Notable American Women A Novel by Ben Marcus Published by Vintage Books March 2002 $12.50US/$18.50CAN ISBN: 0-375-71378-6

*Finalist for the New York Public Library's Young Lions' Award*

On a farm in Ohio, American women led by Jane Dark practice all means of behavior modification in an attempt to attain complete stillness and silence. Witnessing (and subjected to) their cultish actions is one Ben Marcus, whose father, Michael Marcus, may be buried in the back yard, and whose mother, Jane Marcus, enthusiastically condones the use of her son for (generally unsuccessful) breeding purposes, among other things. Inventing his own uses for language, the author Ben Marcus has written a harrowing, hilarious, strangely moving, altogether engrossing work of fiction that will be read and argued over for years to come.

Reviews
"Ben Marcus has created an innovative and unflinching portrait of the turmoil of the human condition, providing the reader a most rare gift: something truly new . . . .A brave, original book."
--Myla Goldberg

"Ben Marcus has been accused of redesigning the ordinary sentence, of emptying words of their meaning and injecting them with new, of treating grave matters (such as family and humankind in general) with farcical disrespect, and of blowing away traditional narrative structures with a diabolical wind. And all this may be true. But for those who would describe this work as fantastic, surreal, or anti-real, I can only say that this is Ohio exactly as I remember it. Jane Dark was my fourth grade teacher."
--Robert Coover

"Notable American Women is an enchanting and moving novel. Like Italo Calvino and Lewis Carroll, Ben Marcus reconfigures the world that we might see ourselves in a cultural and moral landscape that is disturbingly familiar, yet entirely new. [A] wonder book, pleasurable and provocative."
--Maureen Howard

"Ben Marcus's novel is funny and touching and full of movement and sound, all of which is even more remarkable since the book itself is about stillnesses. . . . Marcus investigates -- with equal passion -- the intricacies of a new mythology alongside the intimacies of a broken family. This is the kind of strange and beautiful book you just want to have around, to dip into again and again."
--Aimee Bender

"Notable American Women is a weird nougat of a book that suggests Coetzee, Kafka, Beckett, Barthelme, O'Brien, Orwell, Paley, Borges -- and none of them exactly. Finally you just have to chew it for its own private juice."
--Padgett Powell

"Ben Marcus is a genius, one of the most daring, funny, morally engaged and brilliant writers, someone whose work truly makes a difference in the world."
--George Saunders

"Notable American Women gives us, with great panache and in eerie detail, a world that is cruelly reasonable within the near-religious limitations of its weird laws and customs. It is a book as unique as it is wonderfully strange."
--Gilbert Sorrentino

"Ben Marcus's Notable American Women is . . . killingly funny, and creepily sad. This book represents an unmediated thrusting toward love with an arsenal of intellectual alienation, and just as forcefully, a thrusting toward alienation with an arsenal of brotherly love."
--C.D. Wright

"How can one word from Ben Marcus's rotten, filthy heart be trusted?"
--Michael Marcus, Ben's father

About the Author
Ben Marcus's work has appeared in Grand Street, Harper's, McSweeney's, Conjunctions, and elsewhere. The recipient of two Pushcart Prizes, a Whiting Fellowship, and a National Endowment for the Arts grant, he is an Assistant Professor of Creative Writing at Columbia University and lives in New York City. 

Visit the author's Web site at www.benmarcus.com