Heaven, a place where humans and houses have switched roles. Will he find Helen? What is this place? Are houses really being made out of humans? Will Carlos make it out alive?

I cannot give enough kudos to this book. It is by far one of my favorites, not only in the bizarro genre, but it is also one of my favorite books of anything I have ever read. A fully developed story with great characters make for an extremely unique, bizarre, and fantastical read, with a touch of Twilight Zone thrown in.

Kevin L. Donihe is severely underrated. He is a great writer with great stories. This is an awesome book! I'm of the opinion that everyone should read it because, well, it's just freakin' fabulous.

Kevin Donihe has written something truly unique. Briefly: A man loves his house. Then, all of the houses on earth collapse. THen a superhero comes along and helps the man find his way into house heaven...y'know what? You really just need to read it. Words cannot express the beautiful strangeness that is this book.

THe last few chapters are...just read it.

My favorite type of weird fiction takes a normal character and has strange things happen to him. I'm also very fond of anthropomorphic stories. With that in mind, HOUSE OF HOUSES was an absolute pleasure. The weird is weird, the humor is hysterical, and the main character is in love with his house. I cannot recommend this one highly enough.

If you are looking for something really, really, REALLY weird to read, this is the book for you. However, reading the description you might think HOUSE OF HOUSES is just going to be a comical, amusing piece that will make you laugh, but it is in fact a very poignant, multi-layered exploration of human emotions, in this case man on house love, as well as a somewhat masked commentary on class distinctions (one could almost read into it a Marxist socio-political analysis, if one was so inclined). It is an intense, disturbing and quite affecting book. And above all it is WEIRD.

You'll travel with Carlos through an increasingly bizarre journey to find his one true love--his house, Helen, whom he was preparing to marry just before the Great House Holocaust occurred. On his way he meets Tony, a Man-at-Arms looking fellow who protects our dimension from the dangerous `quasi-dimensional psychopomps' with his unusually large...member and who helps him get to House Heaven, a place where all the laws of human/house relationships are reversed.

I've read several Kevin L. Donihe books and one of the things I love about them is that, though the premise and the events that take place within his stories are outrageously bizarre, they are told with a certain `matter-of-factness' that doesn't insist upon its weirdness like a lot of other `weird' literature. The fictional reality of his stories come off as perfectly natural, which is a hard thing to pull off with subject matter such as his, like the best of Kafka's writing. And at the same time he is able to evoke very profound emotions in the craziest of ways, you'll truly feel Carlos' love for his house, Helen, and his deep anguish.

All in all, this is a beautiful book and I highly recommend it to people who are looking for `serious' weird literature.

This is the second romantic book I've read about an objectophile in love with a house. This one is like the Orpheus and Eurydice myth.