May 25th, 2010 / 10:06 pm
Uncategorized

Light Boxes Redux

I reviewed Light Boxes back in February, 2009. In honor of the official US release day of the Penguin presentation, here are those words, slightly altered and here again:

I feel it’s hard today to find a work of art that is earnest, that is compassionate. (Michael Kimball’s Dear Everybody comes to mind). I was startled by Shane Jones’s novel because it is so painfully both; it bleeds itself, and bleeds for others.

Light Boxes is a story about a community, about a man’s quest to rid his community of February, a bitter and long spell of cold that haunts the the town and its people. I don’t want to speak explicitly of the ‘narrative’ here, only because I think there is magic in discovery; it’s a sensual work. Many of the images affected me viscerally, and will stay with me for a long time. Dead bees pour from the sky, a broken father sits in the middle of a snow-covered street, a body surfaces in a river covered in text… I could list all the beautiful and often tragic images contained within for awhile.

To go deeper: The people in Light Boxes breathe true. I felt them living and felt them dying. They seem warm, hot & cold all at once, much like the seasons that surround them. The story also functions on a level outside its own prison, outside the printed page, but, again: I’d like to keep quiet. I’d like you to discover the layers and try to keep warm yourself.

Shane has crafted a fine myth, one I hope lasts for a very long time.

Buy and read Light Boxes.

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5 Comments

  1. darby

      i bought this at bordrs today. it was actually at borders, i was surprised. it wasnt at the new books table but there were three spines in the general fiction, so i moved one over to the new table and bought one of the three. i did this due to left work early and went to a bar and drank some beers and read half of it. the cover really gives it an interesting visual reference now, which wasn’t there when i read it year(s?) ago. i felt it more this time for some reason. maybe the beer. federer won on the tv while i was there. i thought about leaving the book as a tip. i didnt, i took it home because i wanted it.

  2. isaac estep

      I was in Chad Simpson’s fiction workshop class at Knox college last may and he recommended this book to me. I lost the piece of paper I wrote it on and got it confused with shadow boxes. But with this repost I can find it.

  3. darby

      i bought this at bordrs today. it was actually at borders, i was surprised. it wasnt at the new books table but there were three spines in the general fiction, so i moved one over to the new table and bought one of the three. i did this due to left work early and went to a bar and drank some beers and read half of it. the cover really gives it an interesting visual reference now, which wasn’t there when i read it year(s?) ago. i felt it more this time for some reason. maybe the beer. federer won on the tv while i was there. i thought about leaving the book as a tip. i didnt, i took it home because i wanted it.

  4. isaac estep

      I was in Chad Simpson’s fiction workshop class at Knox college last may and he recommended this book to me. I lost the piece of paper I wrote it on and got it confused with shadow boxes. But with this repost I can find it.

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