Ben Marcus
Ben Marcus
Ben Marcusis the author of four books of fiction. His latest book, Leaving the Sea: Stories, was published by Alfred A. Knopf in January 2014...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionAuthor
CountryUnited States of America
grief bigs dose
I like big doses of grief when I read: Richard Yates, Flannery O'Connor, Kenzabaro Oe, Thomas Bernhard.
parent balance example
My parents showed me by example that they could balance their work and family lives.
wise art pain
RHETORIC The art of making life less believable; the calculated use of language, not to alarm but to do full harm to our busy minds and properly dispose our listeners to a pain they have never dreamed of. The context of what can be known establishes that love and indifference are forms of language, but the wise addition of punctuation allows us to believe that there are other harms - the dash gives the reader the clear signal they are coming.
love like-being-alone dry
Being with him was like being alone underwater - everything was slow; nothing counted; I could not be harmed; I would feel dry and cold when I resurfaced.
self body sometimes
A self needed to spill out sometimes, a body should show evidence of what the hell went on inside it.
children fiction faces
Fiction becomes a place where I face certain fears such as losing language or losing my children.
writing emotional levels
When I started writing at 18 or 19, I had a fear of anything autobiographical, but I've come to realise that my writing is very autobiographical at the emotional level.
kids parent accountability
It amazes me that parents are allowed to raise kids. There's so much power and often very little accountability.
technology safe way
Spelling is a way to make words safe, at least for now, until another technology appears to soften attacks launched from the mouth.
long suspense care
Suspense left my life a long time ago, now it has returned. I do not care for it.
fiction complicated breaking-down
Fiction is too complicated and too elusive to break down into a set of tricks.
sorry impact lovely
Sorry, I said to myself, wondering how many times in my marriage I'd said that, how many times I'd meant it, how many times Claire had actually believed it, and, most important, how many times the utterance had any impact whatsoever on our dispute. What a lovely chart one could draw of this word Sorry.
passion track profound
In certain strains of Judaism, there's a profound passion for the ineffable. Contemplation of God is meant to be forever elusive, because, you know, our tiny minds can't possibly comprehend Him. If we find ourselves comprehending Him, then we can be sure we're off track.
embrace judaism complexity
Judaism to me, as badly as I practiced it, what I've always loved about it was its total embrace of complexity, its admission of unknowability.