u003cbu003e"An unabashedly smart and affecting portrait of the strains of a marriage." --Ayana Mathis, author of u003ciu003eThe Twelve Tribes of Hattie u003c/iu003e u003cpu003eMeet Ivan and Prue: a married couple - both experts in language and communication - who nevertheless cannot seem to communicate with each otheru003c/bu003e u003cpu003eIvan is a tightly wound philosophy professor whose reverence for logic and order governs not only his academic interests, but also his closest relationships. His wife, Prue, is quite the opposite: a pioneer in the emerging field of biolinguistics, she is bold and vibrant, full of life and feeling. Thus far, they have managed to weather their differences. But lately, an odd distance has settled in between them. Might it have something to do with the arrival of the college's dashing but insufferable new writer-in-residence, whose novel Prue always seems to be reading? u003cpu003eInto this delicate moment barrels Ivan's unstable father-in-law, Frank, in town to hear Prue deliver a lecture on birdsong that is set to cement her tenure application. But the talk doesn't go as planned, unleashing a series of crises that force Ivan to finally confront the problems in his marriage, and to begin to fight - at last - for what he holds dear. u003cpu003eA dazzlingly insightful and entertaining novel about the limitations of language, the fragility of love, and the ways we misunderstand each other and ourselves, u003ciu003eThe Study of Animal Languagesu003c/iu003e marks the debut of a brilliant new voice in fiction.