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The Children Are Kidnapped by February |
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Shane Jones was born in Albany, New York, the first child of Marcia and Dennis Jones. Educated at Buffalo University, he studied with Robert Creeley, Charles Bernstein and Susan Howe. He is the author of the short collections Maybe Tomorrow and I Will Unfold You With My Hairy Hands. Work has appeared widely online and in print. Publishing Genius Press just published LIGHT BOXES, of which Deb Olin Unferth says, "Shane Jones's startlingly imaginative voice is like some winged thing . . . Light Boxes is a beautiful, heartful work." And Time Out Chicago calls it a "fever dream fable." I met Shane in Baltimore, where he gave a beautiful reading at the 510 Readings, but waited until he returned to Albany to ask him these questions. * Michael Kimball: Let's start at the start. Where did LIGHT BOXES come from? Did you have an idea about a town of balloonists or a war against February? Or did you have a piece of writing, a voice, that was concerned with sadness? Or was it something else entirely? Shane Jones: That's a good first question. One main happening that sparked the book was when I stumbled upon a biography of a man named Thaddeus Lowe in a bookstore, who turns out to be the main character in LIGHT BOXES. Lowe was this really wild guy who was obsessed with flying balloons. During the Civil War he used the hot air balloon to do surveillance on the south and started something called The National Balloon Corps. He earned the reputation of the "most shot at man during the Civil War." It's an insane story -- the idea of this man in a balloon over Civil War fields being shot at. He also created a gigantic balloon called the City of New York, which was so big that enough gas couldn't be pumped into it to lift it up. When I read this I thought there was a really magical quality to his life and story and also the reality of the Civil War created this interesting juxtaposition. I think that's when the world started opening up for me and once I started writing the first few sections, it just took off. The idea of February started as a satire of sorts on people always complaining in the Northeast about the month of February being such a terrible, cold, dark month. The end of the story, on what February is, is a combination of things, including Flaubert's proclamation after writing Madame Bovary. So Thaddeus Lowe, real person, becomes thrown into this world of February, both very imaginative and real, and very fun for me to write. Kimball: One of the fun things about reading LIGHT BOXES is the obvious fun that you seem to have had writing it. I just flipped the book open to look for a passage and am going with the first one I looked at, Page 20, "Professor" -- there are phrases like "nightly umbrella effect" and sentences like "The children exploded in piles of corduroy leaves." What parts were the most fun for you to write? Jones: What was most fun about writing the book was the world itself and anytime I got bored I just switched narrators and went on to a different part. The book in the form it is now doesn't really represent how it was written. I jumped around quite a bit, which was fun. For me, it's really important I keep surprising myself and hope that it will also surprise readers. So, anytime I was bored, I would just end a section and move on or have my imagination run off in a different way that made me happy. As far as specific parts that were the most fun, I'd have to say some of the more dream-like sequences, or moments when things tend to branch off in these kind of intense images were the most fun. For example, the children being kidnapped by February and then building the underground tunnels, was very exciting for me. Kimball: The first thing I told Adam Robinson (the genius behind Publishing Genius) about LIGHT BOXES is that it kept surprising me. The conceit, so to speak, that a town of balloonists could wage war against February in an attempt to cope with sadness takes the narrative into all kinds of surprising language. And there are surprising images like dead bees pouring from the sky and a body covered with text. This next question doesn't really have anything to do with that, though. Tell me: Can we think of LIGHT BOXES as a new kind of mythology for Upstate New York? Jones: I like the idea of the book being a new kind of myth for Upstate New York, but that also kind of labels it as a regional novel. After writing the book I thought about the question "How is someone going to read this who has lived their whole life in Austin, Texas, as opposed to say Burlington, Vermont?" In the Northeast, February has a certain kind of feel to it. It's in this month that people start saying things like "can't wait for spring" and "I'm sick of winter." Typically, it's a very gray and cold month. A writer I use to talk to a lot, who lived in western New York, once used the term "The February Fuck-Its" because in February you tend to just say "fuck it" to everything you have to do. On a personal level, February is when I go through a bit of a depression. I always get a cold for about a week or two. There's nothing for me to like about February. I guess I don't really know how to answer your question. I think it's a new myth, sure. It's also a war novel, a satire (on people who complain about winter), a love story, a mystery, a fantasy, a fable, etc. I think it's a lot of things. Kimball: I like that LIGHT BOXES is a lot of different things. I'm not trying to limit LIGHT BOXES in any way. I just think it's an interesting way to think about the book and I like to say Upstate. I also like to think about the novel as a way to overcome sadness, that the characters take action as a way to overcome sadness, so it's maybe a therapeutic novel too. And it could also be read as an argument for community. I don't really have a question here. What should I be asking you? Jones: I feel like I'm fucking up this interview. I wonder if it's possible to do that. I know what you mean, and I agree that's an interesting idea to see the book as that. If people said it was a new myth, that would be great. I would be pleased. And yes, it can also be seen as a way to overcome sadness. Nothing specific really, but there's something terribly hopeful about the book. I'm glad you mentioned the community aspect of the book, that's an aspect that is very important. A big part of the book is how the community functions and comes together. There's something really pastoral and colloquial about it. Where my parents live, Clifton Park, New York, everyone talks about how great it is there. It's basically a bunch of strip malls and chain restaurants and nice houses. But there's no community whatsoever. A great example of the lack of the community, and I think this applies to a lot of places, is when my parents' van broke down about 3 miles from their home. They had no one to call. No friends. Didn't feel comfortable asking someone for a ride, etc. They, with my little sister, walked home. This, I see as a complete lack of a community. The framework of LIGHT BOXES is built on the strength of the community. Kimball: It's not possible to fuck up this interview. Regardless of what you say, I will keep asking you questions that will make people think nice things about you and about LIGHT BOXES. For instance, as Ken Baumann has observed, there is a compassionate quality that inhabits LIGHT BOXES. Could you talk about that? Jones: I'd like to think I'm a compassionate person and in my characters I try not to do "bad" things that I wouldn't normally do. That's to say, I don't want to make my characters worse people. I want them to be good people, even if they are seen as the "villain" like February is in the book. I think by the end of the book you feel some compassion for February. I think all the characters in the book are compassionate people and it's that compassion that bands them together. Kimball: The book you have coming out with Fugue State, do any of the qualities that we've been discussing show up in THE FAILURE SIX? Jones: Absolutely. I think THE FAILURE SIX lacks the fantasy element that LIGHT BOXES has. It's more about storytelling and the success and failure of telling stories. It's a trapdoor of a book with many beginnings and endings, and overall, no beginning and no end. It will include box drawings of the six characters, very much like the drawings for Lewis Carroll's THE HUNTING OF THE SNARK. The book should be read by candle light in a Victorian brownstone. Kimball: I bought a Victorian brownstone years ago so that I would be ready. Tell me, where should LIGHT BOXES be read?
Jones: What an easy and obvious question. LIGHT BOXES should be read in a cottage at the edge of town, where the forest begins. It will be very cold outside but you'll have a fire going and a kettle of hot tea on the stove. Your wife should be making a roast. You should sit in the corner of the cottage's largest room with the book held close, a lantern on the floor next to your left frostbitten leg. |
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