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Notes from the Fog: Stories
Thirteen transfixing new stories from one of the most innovative writers of his generation and one of the most vital and original voices of our time--for fans of George Saunders, Nathan Englander, and Elizabeth Strout.
In these thirteen ingenious stories, Ben Marcus reveals moments of redemption in the sometimes nightmarish modern world. In "The Grow-Light Blues," a hapless, corporate drone finds love after being disfigured testing his employer's newest nutrition supplement--the enhanced glow from his computer monitor. In the chilling "Cold Little Bird," a father finds himself alienated from his family when he starts to suspect that his son's precocity has turned sinister. "The Boys" follows a sister who descends into an affair with her recently widowed brother-in-law. In "Blueprints for St. Louis," two architects in a flailing marriage consider the ethics of adding a mist that artificially incites emotion in mourners to their latest assignment, a memorial to a terrorist attack.
A heartbreaking collection of stories that showcases the author's compassion, tenderness, and mordant humor--blistering, beautiful work from a modern master.
In these thirteen ingenious stories, Ben Marcus reveals moments of redemption in the sometimes nightmarish modern world. In "The Grow-Light Blues," a hapless, corporate drone finds love after being disfigured testing his employer's newest nutrition supplement--the enhanced glow from his computer monitor. In the chilling "Cold Little Bird," a father finds himself alienated from his family when he starts to suspect that his son's precocity has turned sinister. "The Boys" follows a sister who descends into an affair with her recently widowed brother-in-law. In "Blueprints for St. Louis," two architects in a flailing marriage consider the ethics of adding a mist that artificially incites emotion in mourners to their latest assignment, a memorial to a terrorist attack.
A heartbreaking collection of stories that showcases the author's compassion, tenderness, and mordant humor--blistering, beautiful work from a modern master.
288 pages, Hardcover
First published April 21, 2018
78 people are currently reading
2290 people want to read
About the author
Ben Marcus
75 books477 followersSeemingly the most conspicuous aspect of Ben Marcus' work, to date, is its expansion on one of the most primary concerns of the original Surrealist authors -- perhaps most typified by Benjamin Péret, husband of the acclaimed painter Remedios Varo -- this being a very deep interest in the psychological service and implication of symbols and the manners by which those symbols can be maneuvered and rejuxtaposed in order to provoke new ideas or new points of view -- in other words, the creation of, in a sense, conscious dreams.
While Marcus' writing plays similarly with the meanings of words by either stripping them of their intended meaning or juxtaposing them with other words in critical ways, it also abandons the 'experimental' nature of so much of the Surrealists' writing for stories that describe human psychology and the human condition through a means that has in later years become notably more subjective and sensory in nature than that used in the broad range of fiction, both 'conventional' and 'nonconventional'.
The surreal nature of Marcus' work derives in part from the fact that it comprises sentences that are exact in their structure and syntax, but whose words, though familiar, appear to have abandoned their ordinary meanings; they can be read as experiments in the ways in which language and syntax themselves work to create structures of meaning. Common themes that emerge are family, the Midwest, science, mathematics, and religion, although their treatment in Marcus's writing lends to new interpretations and conceptualizations of those concepts.
Marcus was born in Chicago. He attended New York University (NYU) and Brown University, and currently teaches writing at Columbia University where he was recently promoted to head of the writing MFA program. He is the son of Jane Marcus, a noted feminist critic and Virginia Woolf scholar. He is married to novelist Heidi Julavits.
While Marcus' writing plays similarly with the meanings of words by either stripping them of their intended meaning or juxtaposing them with other words in critical ways, it also abandons the 'experimental' nature of so much of the Surrealists' writing for stories that describe human psychology and the human condition through a means that has in later years become notably more subjective and sensory in nature than that used in the broad range of fiction, both 'conventional' and 'nonconventional'.
The surreal nature of Marcus' work derives in part from the fact that it comprises sentences that are exact in their structure and syntax, but whose words, though familiar, appear to have abandoned their ordinary meanings; they can be read as experiments in the ways in which language and syntax themselves work to create structures of meaning. Common themes that emerge are family, the Midwest, science, mathematics, and religion, although their treatment in Marcus's writing lends to new interpretations and conceptualizations of those concepts.
Marcus was born in Chicago. He attended New York University (NYU) and Brown University, and currently teaches writing at Columbia University where he was recently promoted to head of the writing MFA program. He is the son of Jane Marcus, a noted feminist critic and Virginia Woolf scholar. He is married to novelist Heidi Julavits.
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November 26, 2019
...he grabbed Lester, and Lester squealed with delight, squirming in his father's arms. Do you see how this used to work? Martin wanted to say to Jonah. This was you once, this was us.
Cold Little Bird is about a young man who decides that he hates his father. At 10 years old, Jonah is suddenly too mature for his parents' bed time stories, their hugs, their kisses, their tickles.
It was so jarring to see. The father, Martin, was at his wit's end when he saw how independent his eldest son was getting. And not that charming kind of independence you see in kids when they finally learn to put their dishes back in the sink or when they can go to the shops without needing to come back home three times to be reminded what they're going to buy [don't judge me]. Jonah was eerily independent. He was also polite, courteous, distant. Like a fully functional psychopath. He would feed his little brother. Take care of him. Even scold him when he was throwing a tantrum.
Martin was thrown by all of this. He was losing his son right before his eyes and there was nothing he could do about it. His wife, Rachel wasn't helping matters anyway. She believed Martin was just helicopter parenting. Desperately hovering over their son trying to hold onto the remnants of his childhood only for them to get blown away.
Jonah requested his parents not to touch him. Or treat him like a little boy. But Martin can't accept this. His little bird only just broke out of his shell? Is he supposed to just sit there and watch him fly away? Martin snaps and crosses a line. And Jonah responds with a coldness I have only ever seen when recommending brain matter with a nice chianti.
This story was chilling. It made me see what parents go through as they watch their children grow. What they feel when they see their little boys and girls pick out their first novels. For most folks, this is usually a battle. The kids want to spend endless days on the computer or iPad. For other parents, it's a delight when the little one is so engrossed in a Goosebumps or Harry Potter novel that they forget to do their homework. But for Martin, it was a period of worry.
He found his son reading James Fetzer's 9/11 conspiracy bullshit.
On the cover, instead of a boy dashing beneath a bolt of lightning, were the good old Twin Towers. The title, “Lies,” was glazed in blood, which dripped down the towers themselves.
Oh, motherfucking hell.
“What’s this?” Martin asked. “What are you reading there?”
“A book about 9/11. Who caused it.”
Martin grabbed it, thumbed the pages. “Where’d you get it?”
“From Amazon. With my birthday gift card.”
“Hmm. Do you believe it?”
“What do you mean? It’s true.”
“What’s true?”
“That the Jews caused 9/11 and they all stayed home that day so they wouldn’t get killed.”
What do you do when your son is turning into a pleasant-faced nightmare? How do you wake up from such a dream? Is he just misguided or turning into a nutjob? Is he psycho or sarcastic and too smart for you to handle?
These are the questions Martin is left dealing with throughout this story.
I don't have kids. But if Jonah was my son, I'd have put him in a box and shipped him back to sender. Bitch was coooooold. I can not.
You can read the story HERE.
Cold Little Bird is about a young man who decides that he hates his father. At 10 years old, Jonah is suddenly too mature for his parents' bed time stories, their hugs, their kisses, their tickles.
It was so jarring to see. The father, Martin, was at his wit's end when he saw how independent his eldest son was getting. And not that charming kind of independence you see in kids when they finally learn to put their dishes back in the sink or when they can go to the shops without needing to come back home three times to be reminded what they're going to buy [don't judge me]. Jonah was eerily independent. He was also polite, courteous, distant. Like a fully functional psychopath. He would feed his little brother. Take care of him. Even scold him when he was throwing a tantrum.
Martin was thrown by all of this. He was losing his son right before his eyes and there was nothing he could do about it. His wife, Rachel wasn't helping matters anyway. She believed Martin was just helicopter parenting. Desperately hovering over their son trying to hold onto the remnants of his childhood only for them to get blown away.
Jonah requested his parents not to touch him. Or treat him like a little boy. But Martin can't accept this. His little bird only just broke out of his shell? Is he supposed to just sit there and watch him fly away? Martin snaps and crosses a line. And Jonah responds with a coldness I have only ever seen when recommending brain matter with a nice chianti.
This story was chilling. It made me see what parents go through as they watch their children grow. What they feel when they see their little boys and girls pick out their first novels. For most folks, this is usually a battle. The kids want to spend endless days on the computer or iPad. For other parents, it's a delight when the little one is so engrossed in a Goosebumps or Harry Potter novel that they forget to do their homework. But for Martin, it was a period of worry.
He found his son reading James Fetzer's 9/11 conspiracy bullshit.
On the cover, instead of a boy dashing beneath a bolt of lightning, were the good old Twin Towers. The title, “Lies,” was glazed in blood, which dripped down the towers themselves.
Oh, motherfucking hell.
“What’s this?” Martin asked. “What are you reading there?”
“A book about 9/11. Who caused it.”
Martin grabbed it, thumbed the pages. “Where’d you get it?”
“From Amazon. With my birthday gift card.”
“Hmm. Do you believe it?”
“What do you mean? It’s true.”
“What’s true?”
“That the Jews caused 9/11 and they all stayed home that day so they wouldn’t get killed.”
What do you do when your son is turning into a pleasant-faced nightmare? How do you wake up from such a dream? Is he just misguided or turning into a nutjob? Is he psycho or sarcastic and too smart for you to handle?
These are the questions Martin is left dealing with throughout this story.
I don't have kids. But if Jonah was my son, I'd have put him in a box and shipped him back to sender. Bitch was coooooold. I can not.
You can read the story HERE.
January 3, 2020
Free to read at
The New Yorker
(you get four free reads a month; this is worth burning one)
An older married couple called James and Alice, together for many years, are retired to a coastal island that is in Hurricane Boris (much raillery over such a moniker is had)'s sights. Inertia being what it is, they wait until evacuation is mandatory to get out of there. The story is the trip, narrated from Her P.o.V. He is ill. She is a conflicted mass of irritation, habitual affection, and solidly built denial:
One could also argue that the huge preponderance of women married to men wouldn't mind a bit if their husbands said "I love you" at all. Or even noticed them. But hey, the grass is proverbially of increased verdance logarithmically proportional to its parallax.
That's another thing Author Marcus does here: His wife is no dummy, no wilted celery stalk; she is a cracker and a wisecracker:
One might even say a firecracker. She's annoyed with her husband because he's himself, and he's ill, and he's driving them through the horrors of a hurricane to get...where? The shelter they briefly encounter is far too noisy and too kid-infested...
There it is, Alice, there's the old moxie, put some pepper on it before you deliver it! One gets the sense that, *if* Alice is a grandmother, it is not the cookie-baking and pillow-fort-building sort.
This short story broke my losing streak that 2020 began with. I started and abandoned six books, one of which will remain abandoned because this is the last decade I can confidently expect to see both the start and finish of and that's nowhere near enough time to waste on bad comic books.
I am now ready to find the rest of Ben Marcus's ouevre and dive in. He's gifted me an excellent insight, a perfect little aperçu to trot out on many occasions, and one I recommend to my fellow Americans who have some type or sort of partner in their life:
An older married couple called James and Alice, together for many years, are retired to a coastal island that is in Hurricane Boris (much raillery over such a moniker is had)'s sights. Inertia being what it is, they wait until evacuation is mandatory to get out of there. The story is the trip, narrated from Her P.o.V. He is ill. She is a conflicted mass of irritation, habitual affection, and solidly built denial:
James shows his feelings so liberally that they come at a discount, and their value diminishes. When he says he loves me, usually in a threatening way, the statement always seems to beg for reciprocation. I guess he cries wolf. More or less sobs it. One could argue that everything James says is merely the word “wolf” in one language or another.
One could also argue that the huge preponderance of women married to men wouldn't mind a bit if their husbands said "I love you" at all. Or even noticed them. But hey, the grass is proverbially of increased verdance logarithmically proportional to its parallax.
That's another thing Author Marcus does here: His wife is no dummy, no wilted celery stalk; she is a cracker and a wisecracker:
Knowledge is many things, but it definitely is not power. “Dread” is a better word for it, I think, though I do understand how that ultimately fails as a slogan.
One might even say a firecracker. She's annoyed with her husband because he's himself, and he's ill, and he's driving them through the horrors of a hurricane to get...where? The shelter they briefly encounter is far too noisy and too kid-infested...
One might reasonably think that there should be a separate evacuation receptacle for children. A room of their bloody own. Answering to their special needs. Relieving the rest of us from the, well, the special energy that children so often desire to display. Lord bless their fresh, pink hearts.
There it is, Alice, there's the old moxie, put some pepper on it before you deliver it! One gets the sense that, *if* Alice is a grandmother, it is not the cookie-baking and pillow-fort-building sort.
This short story broke my losing streak that 2020 began with. I started and abandoned six books, one of which will remain abandoned because this is the last decade I can confidently expect to see both the start and finish of and that's nowhere near enough time to waste on bad comic books.
I am now ready to find the rest of Ben Marcus's ouevre and dive in. He's gifted me an excellent insight, a perfect little aperçu to trot out on many occasions, and one I recommend to my fellow Americans who have some type or sort of partner in their life:
How come so many things can sound mean and nice at the same time?
June 21, 2018
If he loves me, it is because that may open the portal for more cuddles and touches. That's all. He needs to be swaddled, and I just happen to be nearby. If I ever dare to walk past him without touching his hand or stopping to outright kiss him, he pouts all day and looks up at me with mournful eyes. A husband is a bag of need with a dank wet hole at its bottom. The polar opposite of a go bag. I comply with James's wishes when I can, but the day is long and I have other projects.
I guess I want James to die. I don't want this actively. Or with malice. But in a dim and distant way I gently root for James's absence so that I can proceed to the other side of the years I have left, get to what happens next. For a long time, James was what happened next for me. As a person, he was sort of a page-turner. I moved through parts of him and made discoveries, large and small, and he led me to places and ideas that I'd not seen or heard before. This looked and felt like life. And then, and then - even though I don't think it happened suddenly - the story died in my old, tired husband. I knew everything there was to know: what the nights would be like, how the morning would feel. What he would say. What he wouldn't. How I would think and feel around him. How I wouldn't. Knowledge is many things, but it is definitely not power. "Dread" is a better word for it, I think, though I do understand how that ultimately fails as a slogan.
So. This short story was great. I read it twice.
Marcus really pulls a switcho/chango on you. When you first start reading this story (about an old, married couple fleeing a storm/hurricane?) you think they hate each other or have an unhappy marriage. It made me a little sad.
But as we continue on with this couple, suddenly after pages of misery, one says something to make the other smile. Then they start joking with each other. And you realize that things are not as bad as you initially thought. These two are best friends. Let's look at the scene where they consider sleeping in their car:
It seems as though James may have given up. "Is that what you want to do? Sleep on the side of the road? In the car?"
"What I want to do is to be alone in a hole, covered in dirt. But sleeping in the car is the next best thing right now."
"Yes, that is often the second choice after live burial."
It starts to sound nice to me, really appealing. Like going to the drive-in, but without the movie. Like going PARKING, which we must have done once, in another life, before our bodies took on water and started to sink, before the spoil grew like mold in the back of our mouths. "I don't think there's anything wrong with sleeping in the car," I say. "It's going to be more comfortable than a motel, that's for sure, not that there even IS an available motel, and plus we won't have to worry about the cascade of ejaculate that's been literally sprayed from human appendages around every single motel room in the country. Purportedly."
James seems to think about it. "When I stay in a hotel," he says, "I do my best to ejaculate on the walls. It's a civic obligation. You have to pull your weight."
"That's a lot of pressure for a man."
"Sometimes I'm not in the mood. I'm cranky and I'm tired."
"That's when you bring out the jar from home?" I ask.
He laughs. "It's good to have it with me. Who's going to know, you know, if the product is older?"
"More mature, in some ways."
"Must. Broadcast. Seed," he says, like a robot, and then he mimes the flinging of the jar, splashing its imaginary contents out into space.
I think this short story is actually a brilliant portrait of a marriage. Marcus does a great job. He has a rather strange writing style that takes some getting used to, but once you pick up on it you will do fine.
Even though these two get easily frustrated with each other, it's clear they love each other and can make each other laugh.
Alice is pretty funny, and we are seeing the world from her point of view. I don't think Marcus does a half-bad job at capturing a female voice. Good job, Marcus. :)
Alice is pretty funny. Here's a scene where James and Alice go to a shelter that has been set up:
"Just let us know if there's anything we can do for you," he says.
Anything? What a kind offer. A softer mattress, I think, and bone-chilling privacy, and a beef stew made with red wine. Some sexual attention would also be fine, if not from you specifically, because I fear you are too polite. Maybe you have a friend? After drives like this one, I often crave release. But only a particular style of lovemaking will do. I have evolved a fairly specific set of requirements. If you don't mind reading over these detailed instructions, briefing your friend, and then sending him to meet me in the janitor's closet, that would be fine.
TL;DR - I highly recommend this story, which I read twice, and is available free on the New Yorker website here: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/20...
If you want to hear him read it aloud to you, here is the audio version: https://www.newyorker.com/podcast/the...
Portrait of a Marriage. :)
I guess I want James to die. I don't want this actively. Or with malice. But in a dim and distant way I gently root for James's absence so that I can proceed to the other side of the years I have left, get to what happens next. For a long time, James was what happened next for me. As a person, he was sort of a page-turner. I moved through parts of him and made discoveries, large and small, and he led me to places and ideas that I'd not seen or heard before. This looked and felt like life. And then, and then - even though I don't think it happened suddenly - the story died in my old, tired husband. I knew everything there was to know: what the nights would be like, how the morning would feel. What he would say. What he wouldn't. How I would think and feel around him. How I wouldn't. Knowledge is many things, but it is definitely not power. "Dread" is a better word for it, I think, though I do understand how that ultimately fails as a slogan.
So. This short story was great. I read it twice.
Marcus really pulls a switcho/chango on you. When you first start reading this story (about an old, married couple fleeing a storm/hurricane?) you think they hate each other or have an unhappy marriage. It made me a little sad.
But as we continue on with this couple, suddenly after pages of misery, one says something to make the other smile. Then they start joking with each other. And you realize that things are not as bad as you initially thought. These two are best friends. Let's look at the scene where they consider sleeping in their car:
It seems as though James may have given up. "Is that what you want to do? Sleep on the side of the road? In the car?"
"What I want to do is to be alone in a hole, covered in dirt. But sleeping in the car is the next best thing right now."
"Yes, that is often the second choice after live burial."
It starts to sound nice to me, really appealing. Like going to the drive-in, but without the movie. Like going PARKING, which we must have done once, in another life, before our bodies took on water and started to sink, before the spoil grew like mold in the back of our mouths. "I don't think there's anything wrong with sleeping in the car," I say. "It's going to be more comfortable than a motel, that's for sure, not that there even IS an available motel, and plus we won't have to worry about the cascade of ejaculate that's been literally sprayed from human appendages around every single motel room in the country. Purportedly."
James seems to think about it. "When I stay in a hotel," he says, "I do my best to ejaculate on the walls. It's a civic obligation. You have to pull your weight."
"That's a lot of pressure for a man."
"Sometimes I'm not in the mood. I'm cranky and I'm tired."
"That's when you bring out the jar from home?" I ask.
He laughs. "It's good to have it with me. Who's going to know, you know, if the product is older?"
"More mature, in some ways."
"Must. Broadcast. Seed," he says, like a robot, and then he mimes the flinging of the jar, splashing its imaginary contents out into space.
I think this short story is actually a brilliant portrait of a marriage. Marcus does a great job. He has a rather strange writing style that takes some getting used to, but once you pick up on it you will do fine.
Even though these two get easily frustrated with each other, it's clear they love each other and can make each other laugh.
Alice is pretty funny, and we are seeing the world from her point of view. I don't think Marcus does a half-bad job at capturing a female voice. Good job, Marcus. :)
Alice is pretty funny. Here's a scene where James and Alice go to a shelter that has been set up:
"Just let us know if there's anything we can do for you," he says.
Anything? What a kind offer. A softer mattress, I think, and bone-chilling privacy, and a beef stew made with red wine. Some sexual attention would also be fine, if not from you specifically, because I fear you are too polite. Maybe you have a friend? After drives like this one, I often crave release. But only a particular style of lovemaking will do. I have evolved a fairly specific set of requirements. If you don't mind reading over these detailed instructions, briefing your friend, and then sending him to meet me in the janitor's closet, that would be fine.
TL;DR - I highly recommend this story, which I read twice, and is available free on the New Yorker website here: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/20...
If you want to hear him read it aloud to you, here is the audio version: https://www.newyorker.com/podcast/the...
Portrait of a Marriage. :)
October 20, 2018
You may have heard rumors that Ben Marcus has eased up on his weird style in recent years and that may be 15% true, but I'll reassure you: There is no one writing like Ben Marcus and this book is so darkly weird, so sentence-drivenly spectacular, so other-worldly while still being recognizably in our world, so damn funny, and so perverse that it may be his best book ever.
Just a few of my favorite stories: Cold Little Bird (a young son thwarts affection from his family, reads 9/11 conspiracy books), Blueprints For St. Louis (a struggling architect couple designing a string of memorials), George and Elizabeth (a man sleeps with his late father's girlfriend and then meets with his long-lost sister seeking help), and Critique (a hospital and its inhabitants are described as if they were conceptual art). But giving you these quick descriptions does not do the stories justice. It's all about the language, the mood, the (often hilarious) bleakness of Marcus's worlds. In the title story, a man loses his teaching job, but it's the descriptions of his life, his boss, and his family that really show how unusual and extraordinary Marcus's talents are. It feels unfair to merely quote or excerpt from the book. I think you just have to experience his stories in your own brain. It's an amazing sensation.
Just a few of my favorite stories: Cold Little Bird (a young son thwarts affection from his family, reads 9/11 conspiracy books), Blueprints For St. Louis (a struggling architect couple designing a string of memorials), George and Elizabeth (a man sleeps with his late father's girlfriend and then meets with his long-lost sister seeking help), and Critique (a hospital and its inhabitants are described as if they were conceptual art). But giving you these quick descriptions does not do the stories justice. It's all about the language, the mood, the (often hilarious) bleakness of Marcus's worlds. In the title story, a man loses his teaching job, but it's the descriptions of his life, his boss, and his family that really show how unusual and extraordinary Marcus's talents are. It feels unfair to merely quote or excerpt from the book. I think you just have to experience his stories in your own brain. It's an amazing sensation.
April 1, 2019
I got on the Ben Marcus train about 4 years ago and never looked back. This latest collection is so tight and weird--he's up there with the best of the new fiction right alongside Brian Evenson. Marcus has one of the most unique voices in short fiction: dark, modest and at times absolutely hilarious.
I can't remember when I've read stories by an author that feels life this intensely and with so much beautiful despair. Brings to mind David Foster Wallace--but without the hyper-intellectualized braggadocio (and to be clear: I love DFW). The conversational rhythms employed consistently throughout all these stories just suck you right in. Every other sentences is a reluctant, brilliantly articulated poetic observation. Most writers would be happy with one or two of these moments in a story--Marcus has them in every paragraph.
He's a master at conjuring opaque, bleak atmosphere--as good as Kafka, without question. I hand out copies of the anthology Marcus recently edited, New American Stories, to my students, saying: "This is the future and salvation of the American short story--memorize this collection. I read it cover to cover once a year."
And I'll no doubt wind up doing the same with Notes From the Fog.
I can't remember when I've read stories by an author that feels life this intensely and with so much beautiful despair. Brings to mind David Foster Wallace--but without the hyper-intellectualized braggadocio (and to be clear: I love DFW). The conversational rhythms employed consistently throughout all these stories just suck you right in. Every other sentences is a reluctant, brilliantly articulated poetic observation. Most writers would be happy with one or two of these moments in a story--Marcus has them in every paragraph.
He's a master at conjuring opaque, bleak atmosphere--as good as Kafka, without question. I hand out copies of the anthology Marcus recently edited, New American Stories, to my students, saying: "This is the future and salvation of the American short story--memorize this collection. I read it cover to cover once a year."
And I'll no doubt wind up doing the same with Notes From the Fog.
August 10, 2018
Ben Marcus speaks in tongues that are not wholly our own, and the things he does with language often make it seem as if you're hearing an unfamiliar tongue muttering hideous, hilarious things from another room, like if you were staying in the hotel room directly across from Celine Dion's Vegas suite and she kept singing about farts that could kill you and other untidy exits. The man is goddamn brilliant and his likeness should be emblazoned on all our stamps and currency.
Read
May 8, 2024No question that I prefer Marcus’ longer form work. His two short story collections, for me, suffer from having them as a contrast class. The stories I think I preferred best in both collections have some oblique (usually referential or thematic) relation to the longer work.
June 6, 2021
I was dubious about this when I saw that Marcus had been name checked by Alexandra Kleeman the author of You Too Can Have a Body Like Mine which I had just finished and hated.
This collection of stories was rather bland, I don't remember any of them in detail and they were all samey in style and characters so they all merge when I try and recall them.
This collection of stories was rather bland, I don't remember any of them in detail and they were all samey in style and characters so they all merge when I try and recall them.
October 19, 2018
3,5
As with most story collections: some stories are superb, some are just ok
As with most story collections: some stories are superb, some are just ok
November 3, 2018
4.5 | Marcus writes with a classic tone. The stories feel lived in, aged, and refined. Maybe a text written fifty or so years ago. Yet. The texture of these sentences is something altogether new and shattering. The use of words as something scientific, experimental, and original. The stories do not always seem to go anywhere or always seem to make sense. Even after rereads of paragraphs, passages, and pages. There is a disconnect between the action of the language and the action of those living in the language. Or at least a connection I could not always make. Is that the point? Also, the birds. All the beautiful birds flying all about in the trees.
January 28, 2019
2.5 stars rounded up. I didn’t intend to read this collection but I had just read a very positive review in Saturday’s newspaper and I was in my local library when I saw it there amongst the new releases so I grabbed it. I really don't like to be too negative when posting a review - it's difficult enough for an author to get published. I did enjoy four of the thirteen stories but overall I felt that there wasn't enough interesting and creative material in these stories to recommend them to you. I found the writing at times a little ‘in your face’ and a bit nihilistic for my liking. I think I will give short stories a miss for a while.
January 4, 2019
Still gloriously, unflinchingly weird. Marcus can craft a sentence that just leaves my jaw hanging open, and then make the next one just as wild and strange, and the next after that. A little more linear than his previous collection, there are still a gathering of moments here where it feels like he's not writing about our world, but maybe the next one over. Terrific collection.
March 31, 2019
Months ago I must have read this in such a blur of euphoria that I neglected to catalog and extol it here. I don't always buy brand new books at full cover price as soon as I possibly can, but when I do there's a good chance it's Ben Marcus. I half-hope he does something terrible eventually so that I can gain some critical distance. Until then his oeuvre remains suspiciously perfect and true.
November 30, 2019
Some stories are amazing. Others less so.
The opening story was the most chilling for me. Imagine being a parent (shudder!) and having your child tell you that he does not love you, and even more, that if you attempt to hug him again he will report you to child protective services for inappropriate touches. Yikes! (Reminiscent of The Fifth Child, which it explicitly references, but even more chilling.)
The opening story was the most chilling for me. Imagine being a parent (shudder!) and having your child tell you that he does not love you, and even more, that if you attempt to hug him again he will report you to child protective services for inappropriate touches. Yikes! (Reminiscent of The Fifth Child, which it explicitly references, but even more chilling.)
October 29, 2015
I notice that the writing Ben Marcus is likely to get either 1-2 stars or 4-5. I can understand that and I like the fact that he is not comfortably in the middle. This story is not comfortable at all. What do we do when we love someone intensely and they stop loving us back? This story poses the question and it's a good one, a tough one. The parents of a suddenly mature and opaque 10 year old can't just shrug this off as a phase or shed their concern as not central to their very beings. Can the parents begin to move closer together, narrowly avoiding the urge to blame each other or deny the problem?
One can avoid finding out what one dreads but eventually we all have to go the doctor. Paging Dr. Marcus.
One can avoid finding out what one dreads but eventually we all have to go the doctor. Paging Dr. Marcus.
October 4, 2018
Ben Marcus has improved. His earlier fictions were appallingly uninvolving. The stories here range from quite uninvolving to quite involving, though his continued insistence on throwing language at us hoping for "Ooohs" and "Aaahs" spotlights a writer still artistically immature.
Sometimes it's enough to be amused by strong imagery and some striking dialogue, even though it doesn't add up to much. The two science-fiction stories about testing new drugs achieve that level of success. But Marcus's weakness is the failure to execute a fiction in which the various parts all have value. Instead each paragraph can be a new effort to cobble together enough cleverness to make a vague sort of intellectual blip.
This collection includes one or two truly fine stories, mature works in which the author steps away from facile feats and fashions something complete and, because it lacks heaps of cleverness, beautiful. "Cold little bird" is trenchant, scary, beautiful.
Sometimes it's enough to be amused by strong imagery and some striking dialogue, even though it doesn't add up to much. The two science-fiction stories about testing new drugs achieve that level of success. But Marcus's weakness is the failure to execute a fiction in which the various parts all have value. Instead each paragraph can be a new effort to cobble together enough cleverness to make a vague sort of intellectual blip.
This collection includes one or two truly fine stories, mature works in which the author steps away from facile feats and fashions something complete and, because it lacks heaps of cleverness, beautiful. "Cold little bird" is trenchant, scary, beautiful.
June 19, 2018
I enjoyed this story. The use of language is beautiful and the narrative itself is engaging enough. But what I loved was the layers of character that were unwrapped in the narrator during the story. To me, it all started with this sentence: "I guess I want James to die. I don’t want this actively. Or with malice. But in a dim and distant way I gently root for James’s absence so that I can proceed to the other side of the years I have left, get to what happens next."
From there, my attention was captured as I wondered how much that really said about her current feelings for James, and how she got to that point. And the rest of the story was beautiful in how it developed her character and revealed better who she was. I thought it was very well done.
From there, my attention was captured as I wondered how much that really said about her current feelings for James, and how she got to that point. And the rest of the story was beautiful in how it developed her character and revealed better who she was. I thought it was very well done.
June 17, 2023
This is a very witty, very funny, insightful and genius collection of short stories. I was totally enthralled by the endeavour.
My favs in the collection are;
Precious, Precious
Blueprints for St. Louis
The Boys
The Grow-Light Blues
George & Elizabeth
A Suicide of Trees
Omen
Stay Down & Take It
Notes From the Fog.
My favs in the collection are;
Precious, Precious
Blueprints for St. Louis
The Boys
The Grow-Light Blues
George & Elizabeth
A Suicide of Trees
Omen
Stay Down & Take It
Notes From the Fog.
November 30, 2018
I have a deep and abiding fondness for Ben Marcus. Some of this is no doubt due to his wild, experimental, devil-may-care, assertively uncommercial debut THE AGE OF WIRE AND STRING, which I have fond memories of purchasing in a small bookstore in New Mexico that you would hardly expect to carry it. A good part of it is no doubt due to THE FLAME ALPHABET, which is not only one of the finest novels of the the twenty-first century, but took on a status, when I read it, that sort of dwarfed its mere mastery, simply by virtue of what a disarming surprise it was. THE FLAME ALPHABET, appropriately, went off in my life not unlike an IED. Perhaps even more than to this transformative encounter with a singular novel, I owe my deep and abiding fondness for Ben Marcus to the fact that he stepped up and went to bat against Jonathan Franzen in the wake of Mr. Franzen's whole loathsome "Mr. Difficult" malarkey; in reference to his position as a public advocate, at a time when it was desperately needed, for experimental or challenging literary endeavour, I can no doubt be excused for feeling in a very personal way like Mr. Marcus had my back. So what do I, adopting this position, make of Ben Marcus in 2018? His last two books have been collections of short fiction. And not only that. Mr. Marcus has progressively found himself burrowing inside the conventional short story and making himself at home there. Conventional? I used the word with both consideration and intention. Of all literary forms, I think the short story has become by some measure the most circumscribed and formula-arrested, and Ben Marcus is currently in the business of producing short stories that will not seem in the least like misshapen freaks in the company of other short stories by other contemporary writers, though they are at times deeply uncanny and/or distinctly unusual in their way. Obviously the author of THE AGE OF WIRE AND STRING stood out practically like a circus attraction. The author of NOTES FROM THE FOG, his uncommon mastery notwithstanding, does not. This is a writer of relatively accessible literary fiction. When we speak of convention and the short story we invariably speak of a very specific tradition. It is the tradition of the slice-of-life, a Chekhovian tradition. People often speak of the monumental legacies of Raymond Carver and Alice Munro. Well, sure. But they were more or less themselves Chekhovians. Most short stories we read in magazines, journals, and collections these days to one extent or another practice fidelity to this tradition, to an extent that I often find pretty dispiriting. I am very seldom wowed anymore by the stories I read in magazines. There are of course other traditions provisionally in play. I always thought that Barry Hannah was notable for the fact that many of his best stories were almost like DAVID COPPERFIELD in miniature. Special reverence is due to Lydia Davis and Diane Williams, who I sometimes think of as the adult daughters of Nathalie Sarraute. (Lydia Davis is probably my favourite contemporary writer of short fiction, though calling what she does short fiction feels vaguely erroneous.) If there is a Chekhovian legacy, another 19th century Russian, Nikolai Gogol, has also to some extent fathered a tradition, albeit a smaller one. Ben Marcus is to some extent in dialogue with that tradition as well, with its tendency to irreality and mutant folklore. And of course there is also the legacy of the barbarian postmodern invasions, specifically the fruitful things that happened to short stories in the wake of Donald Barthelme and Robert Coover specifically. Ben Marcus has not remained untouched by the imprint of these writers either. All that being said, NOTES FROM THE FOG is a book of slightly skewed stories essentially obeying implicit rules we see in action anywhere contemporary stories are found. It were almost as though Marcus had occupied the short story in a military sense, to set up camp and subvert the prevailing systems, while all the while "passing." We are practically in form-itself-as-form-of-irony territory, though at a fundamental level Marcus clearly is in the business of earnestly setting out to write really good and meaningful short fiction. In his previous collection, LEAVING THE SEA, the author of THE AGE OF WIRE AND STRING periodically showed up; there were a number of non-narrative pieces given over to conceptual frolics in which words behaved like animals liberated from a zoo. None of that to be found in NOTES FROM THE FOG. I recall that LEAVING THE SEA also had a story or two that didn't work for me at all. I am happy to report that everything in NOTES FROM THE FOG is strong, extremely strong, or better. What is ultimately most conventional about what Marcus is doing these days is the methodology by which he parcels out his beats, and the best stories sometimes actually feel like the most machine-tootled. This collection has what we want from smart, semi-populist literary fiction: Marcus is intelligent, emotionally lucid, judicious with profundities, capable in the handling of a gag, extraordinarily imaginative, and seriously stylish. The more self-consciously weird he gets in this particular collection (see especially "A Suicide of Trees") the closer he comes to George Saunders, and this is definitely not where he shows himself at his strongest. No, he thrives at a kind of twisted lucidity. He is an alchemist of workaday dreads. He is, above all, a probing artist of alienation. Especially the species of alienation we are capable of experiencing in our families, our sexual relationships (which are very often fundamentally transactional, grimly devolutionary), and our work. He makes ennui more palatable by locating its inherent comedy. The title of the collection speaks to the notion of the individual's attempt to report back from a zone where both the terrain and the reporter are hazy. A few lines from the final, eponymous story capture well the cast of despondency: "Isn't that the world now? Listless, cowering in our homes. Beset by paralyzing indifference. Too tired to eat, and waiting for a hammer to the head? Witness the birds. Their exhaustion. Please. Look at them closely for a chance to ignore the ruse of beauty." Those best suited to NOTES FROM THE FOG will be those who are immediately aware that the preceding fragment is not altogether humourless. As a solitary monastic type, though one who has experienced multiple romantic entanglements and doomed experiments in coupling, I feel I receive some vindication from these stories, though my suspicion is that Mr. Marcus would insist that our pitiful struggles to connect and mold lives together are doomed and tragicomic, but endlessly worth it. I'm not sure that is what he actually sells us, however. Which is good! As I basically said: I'm not especially in the market! Did I make sufficiently clear above that I continue to have reservations about the contemporary short story in general? Because I very much do. You see, I continue to read a healthy number of collections of "conventional" short fiction in your average year. The thing is: I retain alarmingly little of them. Months or years later, I tend to remember if they were smart, funny, or stylistically proficient, but I don't tend to remember many of the actual, you know, stories. I remembered the coexistence of conventional and more experimental stuff in the last Marcus collection, for example, but I had to flip through the actual book again in order to refresh myself on the actual content. Over the last couple decades? Well, I remember absolutely loving Sam Lipsyte's THE FUN PARTS. Very strong and very smart conventional short stories. And very fun. Guess what? I couldn't give you even a vague plot synopsis of a single story. I believe Dungeons and Dragons figured in one. Wouldn't swear to it. I know that Wells Tower's EVERYTHING RAVAGED, EVERYTHING BURNED must be one of the greatest collections of conventional short stories ever written because I remember what four of the stories were about and I read it almost ten years ago. (What happened to Wells Tower? Are you doing okay, Wells?) What will I retain of NOTES FROM THE FOG in years to come? I am not super optimistic. I sure would love to remember the ending of "Stay Down and Take It." We know a great deal depends on how well a short story sticks its landing, and it is hard to do it better than does "Stay Down and Take It." I know I will remember that NOTES FROM THE FOG is brilliant, full of stunning language business, funny, insightful, and rich in unpretty premonitions. Will I remember what actually happens in any of the stories? Shit, I'd like to think so. But I suppose you'll have to track me down and gather the intel yourself. As if it mattered a jot.
March 24, 2019
Perhaps it’s wrong to give a book this uneven 5 stars, but hear me out: sure, some of these stories aren’t great. One of them I couldn’t even finish, and two of them felt a bit glib and facile. But at least half of them are sublime. Truly exceptional in the literal sense, as I don’t think anyone is even trying to do what Marcus is doing, and perhaps shouldn’t. His stories are bizarre, deeply unsettling and on the sentence level, even on the word level, virtuosic. While novels ought to give us an arc and a sense of completion, short stories are almost always about capturing a moment or feeling and approximating wholeness by rendering that moment with such precision and wonder as to make the reader feel like their world was been irrevocably changed. The best pieces here (mostly in Parts 3 and 4) left me breathless, like the seconds after you wake up from a particularly vivid dream where some great mystery has been revealed and then immediately erased from your mind. Not for everyone, though- particularly those readers who look to either ground themselves in story or “relatable” characters. Marcus’s prose is more like poetry moonlighting as fiction. I am eager to devour more of his work.
September 30, 2018
5 stars for "Cold Little Bird" - a superb story and easily my favourite here - and I also particularly liked "Blueprints for St. Louis", "The Boys" and "George and Elizabeth". As for the rest? I appreciated some of the writing and the linguistic playfulness, but they really weren't my cup of tea.
September 23, 2018
Two stars. One for each of the 13 stories that was good (Cold Little Bird; Critique). The bad stories are cynical and make me feel sorry for contemporary writers- that they can be so empty yet still produce things to publish. No clues for meaningful living in this book.
December 26, 2018
What a weird little book this was.
October 22, 2019
The characters in these stories reek of the basest twenty-first century neuroses.
July 18, 2025
There is, for me at least, an alluring aesthetic at play here, something like watching a scrambled broadcast late at night interrupted by waves of static or straight up intercut with other stories. But when the original story comes back on, the names have changed, the time has changed it feels warped and distorted. This happens several times. It's like crossing your eyes at those "3D" posters that were big in the 90s, physically straining your eyes to see the image pop out. And it's there, that is a burro you are looking at, only it's still wearing the psychedelic madras of the background pattern.
That is to say, this is the kind of pretentious tripe that I openly adore but will admit can turn off most readers. I'm not saying I am a special flower for having liked this, because I didn't even enjoy reading it that much. In fact, I feel worse confessing that I did like this, it's another little special ribbon on my chest of other overlooked ribbons I tend to collect.
Is it postmodern drama or overtly neurotic horror? When the fog clears and loved ones show their true unknowable selves, when the creeping apocalypse is felt in microdoses, when everything is infected with a clinging grease foretelling doom, what does any of this tell us?
That is to say, this is the kind of pretentious tripe that I openly adore but will admit can turn off most readers. I'm not saying I am a special flower for having liked this, because I didn't even enjoy reading it that much. In fact, I feel worse confessing that I did like this, it's another little special ribbon on my chest of other overlooked ribbons I tend to collect.
Is it postmodern drama or overtly neurotic horror? When the fog clears and loved ones show their true unknowable selves, when the creeping apocalypse is felt in microdoses, when everything is infected with a clinging grease foretelling doom, what does any of this tell us?
September 8, 2018
Marcus returns to form with this collection of gloomy extremely near-future stories about family, employment, medicine, and technology. It's as though these stories take place on a parallel world 15% different than ours, where emotions flow in a different register. More relatable than Marcus's "Age of Wire and String," it has a similar reality-vertigo-altering effect as you read.
Special mention to:
"Blueprints for St. Louis"
"A Suicide of Trees"
"Critique"
"The Trees of Sawtooth Park"
Special mention to:
"Blueprints for St. Louis"
"A Suicide of Trees"
"Critique"
"The Trees of Sawtooth Park"
February 22, 2024
i remember this being extremely lit and i want to re read it .
For the surrealism
and the realism of conversations
in it.
For the surrealism
and the realism of conversations
in it.
April 25, 2024
why is everyone so so sad? someone check on ben marcus jesus
February 4, 2019
Ben Marcus crafts sentences like the gasp of interrupted speech. Really, a difficult style to master — if it to be mastered at all; I suppose one is just born with it.
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