Box Nine
by Jack O’Connell
Jack O’Connell’s debut novel, BOX NINE, was the winner of the Mysterious Press Discovery Prize when it was first published over thirty years ago. The first in a quartet of surreal noir novels set in the fictional city of Quinsigamond, BOX NINE won international acclaim and went on to become a cult classic.
Far ahead of its time in both style and plot, BOX NINE foresaw the deadly effects of a powerful narcotic that delivered unthinkable highs with ultimately deadly results.
The drug, called Lingo, is a cheaply manufactured pill that supercharges the brain’s language center, inducing confidence and sexual euphoria—with a side effect of murderous rage—along the way. It is tearing apart the town of Quinsigamond, a fading industrial center in the heart of Massachusetts.
Narcotics Detective Lenor Thomas, with a few addictions of her own, is waging war against the deadly new stimulant. Together with brilliant linguist Dr. Fredrick Woo, Lenor must stop the drug—if it doesn’t take hold of her first.
BOX NINE was followed by three other brilliant novels set in Quinsigamond—WIRLESS, THE SKIN PALACE, and WORD MADE FLESH, as well as his highly original noir novel, THE RESURRECTIONIST.
Sadly, O’Connell passed away in January 2024, leaving his brilliant work as a testament to his talent.
Praise for Box Nine:
Winner of the Mysterious Press Discovery Contest
for Best Debut Novel
“Without question, BOX NINE is one of the most stunningly
original first crime novels I have ever read. Jack O’Connell’s
vision is spellbinding; by turns hilarious and terrifying.”
—James Ellroy
“A surrealistic noir epic that’s part David Lynch and part Bret Easton Ellis.”
—Booklist, Starred Review
“Strong stuff, all right: O’Connell gets so deep inside his
small-town cast that it’s a relief to turn the last page.”
—Kirkus Reviews
“[A] masterful and hallucinatory debut.”
—Publisher’s Weekly
“O'Connell creates in his first novel a noir vision of a city that has
become a virtual war zone…this dark, disturbing book speaks
with a fine fury about the yearning for forbidden knowledge
and the language to articulate the mysteries it unlocks.”
—The New York Times
“The most electrifying debut crime novel that you are likely to read all year.”
—GQ Magazine
“A brilliant, wild, heartfelt novel. It seems, like all of
O’Connell’s work, at once to bear tribute to its
predecessors and to come out of nowhere, a stew
whose various lumps, gristles, fillers, and spices have
long since cooked down to a single, amazing richness.
O’Connell’s books are one of a kind — again and again.”
—The New York Times on THE RESURRECTIONIST
“It's a measure of O'Connell's immense talent that, while creating
his absolutely original and hyperbolic world, he also paints a striking
vision of the haunting ways in which life and art mirror each other.”
—Publisher’s Weekly on THE SKIN PALACE
“O'Connell's gift for building tension within a scene is equaled by
his ability to create wonderfully dark and elaborate stage sets upon
which to play out his dramas . . . [He] is wilder, edgier, more
far-ranging and extravagant than his fellow genre-jumpers.”
—The Boston Globe on THE RESURRECTIONIST
“Under the conventions of crime and punishment, O’Connell's
nightmarishly original vision of incarnation unflinchingly displays
the various of harrowing ways words can indeed be made flesh.”
—Kirkus Reviews on THE WORD MADE FLESH
“More like a Fellini film than a crime novel, this dense, illusory novel
will propel readers into a dreamlike state where images overlap,
reappear, and ultimately reconfigure into an altered reality.”
—Booklist on THE SKIN PALACE
“…You'll spend a long time on the road before finding
a more deeply imagined world than Bangkok Park.
O'Connell should apply for his own ZIP Code.”
—Kirkus Reviews on WIRELESS
"A bloody, Borgesian nightmare, Word Made Flesh exists at the
confluence of suspense, of horror, of roman and detective novel,
using all of these approaches and more to eviscerate the language
and reveal the Wormtown inside each one of us."
—Neil Gaiman on WORD MADE FLESH