House of Holes
book by Nicholson Baker
House of Holes (originally published as House of Holes: A Book of Raunch) is a 2011 novel by American writer Nicholson Baker. It consists of a series of chapters that are more or less connected (some more, some less) which tell of the sexual and emotional experiences of a variety of characters in a kind of sexual fantasy land, the titular "House of Holes". The third "dirty novel" by Baker after Vox and The Fermata, it is praised by many reviewers for the inventiveness of its language.
Reception
The novel met with critical praise on its release. For Andrew Palmer, writing in The Paris Review, House of Holes "legitimizes and exalts our most personal and private sources of delight." Baker's original use of language was lauded. In the New Yorker Ian Crouch attested "it’s packed with dirty words, some familiar, others wonderfully original."
House of Holes was the third in a string of pornographic novels by Baker, following Vox and The Fermata, and the acclaim for it was not universal. Writing in The Independent in 2011, Matt Thorne complained that "the purpose of this smutty gibberish isn't clear.
The public source identifies “House of Holes” as book by Nicholson Baker. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around House, Holes and book.
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Attribution, date and provenance are strongest when supported by the original work, a catalogue record and documented transmission. The source revision retrieved here is dated May 23, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q21161001. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 2011.
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This entry incorporates text from “House of Holes” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.