Over the thanksgiving holiday, I finished my book too soon and wanted something I could read on the plane. I found this gonzo mystery, set in a version of my home town-- the very place where I was spending the holiday-- in a used book store and got a lot more enjoyment out of it than I might have guessed.Akong the tangents the story explores, there's the presence of a new street drug, lingo, which is like crack for the speech areas of the brain, a brother and sister who have their own unique communication problems, weirdness among the staff at the post office, and an exploration of the wages and intelligences of the local crime organization. Throughout, it never quite settles into being a procedural, which I think is very much to its credit, though as a result, there are plot threads that I couldn't piece together in the end, like who killed the mayor's mole? But there are sequels, I guess, so maybe some of those ideas are addressed there?Because really, this wants to be a novel of ideas, and strange ones at that. It's much more hallucinatory than say, Auster's crime fiction, but not as neon -lit Lethem's noirs (Gun with occasional music, mostly) either. I struggled to find an adequate comparison-- it's trashy without that being redeeming, but it also never feels like it's slumming: it's just where it needs to be to tell the story O'Connell set out to tell. A strange and wonderful artifact of a mind that buzzes on a strange frequency.
Originally published in 1992, BOX NINE remains as compelling and vital as the day it was first released. The book introduces readers to Quinsigamond, a a depressed New England factory down seething with violence and corruption that serves as the setting for O'Connell's next five novels. In this classic noir thriller, O'Connell creates one of his most memorable characters: Detective Leonore Thomas, an undercover officer "addicted to speed, rough sex, heavy metal and her gun." Sounds like my kind of woman. But Thomas is no two dimensional caricature; she is one of noir fiction's most interesting personalities.But perhaps the most compelling aspect of Box Nine is Lingo, a powerful new drug that acts on the brain's language centers. Its not just that Lingo makes for a hip new street drug; its unique relation to language allows O'Connell to explore the very nature of words and communication. The introduction of Lingo, and its attendant psychological and philosophical discussions, elevate this BOX NINE beyond mere genre fiction and into the realm of classic fiction.
Do You like book Box Nine (1998)?
Interesting experimental noir fiction that really strives to transcend the usual genre tropes and has some big ideas but ultimately is let down by a trite ending and a resolution while, tying up all the strings neatly, I think was a little *too* pat and resolves all the plot points without fully realizing the potential of the strong undercurrent of ideas regarding language and the power of words. I'd be interested to check out Word Made Flesh, which I hear amongst the books in this Quinsigamond series is the most fully developed and really pulls together a lot of the ideas that Jack O'Connell is playing with. I do enjoy books like these (similar to Pontypool Changes Everything, another book that's on my radar that I haven't gotten around to yet) that really play with words and the destructive power of language in a different way. I would suggest to anyone that's interested in the theme of transformative art.
—Leslee
