Short shrift to dumbing down - an interview with Ben Marcus

American short story writer Ben Marcus tells JP O’Malley that it’s important to learn from tradition but that it’s also important to redefine it.

BEN MARCUS has a precarious relationship with words. Essentially, he mistrusts them.

‘The Father Costume’, a story from his latest book Leaving The Sea delineates this suspicion. Here, the narrator begins by telling us that he cannot proclaim his father’s name aloud. He then explains why: “I do not know the grammatical tense that could properly remark on my father. There is a portion of my time that my own language cannot reach. A limitation, probably in my mouth. In this portion of time is where my father is hidden. If I learn a new language, my father might come true.”