In his most ambitious and accessible novel to date, cult hero Dennis Cooper invokes his unparalleled penchant for humanity’s darkest obsessions with a plot that perplexes, shocks, and tickles. A father raises a son in secret, isolating him from the outside world, and teaches him a secret language that only the two of them will know. Their coded tongue, called “the marbled swarm,” is part of a mystery of fatherhood, independence, and redemption that unfolds over the course of a dark and mesmerizing narrative—as the boy encounters hidden pathways, unsolved deaths, and a questionable history of how his father became the man he is.