num_pages: 289
description: A terrible epidemic has struck the country and the sound of childrens speech has become lethal. Radio transmissions from strange sources indicate that people are going into hiding. All Sam and Claire need to do is look around the neighborhood: In the park parents wither beneath the powerful screams of their children. At night suburban side streets become routes of shameful escape for fathers trying to get outside the radius of affliction. With Claire nearing collapse it seems their only means of survival is to flee from their daughter Esther who laughs at her parents sickness unaware that in just a few years she too will be susceptible to the language toxicity. But Sam and Claire find it isnt so easy to leave the daughter they still love even as they waste away from her malevolent speech. On the eve of their departure Claire mysteriously disappears and Sam determined to find a cure for this new toxic language presses on alone into a world beyond recognition.
language: English
title: The Flame Alphabet
publisher: Knopf