"The most audacious literary debut in decades--witty, startlingly inventive, funny but fundamentally disturbing,
language itself held together here by whimsical bits of wire and string. Ben Marcus is a one-of-a-kind stand-up
phenom, a comic writer of power and originality. The Age of Wire and String marks the arrival of a unique new talent
in American letters."
--Robert Coover
"An extraordinary first novel. . . . The Age of Wire and String, a treasury of interconnected fables of violence
and hope, stands out as an exhilarating work of literature."
--Steven Poole, Times Literary Supplement
"A rare, genius-struck achievement . . . filled with great beauties, high themes, enormous sorrows."
--Kirkus Reviews
"Utterly wonderful, wonderful and beautiful. A world appears made of birds, dogs, odd bits of the Self, and
ancient impressions of the very first things--Father and Mother, strange foods, a storm in the sky outside--all
the elements of ordinary life systematically recombined to give substance to feeling and sensation, our deepest
and most hidden knowledge of home."
--Donald Antrim
"In his entirely self-generated possible world, Ben Marcus immolates American notions about family, culture,
and the domestic drama, and asks questions later. What remains in the epicenter of the conflagration are fragile,
longing, and funny ruminations on the secret lives of objects and environments--written in some of the most breathtaking
prose I've encountered lately."
--Rick Moody
"This book is a coolly lyrical, sometimes tongue-in-cheek, pseudo-scientific description of the Earth and
the life of its various populations--as though Marcus were a sociologist describing the world in which everything
is wired to everything else. . . . The Age of Wire and String anticipates a career devoted to intelligent exploration
of major themes."
--Kelly Cherry, Chicago Tribune
"Simply put, The Age of Wire and String defies all the literary traditions we hold dear, more so than any
other novel in recent memory. . . . [It] is raw ether, a work of literary chemistry that will soften your brain
and sharpen your senses."
--Weekly Alibi
"Don't walk into this world expecting to know which way is up; just sit back and enjoy the view from a completely
new perspective."
--Details
"Undeniably brilliant."
--Dallas Morning News
"Indisputably a work of genius."
--Grid
Dalkey Archive Press Web Site, January, 2001
Summary
In The Age of Wire and String, hailed by Robert Coover as "the most audacious literary debut in decades,"
Ben Marcus welds together a new reality from the scrapheap of the past. Dogs, birds, horses, automobiles, and the
weather are some of the recycled elements in Marcus's first collection--part fiction, part handbook--as familiar
objects take on markedly unfamiliar meanings. Gradually, this makeshift world, in its defiance of the laws of physics
and language, finds a foundation in its own implausibility, as Marcus produces new feelings and sensations--both
comic and disturbing--in the definitive guide to an unpredictable yet exhilarating plane of existence.