Leaving the Sea (Hardcover) by Ben Marcus

from KarlBunker

This collection is very deliberately structured, being divided into six sections that group together stylistically-related stories. Unfortunately, for me the structure of the book was one long downhill slope: it starts off strong, but gets worse and worse as it goes along. "What Have You Done" is...

from drenglish

After four stories in a row each featuring a more or less young, self-alienated middle-aged man who is Basically Well-Meaning and finds himself set up or set upon by women, you begin thinking, well this is a little samey. Then we transition, per the jacket copy, into the "experimental work that h...

from LeahMo

Leaving the Sea is a collection of short stories by Ben Marcus, author of The Flame Alphabet. I didn't get to read this novel, but it sounded right up my alley, and I was eager to read his stories. What I found wasn't quite to my taste, but I was thoroughly impressed by Marcus' power of imaginati...

from alexrichman

Marcus seems to get bored easily. His early, straightforward stories are great, with one particular highlight exploring the dread of fatherhood... but then the author is dragged inexorably back to the abstract horror of The Flame Alphabet. Frankly, I found these language-obsessed passages to be h...

from missizicks

At the front of Leaving the Sea is a quote from The Washington Post's review. It includes the line "As we make our way through this collection, we may feel as if we're moving gradually through a dark chronology of America's imminent social and political unravelling." I started reading the book th...