Like all Mitchell’s novels, Slade House belongs to the same Übernovel he has been constructing from the beginning while it remains a self-contained unit. Obversely, many reviewers have already greeted this book with claims such as, “David Mitchell is the best thing to happen to narrative since Daniel Defoe” ( Pittsburgh Post-Gazette), and “ Slade House is the ultimate spooky nursery tale for adults” ( Huffington Post). I am sure the LARB reader whose comment on my lengthy review of The Bone Clocks - “Despite whatever rationalization you want to make, in the end the book is a disappointing piece of shit” - will not change his mind after reading my review of Mitchell’s latest adventure into a world of spiritual cannibals. Mitchell’s use of fantasy in the interests of psychological realism has continued to infuriate some reviewers while receiving enthusiastic applause from others. Similarly the two villains of the piece, Norah and Jonah Grayer, twin sister and brother born in 1899, prolong their mortal existence, as do the Anchorites in The Bone Clocks, by forcibly decanting the souls of the living. For instance Marinus, the principal opponent of the forces of greed and murder, is a reincarnation of the same character (in his 32nd incarnation) in The Bone Clocks and The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet (2010). The psychic forces facing off are the same or similar. So it doesn’t have to establish a new fictional universe.

You could in fact call it a spin-off from The Bone Clocks. Mind you, Slade House is just over a third the length of its predecessor and is a distillation of its themes and universe. WE’RE IN LUCK! David Mitchell, who has taken four years to bring out each of his last two novels, has published a new one barely a year after the previous book, The Bone Clocks (2014).

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