The Power and Value of Language

The power of language to both destroy and build hope plays a central role in shaping plot and character throughout the book. In terms of the former, language becomes the means of transmitting what amounts to a plague that destroys lives and families – language as a deadly virus, with no fully effective treatment and no cure. In terms of the latter, both the use of language and research into new and different uses become tools in which the characters, and protagonist Samuel in particular, attempt to combat the effects of language-as-toxin.

Both aspects of language, as poison and antidote, tend to appear in tandem and in conflict. In the book’s opening section, for example, even as he and his wife are fleeing the lethally toxic environment of their home, an environment generated and perpetuated by the language of their viciously...