Light Boxes
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Product Description
Product Description
February is persecuting the townspeople. It has been winter for more than three hundred days. All forms of flight are banned and the children have started to disappear, taken from their beds in the middle of the night. The priests hang ominous sheets of parchment on the trees, signed 'February'. And somewhere on the outskirts of the town lives February himself, with the girl who smells of honey and smoke...
In short bursts of intensely poetic language, this beautifully strange and otherworldly first novel tells the story of the people in the town and their efforts to combat the mysterious spectre of February. Steeped in visual imagery, this is a hauntingly enigmatic modern fairy tale - in which nothing is as it seems.
About the Author
Shane Jones, born 1980, has published stories and poems widely online and in print. This is his first novel. He lives in upstate New York.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
In an unnamed town, where you soon learn things are not what they seem, February has taken over and flight has been banned. For over 300 days the town has been in perpetual winter, children are going missing or killing owls and villagers who rebel are being found in the woods dead their broken jaws filled with snow (one of the images that haunts me still), leaving the people with no other option than to start a war with February whatever shape it may take. Our would be hero of the hour is Thaddeus, a balloonist, whose daughter goes missing one night leaving only a bed filled with snow and teeth.
In some ways it's a thriller, you want to know who, why and what February actually is with many twists along the way. In some ways it has elements of science fiction. In the main with its ghosts, secret underground worlds, moss that can eat anything slowly from the feet up, and endless impossible possibilities its an adult fairytale (I don't think I would let young children read it) where anything can and often does happen though it tends to be the things you least expect. In others ways it's a fable, and a tale of hope.
The film rights for this book have already been sold and, for once, it's actually a book I am looking forward to seeing on the big screen because it's written so visually. I found that, though I might be the only one, the book with its short chapters was in some ways like a series of wonderful slightly abstract watercolours that left imprints on your mind for some time after you had read each snap shot. It is of course all down to Jones wonderful writing that this is the case I did also wonder if the fact it is also written in first, second and third person adds to it. You can't help thinking that whoever designed this book added to the magic of it all. After all it has six different fonts in several sizes and is written with a sentence on one page, maybe a list on another, maybe just a paragraph or a full three page chapter (for that's as long as they get), though this could be the authors doing of course. Either way it's a magical book that's very visual without being illustrated which for a debut novel I find quite incredible.
I could sum up Shane Jones debut novel `Light Boxes' in one sentence. An adult fairytale filled with surreal magical feel that pulls the reader into another reality. Really its just a marvellous escapist read that's darkly beautiful and will leave you thinking of it for days.
In some ways it's a thriller, you want to know who, why and what February actually is with many twists along the way. In some ways it has elements of science fiction. In the main with its ghosts, secret underground worlds, moss that can eat anything slowly from the feet up, and endless impossible possibilities its an adult fairytale (I don't think I would let young children read it) where anything can and often does happen though it tends to be the things you least expect. In others ways it's a fable, and a tale of hope.
The film rights for this book have already been sold and, for once, it's actually a book I am looking forward to seeing on the big screen because it's written so visually. I found that, though I might be the only one, the book with its short chapters was in some ways like a series of wonderful slightly abstract watercolours that left imprints on your mind for some time after you had read each snap shot. It is of course all down to Jones wonderful writing that this is the case I did also wonder if the fact it is also written in first, second and third person adds to it. You can't help thinking that whoever designed this book added to the magic of it all. After all it has six different fonts in several sizes and is written with a sentence on one page, maybe a list on another, maybe just a paragraph or a full three page chapter (for that's as long as they get), though this could be the authors doing of course. Either way it's a magical book that's very visual without being illustrated which for a debut novel I find quite incredible.
I could sum up Shane Jones debut novel `Light Boxes' in one sentence. An adult fairytale filled with surreal magical feel that pulls the reader into another reality. Really its just a marvellous escapist read that's darkly beautiful and will leave you thinking of it for days.
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
You will have to go a long way to find a more magical and quirky novella than `Light Boxes'. Set in a far off land, as all good fairy stories should be, the balloon-loving residents suffer a ban on all forms of flight. But the culprit is not some unpronounceable Icelandic volcano, but rather February. And this February - who takes both the form of a person and a season - has lasted for more than three hundred days. And if that wasn't bad enough, he has also started making children disappear. One man, Thaddeus Lowe, is determined to do something about it.
There's a great sense of dark beauty in this little book - and it is little, both in number of pages and its pocket sized format. It's absolutely full of vibrant imagery that is both surreal and ethereal. It's no surprise that Shane Jones is also a poet as this book sits somewhere between poetry and novella. Yes, it does have a plot, but the experience of reading it is strangely one of looking at a picture book in that each short chapter (usually only a page or two) paints a vibrant image, some of which are beautiful, some scary and gruesome and some just plain weird.
It's also full of images of childhood fantasies and literature. So we have balloons, kites, secret passages, ghosts, lanterns, parchment messages and cups of mint tea. On top of that, you've got the personification of February and his wife, the beautifully named `girl who smells of honey and smoke' as well as a mysterious group of balloonists called `The Solution' who go around wearing masks.
Jones uses a variety of typefaces and fonts to tell his story which is told from a variety of first person narrators and a third party narrator. So shouts are in large bold type while whispers are in minuscule font sizes. It all adds to the highly visual sense that this story creates.
I would suggest that it's a book best read in one sitting which is not hard to do. More imaginative older children may well find it interesting - but keep your fingers crossed that they don't ask you to explain any of it! It's certainly an adult book - just very much on the magical end of the magical realism spectrum. Think Gabriel Garcia Marquez. In fact there is at least one part that strongly reminded me of One Hundred Years of Solitude in its imagery.
Incidentally, there was a real life Thaddeus Lowe who was a pioneering balloonist-spy in the American Civil War.
It's a book that shows a deep sympathy for humanity and I can see it being a cult hit. It's well worth checking out.
There's a great sense of dark beauty in this little book - and it is little, both in number of pages and its pocket sized format. It's absolutely full of vibrant imagery that is both surreal and ethereal. It's no surprise that Shane Jones is also a poet as this book sits somewhere between poetry and novella. Yes, it does have a plot, but the experience of reading it is strangely one of looking at a picture book in that each short chapter (usually only a page or two) paints a vibrant image, some of which are beautiful, some scary and gruesome and some just plain weird.
It's also full of images of childhood fantasies and literature. So we have balloons, kites, secret passages, ghosts, lanterns, parchment messages and cups of mint tea. On top of that, you've got the personification of February and his wife, the beautifully named `girl who smells of honey and smoke' as well as a mysterious group of balloonists called `The Solution' who go around wearing masks.
Jones uses a variety of typefaces and fonts to tell his story which is told from a variety of first person narrators and a third party narrator. So shouts are in large bold type while whispers are in minuscule font sizes. It all adds to the highly visual sense that this story creates.
I would suggest that it's a book best read in one sitting which is not hard to do. More imaginative older children may well find it interesting - but keep your fingers crossed that they don't ask you to explain any of it! It's certainly an adult book - just very much on the magical end of the magical realism spectrum. Think Gabriel Garcia Marquez. In fact there is at least one part that strongly reminded me of One Hundred Years of Solitude in its imagery.
Incidentally, there was a real life Thaddeus Lowe who was a pioneering balloonist-spy in the American Civil War.
It's a book that shows a deep sympathy for humanity and I can see it being a cult hit. It's well worth checking out.
Format:Kindle Edition
There is no point trying to describe this book as it is so beyond words...beautifully worded and compelling in its brevity. I simply cannot tell you how much I loved it, I read a huge number of books and suffice to sa this is one of the very, very best. Mind blowing.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
Weird book
This book was very strange. It reminded me of the film "The Yellow Submarine", all psychedelic imagery and not much of a plot. But this book lacked a killer soundtrack as well.
Published 7 months ago by beth
Dark, deep and abstractly beautiful
First of all, this is a small book in almost every sense. It is not overly long, chapters are also short and the book itself is almost pocket size. Read more
Published 11 months ago by Ms. Emma Murray
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