The Study of Animal Languages
| Author | Stern, Lindsay |
|---|---|
| Year | 2019 |
| First published | 2019 |
| Publisher | New York et al: Viking |
| Number of pages | 249 |
| Edition | First US Hardcover |
| ISBN | 9780525557432 |
| Keywords | literary or mainstream, humor, satire, cognitive science, biology, zoology, ambition/recognition of scientists, scientific method, female scientist, scientist main character, USA or Canada |
Abstract
Meet Ivan and Prue: a married couple - both experts in language and communication - who nevertheless cannot seem to communicate with each other
Ivan is a tightly wound philosophy professor whose reverence for logic and order governs not only his academic interests, but also his closest relationships. His wife, Prue, is quite the opposite: a pioneer in the emerging field of biolinguistics, she is bold and vibrant, full of life and feeling. Thus far, they have managed to weather their differences. But lately, an odd distance has settled 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 unstable father-in-law, Frank, in town to hear Prue deliver a lecture on birdsong that is set to cement her tenure application. But the talk doesn't go as planned, unleashing 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… (Publisher)