The Flame Alphabet (Vintage Contemporaries) - Softcover

"Crackles with vicious intelligence."--Entertainment Weekly

"A harrowing tale. . . . Sends chills down the spine."--The Seattle Times

"Fascinating. . . . A horror story that plays with the power of words."--The Plain Dealer

"Laden with metaphor. . . . It reads like a dream, complete with all the associative richness that comparison might suggest."--The New York Times Book Review

"An exciting page-turner." --The Philadelphia Inquirer

"A rich testament to Marcus' gifts" --Los Angeles Times

"A well-oiled heartbreak machine." --New York

"In the guise of a horror novel (albeit one written by a supremely intelligent literary novelist), Marcus has delivered a subtle meditation on the necessity as well as the drawbacks of human communication . . . in searing, sometimes hallucinatory prose." --Richmond Times-Dispatch

"Thrilling, boasting an erudition and an obsessiveness that smacks both of Jorge Luis Borges and of Darren Aronofsky."--The Boston Globe

"As I read The Flame Alphabet, late into the night, feverishly turning the pages, I felt myself, increasingly, in the presence of the classic." --Michael Chabon

"Marcus succeeds in creating a parallel universe that mirrors a side of human social life that might be more comfortably concealed." --The Columbus Dispatch

"An apocalyptic nightmare. Its vision is eerie, droll and heartbreaking, both lavishly written and haunting to behold. . . .[Marcus's] use of language could hardly be more vibrant."--Portland Press Herald "Some of the most thoughtful and moving writing I've ever read about family life." --Michael Jauchen, The Rumpus

"Disturbing and remarkable."--LA Review of Books

"This novel will cause many mouths to open. Dialogue will ensue. People will have something to say."--Cleveland Plain Dealer

"A mystery, a compulsive page-turner" --Salon

"The Flame Alphabet has the force of a nightmare, a testament to Marcus's skill." --NPR

"Ben Marcus is the rarest kind of writer: a necessary one."--Jonathan Safran Foer

"The Flame Alphabet is less about linguistics than the decay of relationships, the fracturing of familial loyalties, and the everyday heartbreak of human estrangement."--The Millions

"Ben Marcus is a genius, one of the most daring, funny, morally engaged and brilliant writers, someone whose work truly makes a difference in the world."--George Saunders

"A brutal, wonderful book, streaked with the sickly brown and gray hues of Philip K. Dick and David Cronenberg."--The Onion, A.V. Club

"A truly strange, original vision of a post-linguistic world." --Slant Magazine

"Freakishly sad and incredibly good."--Bookforum

"An authentic meditation on the sacred cruelty of communication that will leave his readers speechless."--San Francisco Chronicle

"You will not read too many books like this in your life. --The Financial Times

"For all its surreal touches, it packs an emotional wallop." --Wired

The speech of children has mutated into a virus which is killing their parents. At first it only affects Jews-then everyone. Living quietly in the suburbs, Sam and Claire's lives are threatened when their daughter, Esther, is infected with the disease. Each word she speaks - whether cruel or kind, banal or loving - is toxic to Sam and Claire. Radio transmissions from strange sources indicate that people across the country are growing increasingly alarmed. But all Sam needs to do is look around the neighborhood: in the park, parents wither beneath the powerful screams of their children. Claire is already stricken and near death. As the contagion spreads, Sam and Claire must leave Esther behind in order to survive. The government enforces quarantine zones, and return to their daughter becomes impossible. Having left his family and escaped from the afflicted cities, Sam finds himself in a government laboratory, where a group of hardened scientists are conducting horrific tests, hoping to create non-lethal speech. What follows is a nightmarish vision of a world which is both completely alien and frighteningly familiar, as Sam presses on alone into a society whose boundaries are fragmenting. Both morally engaged and wickedly entertaining, The Flame Alphabet begs the question: what is left of civilization when we lose the ability to communicate with those we love?