He is most widely known for his debut novel House of Leaves (2000), which won the New York Public Library's Young Lions Fiction Award.
Danielewski's work is characterized by an intricate, multi-layered typographical variation, or page layout, which he refers to as "signiconic".
Early on, critics characterized his writing as being ergodic literature, and Danielewski has described his style as:Signiconic = sign + icon.
The Danielewski family moved continuously for Tad's various film projects, and by the age of 10, Mark had lived in six countries: Ghana, India, Spain, Switzerland, Britain and the United States.
Danielewski dates the origin of his debut novel House of Leaves to 1990 and a story that he wrote after finding out that his father was dying: 1990.
I barely had the change to buy sodas and snacks along the way and there I am scratching out words with this absurdly expensive thing of polished resin and gold.
[11]Writing House of Leaves took ten years, and between 1993 and 1999, Danielewski made a living as a tutor, barista, and plumber.
[11] Small sections of the book were downloadable off the internet before the release of the first edition, and it is said that these sections "circulated through the underbellies of Los Angeles, Las Vegas, and San Francisco, through strip clubs and recording studios, long before publication" – though very few were able to experience the book this way initially.
[22] The novel went on to win the New York Public Library's Young Lions Fiction Award[3] and gain a considerable cult following.
[4] House of Leaves has been translated into numerous languages, including Dutch, French, German, Greek, Italian, Japanese, Polish, Portuguese, Russian, , Serbian, Spanish, and Turkish.
'[24]On June 18, 2018, Danielewski released a TV pilot script for the novel in the House of Leaves book club on Facebook.
[25] In 2000, Danielewski toured Borders locations across America with his sister Poe to promote his book and her album Haunted, which has many elements of House of Leaves.
In 2001, a remake of Poe's song "Hey Pretty (Drive-By 2001 Mix)," which featured Danielewski reading from House of Leaves, reached #13 on Billboard's Alternative Chart.
That summer, Poe and Danielewski spent three months as the opening act for Depeche Mode's 2001 North American tour.
After the publication of House of Leaves, Danielewski worked on two projects in tandem: his second novel Only Revolutions, and a novella, The Fifty Year Sword, an "adult ghost story".
In 2010, Danielewski announced that he would do a stage performance of The Fifty Year Sword, the first of which were on October 31, 2010 at the Roy and Edna Disney/CalArts Theater (REDCAT) in Los Angeles.
This edition of the book includes more than 80 hand-stitched illustrations, new typography, and textual changes that were developed thanks to the REDCAT productions.
[38] Pantheon organised a book tour to support it, and thanks to an ARC Grant from the Center for Cultural Innovation,[39] the production of The Fifty Year Sword went to five cities around the United States in conjunction with the book release tour for the Pantheon release of The Fifty Year Sword.
Danielewski came up with the concept for his second novel, Only Revolutions, while he was touring for House of Leaves and working on The Fifty Year Sword.
[43] This aspect of the novel was brought to the forefront in the endpapers in the hardback versions of Only Revolutions, released September 12, 2006,[44] as well as the "A Spoiler" published by the French literary magazine Inculte in 2007.
[53] All proceeds went to Homeboy Industries, a Los Angeles-based non-profit that offers training and support to at-risk and formerly gang-involved youth.
[61] On February 2, 2018, Danielewski announced via a Facebook post that The Familiar had been paused, saying "I must agree with Pantheon that for now the number of readers is not sufficient to justify the cost of continuing."
[66] In 2015, the Danielewski and Atelier Z released the first collection of Yarn + Ink, official House of Leaves and The Familiar apparel.