1.26.2014
“Ben Marcus achieved the startling visions of his first story collection, “The Age of Wire and String,” and the novels “Notable American Women” and “The Flame Alphabet” largely by placing the reader in strange and unfamiliar worlds that turned out to be our world after all. The stories of his new collection, “Leaving the Sea,” still contain peculiar linguistic and perceptual tics, but he has added to his arsenal narratives that are less relentlessly unfamiliar, less rigorously dis-enchanted, populated by characters full of longing and visible regret…”
