The Loudest Place on Earth
A Novel
Conjuring a version of New York City that is as magical as the fairy world beneath it, The Loudest Place on Earth is an amusing fantasy novel.
In Ken Ziegler’s rollicking fantasy novel The Loudest Place on Earth, New York’s “most comfortable man” is tasked with helping a powerful being in the fairy underworld retake the city they used to dominate.
Ludwig, a misanthropic slacker, lives in a filthy basement apartment. After he loses his job, he decides he would rather continue to drink margaritas in his sweatpants than find a new gig. A new gig finds him anyway: Lonesome Johnny, a talkative fairy’s servant with a bucket for a head, invites Ludwig into the underground world, where he escaped from the growing noise of New York City long ago.
In the underground, Ludwig meets a fairy matriarch, whose runaway enchantment has been making only Ludwig hear the people of New York say the word “muumbazza” in the place of other words, though the people have no recollection of saying it. The fairy hires Ludwig to seek out such distortions in reality so that she may better control her enchantment over the city. In exchange, she gives him a pig who defecates rubies.
In his antihero role, unlikable but engaging Ludwig is driven by convenience, vengeance, and alcohol; his propensity for seeking easy ways out leads to deeper troubles. His resistance to change is a source of both frustration and amusement in the book’s progression: He runs from his responsibility to the fairy matriarch by starting an athleisure clothing company, hiring his yuppie friends even though they stole a previous company idea from him, for instance. Still, while the scenario is rife with puns and situational comedy, Ludwig’s random bursts of ambition are both a figurative and a literal diversion from the main plot of the story. It is not until “muumbazza” replaces all language that Ludwig feels a sense of urgency to return to his quest.
In comparison to Ludwig’s, the other characterizations rest in caricatures, though. Ludwig’s friends and colleagues exemplify greed and selfishness; the subplots devoted to them are few but distracting. The exception is Lonesome Johnny, whose chattiness and loyalty are endearing. Still, Ludwig’s conversations with others are winding and heavy on humor for humor’s sake; they slow the plot’s progression, as calls to action get lost in the chatter.
However, the novel’s eloquent descriptive language verges on poetic. An “incontinent faucet,” the rumbling of the L train, high-rise penthouses contrasting with dank half-underground studios, a woman who is “more like fog than a receptionist,” and snowflakes “waltz[ing] down from depleted clouds” conjure a New York City that is as magical as the fairy world beneath it. The robust, if zany, worldbuilding bolsters the mystique of the setting, with the fairy matriarch’s magic growing quirkier as the story progresses; seeming inconsistencies concerning her magic’s reach are explained after the fact for the purposes of bewildering the bumbling Ludwig. And despite the story’s meandering nature, it reaches a satisfying conclusion that represents some contentment for Ludwig.
A wild, kaleidoscopic fantasy novel marked by eccentric magic, The Loudest Place on Earth is about combating the overwhelming noise of big-city life.
Reviewed by
Aimee Jodoin
Disclosure: This article is not an endorsement, but a review. The publisher of this book provided free copies of the book and paid a small fee to have their book reviewed by a professional reviewer. Foreword Reviews and Clarion Reviews make no guarantee that the publisher will receive a positive review. Foreword Magazine, Inc. is disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255.
