The Boy in the Box

Nelson's brilliant novel reveals itself to be a contemplation on society and existentialism...The plot delves into myriad issues-personal responsibility, the idea of community, perception vs. reality, differences of perspective, free will vs. destiny-without preaching about any of them....Nelson's writing is simple and stark, not unlike that of Kafka or that other great existentialist-novelist, Albert Camus...Satisfying...The Boy in the Box is above all else one man's pondering what it means to be human. -- Steve Greenlee * The Boston Globe *
AsThe Boy in the Box cuts a paranoid arc through a superficially mundane New York, it also hauls aboard, for one, Joseph Heller, in Smith's hilarious but frightening encounter with a couple of cops...who call to mindCatch 22....Not to mention Philip K. Dick...and Jorge Luis Borges...Throughout, first-time novelist Nelson speaks with his own assured and wonderfully askew voice in what becomes a dizzying, disorienting and shockingly entertaining meditation on the nature of reality and the concept of free will. -- Arthur Salm * The San Diego Tribune(Also Printedthe Florida Newsp *
A sort of AmericanCandide....Nelson does evoke the strangeness of being alone in a new city. In the end he makes the reader realize that the book is the box, and Smith is the boy in it-or maybe you are. Recommended. * Library Journal *
The reader empathizes with Smith for the apparent heartlessness, fear, and unfriendliness of New Yorkers....Nelson has created a wonderfully realistic world....The allusion to Franz Kafka is evident, but Mr. Nelson has a theme and style all his own as the reader is drawn ever tighter into the concentric circles moving not inward, but outward into the unknown. -- Corinna Lothar * The Washington Times *
A Kafka-laced concoction full of jarring, calibrated effects, for those who take their fiction dry and chilled. * Kirkus *
Kafkaesque...a shadowplay in a mirror, a metaphor. -- Whitney Scott * Booklist, (American Library Association) *
[Nelson] plays a cagey, Kafkaesque cat-and-mouse game with reality and illusion...[and] manages to make the book work on two levels, sustaining his thin plot while developing enough mysterious atmosphere to lend events a more surreal significance....Nelson creates an edgy, compelling world that will remind readers of Paul Auster and cartoonist Ben Katchor. * Publishers Weekly *
Nelson has constructed a strangely telescoped panorama of urban life....[His] characters seem peculiar yet tangible...The Boy in the Box is a smooth, if puzzling, read. Nelson's stripped-down prose belies the complexity of his odd tale. -- Elisa Ludwig * The Philadelphia Inquirer *
Like Kafka'sThe Trial or Beckett'sWaiting for Godot, this novel is a deceptively straightforward puzzler that yields no certain solution....As absorbing as the narrative itself are Smith's ruminations as he emerges from each new encounter. -- Edward Morris * Foreword Reviews *
A harrowing and deftly written mystery....A strongly recommended, darkly suspenseful novel. -- James A. Cox * Midwest Book Review *
The Boy in the Box is an intriguing, well-crafted novel which reveals itself like a perfect box, within a box, within a box....I read it as if unwrapping a series of puzzling gifts, and only at the end, upon unwrapping the last one, did I fully understand what I received-and realized that I got what I wanted. -- Jack Gantos, 1998 National Book Award nominee
Eerie, surreal, timely,The Boy in the Box will haunt you long after you have closed its cover. Nelson has written a novel that echoes Ionesco, Kafka, Camus, and Marx (as in Groucho, that is). It is as strange and unsettling as our times. -- Robin Hathaway, author of The Doctor
The Boy in the Box is deliciously disquieting and as thought-provoking as a Zen riddle. With lean, vibrant prose, Lee J. Nelson takes his protagonist and the reader on a search for elusive answers that is both entertaining and insightful. The New York backdrop is skillfully drawn. -- Michael Biehl, author of Doctored Evidence