House of Day, House of Night is a reversal of a common narrative structure; here, the setting, the rural Polish town of Nowa Ruda, is the main character, and the townsfolk are the setting within which the town’s legacy is formed. Each story fragment contributes to the never-ending cycle of life and death, of dreams and waking — from an old lady next door with elusive platitudes, to a gender-dysphoric monk on a journey to canonize a saint, to a knifemaking cult that worships the process of decay. Tokarczuk’s brilliant prose highlights the struggles of returning to a post-World War Poland, of feeling like a stranger in your own home, of sensing the ceaseless draw of entropy. Universal and bittersweet, this novel is a work of anthropology: a future classic in my book!
House of Day, House of Night by Olga Tokarczuk, (List Price: $28, Riverhead Books, 9780593716380, December 2025)
Reviewed by Catherine Pabalate, Epilogue: Books Chocolate Brews in Chapel Hill, North Carolina