Winner of the 2022 Permafrost Prize in NonfictionA Dictionary of Modern Consternation is a genre-bending nonfiction lyric following one family through the years from the financial crisis to the COVID-19 pandemic. In this cheeky dictionary-shaped exploration of how language can often alienate and dehumanize, weakening feelings of community with societal trends that subsume individual lives, Brook McClurg offers a footnote narrative of an international life pursuing the business of words. What starts as a lighthearted academic exploration becomes real when the pandemic hits—at the letter P—and the ability to treat each other humanely suddenly has grave consequences. Questioning the ways specialized jargon in language—often corporate, legal, and militaristic in nature—encroaches on our feelings of community and responsibility to one another, McClurg employs an abecedarian format, concealing his meaningful and sensitive explorations of personal strife inside a more formal facade. A Dictionary of Modern Consternation reveals its subjective viewpoint and ironic tone over the course of the text, confronting themes of loneliness and isolation, global strife and endless war, and intimacy, love, and family. With approximately 500 satirical dictionary entries and 143 flash essays as footnotes, this experimental memoir is filled with satirical definitions, pseudo-aphorisms, and inquisitions into words or phrases. A Dictionary of Modern Consternation is for general readers, collectors, book-as-art lovers, and anyone interested in the political economy of language, as well as graduate classes exploring experimental forms.
