Box Nine by
Jack O'Connell
pbk out November 98
(No Exit Press)
at £6.99
'Lenore thinks that no one, not even Ike (her brother), has any idea how strange she really is. But she's always known it.' She's into speed, Heavy Metal, rough sex, and guns. And she's a narcotics detective up against the drug Barons in a depressed New England factory town called Quinsigamond.
Jack O'Connell's novel was first published in the States in 1992, where it received much deserved acclaim. This edition, by No Exit Press, now makes it available to British readers. The writing is dense and ironic, shifting easily between the horrifying and the hilarious.
There is a new drug on the street, called Lingo. You take this little red pill and you get a phenomenal increase in linguistic ability and comprehension. Verbal skills are compared to the tongues of fire on the day of Pentecost. This is followed by a stunning erotic high, a sexual euphoria, which regresses to a paranoia that goes beyond the borders of schizophrenia and becomes homicidal rage.
A second Jack O'Connell emerged during my reading of this novel. A writers writer. A man deeply engrossed in the practise of language, someone who refuses to be compromised by the exigencies of plot, and who, as a result of his commitment, achieves something hugely original.
This is not a book for the squeamish, or for those who like their reading matter to be without challenge. But it is a good book, even a great book, which leaves the reader with a unique picture of the desolation of our times.
(
John Baker
- author of the Sam Turner mysteries and one of Britain's most highly acclaimed writers)
Box Nine by
Jack O'Connell