Notes from the Fog

In the bizarre but instantly recognizable universe of Ben Marcus's fiction, characters encounter both surreal new illnesses and equally surreal new cures. In "The Grow-Light Blues," a hapless, corporate drone finds love after being disfigured from testing his employer's newest nutrition supplement--the enhanced glow from his computer monitor. A father finds himself outcast from his family when he starts to suspect that his son's precocity has turned sinister in the chilling "Cold Little Bird." In "Blueprints for St. Louis," two architects in a flailing marriage consider the ethics of artificially inciting emotion in mourners at their latest assignment--a memorial to a terrorist attack. Together, the thirteen short stories in this collection showcase Marcus's compassion, tenderness, and mordant humor: a blistering, beautiful work from a modern master.