![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() Playing with the English language in such a manner that his work has drawn comparison's to Anthony Burgess's A Clockwork Orange, among other novels, Marcus describes the cultish, recondite practises of his mother, her enigmatic mentor Jane Dark, and their legion of disciples as they attempt to create perfect stillness in the world by eliminating the "wind violence" of speech and, ultimately, physical movement. With that, Ben Marcus (the author) launches into a lengthy first-person narration with Ben Marcus as guide, allowing the reader to decide if, and how, any of the words can be trusted. Michael Marcus (the father of Ben Marcus, the character) opens Notable American Women with several warnings – most notably, that his own offspring, Ben, may very well be mentally handicapped – and ponders reflectively, "How can one word from Ben Marcus's rotten, filthy heart be trusted?" ![]() The Marcus family, owning four members, lives on a farm outside of an unnamed town the reader encounters narration from three of those members, and is led through a seemingly implausible and temporally confusing description of the life events of the protagonist: a young Ben Marcus. The novel, written as a follow-up to Marcus's literary debut, The Age of Wire and String, deals with an abstruse Ohio family, which shares the author's surname. Notable American Women is a novel written by Ben Marcus and published in March 2002. ![]()
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