OUT OF THE LOUD HOUND OF DARKNESS

Hard on the heels of her widely praised Tom Wings and Faux Pas (one of the Los Angeles Times Book Review's Best Books of 1997), Karen Elizabeth Gordon continues her darkly humorous and wildly imaginative romp through the landscape of language and her mythically gothic Balkan world, a howling terrain and cast of sassy, eerie characters.

Through this droll and spellbinding narrative, with its royal riffraff, brigands, nefarious beasts, cutthroat capitalists, cross-dressing cowboys, and come-hither heroines, and with the help of such eccentric language authorities as Startling Glower, Gordon clarifies the mysteries of language usage, focusing on the meanings of words that look alike or that aren't as interchangeable as we assume them to be. A thrilling companion lexicon of unusual words continues the tales and inspire anyone's vocabulary. All the while war, power, and celebrity cults are treated with satirical wit and insight.

With Out of the Loud Hound of Darkness, Karen Elizabeth Gordon once again lures her readers into the intricacies and pleasures of language through a brooding, hilarious fabric of fiction.