Cess: A Spokening

A list. What could be more basic than a list? And a list by Lish is sure to intrigue. In this, Lish's latest work, he delivers a characteristic exhibition of his peculiar deformities of candor, obsession, and wit, via two extended "notes" to the reader, including a pages-long list of essential but perplexing words. Amidst this stream of apparent incongruities, the alert reader will discover an accruing narrative involving the narrator's late, beloved Aunt Adele—a medal-bedecked spy for the National Reconnaissance Office—and cryptography, love, poetry, and of course: the nature of language.