Apex Hides the Hurt

'Brilliant . . . Exhilarating . . . What keeps you reading this critique of language is its language, and our perverse delight in the ingenious abuse of words' New York TimesThe town of Winthrop has decided it needs a new name. The resident software millionaire wants to call it New Prospera; the mayor wants to return to the original choice of the founding black settlers; and the town's aristocracy sees no reason to change the name at all. What they need, they realize, is a nomenclature consultant. And, it turns out, the consultant needs them. But in a culture overwhelmed by marketing, the name is everything and our hero's efforts may result in not just a new name for the town but a new and subtler truth about it as well.