A novel of startling intelligence, wit, and originality that follows a philosophy professor over the course of a single week as he struggles to save his foundering marriage--and, in the process, himself

Introduction

Ivan and Prue are a married couple who teach at the same New England liberal arts college. Their similarities end there. While Ivan's reverence for logic and order governs not only his interest in philosophy, but also his closest relationships, his wife, Prue, is much the opposite. A biologist and pioneer in the study of animal languages, she is young and beautiful, full of life and feeling. Thus far, thanks to their passion for one another and mutual love of intellectual sparring, they have managed to weather their differences. But recently, Ivan has felt an odd distance settle in between them. Might it have something to do with the arrival of the college's dashing but insufferable new writer-in-residence, whose novel Prue always seems to be reading?

Into this delicate moment barrels Ivan's mentally unstable father-in-law, Frank, in town to hear Prue deliver a lecture on birdsong that is set to cement her tenure application. When the lecture doesn't go as planned, it triggers a series of crises that force Ivan to finally confront the problems in his marriage, and to begin to fight - at last - for what he holds dear.

A dazzlingly insightful and entertaining novel about the limitations of language, the fragility of love, and the ways we misunderstand each other and ourselves, The Study of Animal Languages marks the debut of a brilliant new voice in fiction.