Lexicon
Max Barry
At an exclusive school somewhere outside of Arlington, Virginia, students aren't taught history, geography, or mathematics, at least not in the usual ways. Instead, they are taught to persuade. Here the art of coercion has been raised to a science. Students harness the hidden power of language to manipulate the mind and learn to break down individuals by psychographic markers in order to take control of their thoughts. The very best will graduate as poets: adept wielders of language who belong to a nameless organization that is as influential as it is secretive.
"A dark, dystopic grabber in which words are treated as weapons, and the villainous types have literary figures' names. Plath, Yeats, Eliot and Woolf all figure in this ambitious, linguistics-minded work of futurism."
Janet Maslin, New York Times
"Imagine, if you will, a secret group of people called Poets who have the power to control others simply by speaking to them. Barry has, and the result is an extraordinarily fast, funny, cerebral thriller."
Time Magazine
"[A] speedy, clever, dialogue-rich thriller."
Salon
"About as close you can get to the perfect cerebral thriller: searingly smart, ridiculously funny, and fast as hell. Lexicon reads like Elmore Leonard high out of his mind on Snow Crash."
Lev Grossman, New York Times bestselling author of The Magicians and The Magician King
