The Secret House
The Extraordinary Science of an Ordinary Day
It's hard to pick a favorite book, but I’ve always had a soft spot for this one, about the invisible world that surrounds us in our daily life. It was the very first of my works to become a bestseller, which was nice, yet writing it was also the first time I really opened up and found a genuine voice, which was even nicer.
The process, however, was excruciating. Day after day where I was living in rural France I’d go to my study, and try to get across the feeling I had about some living 'essence' in a house, but the feeling was only a hint – a glimpse – and I'd fail. I tried not to complain too much about it to my friends, and I'd do all the things you're supposed to do to ease the process along: I'd go for runs in beautiful mountains; I’d hang out with friends at a swimming pool; I’d read inspiring books; in the late afternoons, feet up by an open window, I’d watch birds wheel over a nearby field, hunting in the afternoon thermals. It was beautiful, pleasant...and just made the frustration worse. I had nothing to complain about, at all – I had the free time I'd long dreamed of – and yet: all I could come out with was drab, derivative: over-emphatic...and not at all true to the vision I heard whispering, but yet couldn't pull in.
And then, one morning no different from the rest, after about three months of this, somehow...I relaxed. It's hard to put into words. Maybe slipping sideways into Narnia would feel like that. But I was at ease, conscious yet not self-conscious, and what had been just that dim glimmer now opened up. Everything was clear, as I began typing, v fast, about an alarm going off in the morning - the tone still not exactly right, but I realized it was getting there, so I somehow (and oh do I thank the younger me who did that) stayed in that tranquil yet intent zone and kept on typing, in the back of my mind feeling that the path was going to open up, and then whap!, suddenly it did, when I got to the dust mite section, and exactly the tone I’d been seeking now was there. All I had to do was transfer into words what I was seeing, what I was feeling: not just the details of the mites we cohabit in our beds with – that’s interesting, yet not that interesting – but rather the tone in which it was now pouring our: a mock formality which never 'admitted' the preposterousness, the shock, of what I was showing.
That sounds terribly abstract, but luckily that day's writing ended up almost directly being the first few pages of the book. I’ll copy them in now, just below this, along with one or two extracts from later on in the text. I wrote most of it in that French village, then after a few week pause did the final third in London (sitting, I remember, at the most uncomfortable desk in existence: it was actually a chest of drawers, with no space for knees to go under, so I either had to wrench my arms over at a 90 degree angle to type, or, if I did try to face the chest, I’d have to twiiiiist my legs to one side or the other while leaning like the tower in Pisa to get close. When a month or so later I told my physio sister Myra that I had a Very sore back, and then explained why, she would have been justified in refusing all treatment. But instead, sighing the way that kindly older sisters are allowed, she showed me how desks are supposed to work, and suggested that I might wish to consider one for the next book, however emotionally attracted to the London chest I had become.).
The book did almost no business in its first week, ditto in its second and third, but then a newsmagazine ran several pages about it, with color pictures, and then the New York Times had a nearly full page article, and then it was off: hitting the bestseller lists - reaching four or five at its peak - and staying there week after week, selling tremendously well, in the US and then other countries: allowing me actually to buy the places I'd been renting when I got the breakthrough and then finished off the text (and also letting me get rid of that chest of drawers, and obtain a nice trestle desk, with plenty of space for long legs to fit under).
All that was ages ago, and the book is long since out of print, so sadly there's no click-through for ordering it. I've also moved on to other areas. But of course it's easy these days to run off fresh copies, and just offer those nicely printed books through my website. There would be one or two bits I’d need to update, but I realize that's easy, and wouldn't take long.
Whence an experiment. If you, kind reader, think you might want to purchase a reprinted, lightly updated copy from the site, just send an email with ‘secret house’ or ‘reprint' or something like that in the subject line. You'll be under zero obligation, but if enough people write in then I will – a year or so from now? – reprint a light revision, and flag you when it’s available.
And now, the bits from the start, when some combination of experiences I still don't understand in France allowed one young man’s doors of creativity to, slowly, start opening....
Further reading
Reviews
“Nothing short of astounding.”
“Utterly original and mesmerizing. A marvelously captivating book... well-done.”