Down the road from a working-class British pub, along the brick wall of a narrow alley, if the conditions are exactly right, you’ll find the entrance to Slade House. A stranger will greet you by name and invite you inside. At first, you won’t want to leave. Later, you’ll find that you can’t. Every nine years, the house’s residents—an odd brother and sister—extend a unique invitation to someone who’s different or lonely: a precocious teenager, a recently divorced policeman, a shy college student. But what really goes on inside Slade House? For those who find out, it’s already too late. . . . Spanning five decades, from the last days of the 1970s to the present, leaping genres, and barreling toward an astonishing conclusion, this intricately woven novel will pull you into a reality-warping new vision of the haunted house story—as only David Mitchell could imagine it.


從英國某間工人酒吧旁的路往下走，沿著那條有磚牆的窄巷，如果沒意外的話，你會看到斯雷德之屋的入口。一位陌生人以你的名字招呼你，邀請你入內。一開始，你會不想離開。但一會兒之後，你會發現你無法離開。每九年一次，這間房子的住戶──一對怪異的兄妹──都會向孤單或特殊的人發出邀請，受邀的人有早熟的青少年，剛離婚的警察，害羞的大學生。但在斯雷德之屋中究竟發生了什麼？對於那些發現真相的人來說，一切都太晚了……本書描寫從七零年代末至今、橫跨五十年的情節，跨越不同文類，結局走向令人驚奇，錯綜複雜的內容將拉你進入以扭曲現實為新視角的鬼屋故事，這也只有作者大衛．米切爾能想得出來。