Ben Marcus (1)

From one of the most innovative and important writers of his generation: a brilliant, mesmerizingly dark new novel in which the speech of children is killing their parents. At first it's just Jews--then everyone. People are leaving their families to survive. Sam's wife, Claire, is already stricken and ... (more)near death. In a year or two, as she grows into adulthood, their daughter, Esther, too, will become a victim. Sam and Claire decide to leave Esther on her own, hoping a "cure" will miraculously appear. Sam's car is waved off the road at a government-run laboratory where horrific tests are being conducted to create non-lethal speech. Throngs bang on the doors to be subject volunteers; they're all carried out half-dead. When Sam realizes what's going on, he makes a desperate escape, vowing that if he dies it will be with his family, the only refuge of sanity and love. Ben Marcus's nightmarish vision is both completely alien and frighteningly familiar. Ben Marcus is the author of Notable American Women and The Age of Wire and String. His stories have appeared in The New Yorker, Harper’s, The Paris Review, Tin House, and elsewhere. The recipient of three Pushcart Prizes, a Whiting Writers Award, a National Endowment for the Arts grant, and an award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, he is a Professor of Creative Writing at Columbia University and lives in New York City.

Karen Russell, Jim Shepard, Ben Marcus, and Sloane Crosley hold court at powerHouse, reading from their newest works and answering your pressing questions.