In the world of The Flame Alphabet, Jews are outcasts, forced to pray alone in huts hidden in the woods. It's never entirely explained why they are so despised; Marcus draws only hazy parallels to ...

But what if all that toxic language was, well, actually toxic? That's the premise of The Flame Alphabet, the new novel by Ben Marcus. When Sam and his wife begin feeling sick, they're not sure why.

That's the premise of Ben Marcus's new post-apocalyptic novel, The Flame Alphabet. The sound of children's speech suddenly turns lethal and moms and dads everywhere are falling prey. Parents ...

Communication poisons the air. And to prove it, Marcus just keeps writing. "The Flame Alphabet" is one part inspiring and two parts infuriating. Samuel and Claire are part of a Jewish cult that is ...

Taking the idea a few steps further, author Ben Marcus imagines a world in which language becomes fatal in “The Flame Alphabet,” a powerfully strange and frequently disturbing work that ...

Many a reader is bound to balk at the premise of Ben Marcus's second novel, "The Flame Alphabet": In a United States bearing a vague similarity to the real thing, the speech of children kills adults.

From that opening line in Ben Marcus’ new novel focusing on a mysterious pandemic, “The Flame Alphabet” (Knopf, 304 pp., $25.95), we are led to believe this is a story about abandonment.

Ben Marcus' bracing 2012 novel The Flame Alphabet (Knopf) makes high, messy art from the fantastic. His premise — that the language of children suddenly is toxic to adults — has an immediate power but ...

In the world of The Flame Alphabet, Jews are outcasts, forced to pray alone in huts hidden in the woods. It's never entirely explained why they are so despised; Marcus draws only hazy parallels to ...