Crystal Eaters

Crystal Eaters

<div><p>"Jones demonstrates a tightrope-like eye for finagling between Pynchon-esque quasi-science-fictional feels and the books' physics, allowing almost anything to happen at any time, wrapped in a Wallace-like grip of childlike awe. The result is a novel that, paragraph to paragraph, is alive with imagination. <I>Crystal Eaters</I> is the rarest of kinds of objects, one that replenishes its readers' crystal counts by simply being read."<br>—<I>Vice</I><br><br>"A woozy, near-psychedelic story... Jones's writing is simultaneously lyrical and blunt; whimsy is tempered with bleakness and violence. <I>Crystal Eaters</I> is easily his most ambitious work to date."<br>—<I>Impose</I><br><br>"Jones has been bridging the magical and somewhat whimsical with stories that can resonate with anybody, and <I>Crystal Eaters</I> might be his most touching and best work to date."<br>—<I>Flavorwire</I><br><br>"<I>Crystal Eaters</I> is splattered with Technicolor crystal vomit and eye goo, with bodies leaking red, yellow, and blue; the sun wants to swallow the earth; and the indestructible city encroaches on the country like kudzu. This crystal mining country is Jones's own Yoknapatawpha County, a town with its own peculiar inhabitants and notions and schemes (such as a prison break in reverse). These fantastical trappings give way to deeper questions — about death, the nature of life, of what it takes to be remembered after you die."<br>—<I>The Millions</I><br><br>"Beautiful, crystalline...an admirably deep story that will wrench readers' hearts."<br>—<I>Time Out New York</I><br><br>"A powerful narrative that touches on the value of every human life, with a lyrical voice and layers of imagery and epiphany."<br>—<I>BuzzFeed</I><br><br>"<I>Crystal Eaters</I> is full of sentences that jump at you like a pop-up book, painting a world that is at some times painfully real, and at others an exercise in vivid hallucinations. Jones is pushing genres here, not unlike George Saunders or Karen Russell. <I>Crystal Eaters</I> grabs your face and pushes it up against a fantastic, sprawling, impressionistic painting of death and family." —<I>The Rumpus</I><br><br>"[<I>Crystal Eaters</I> is] a resonant piece of work... In Jones' world, a range of colors lives inside each person-in fact, that very rainbow gives the body its power, its life. And although death will one day drain those colors from each person, <I>Crystal Eaters</I> reminds us that life itself is a luminous thing." —<I>HTML Giant</I></p><p>Remy is a young girl who lives in a town that believes in crystal count: that you are born with one-hundred crystals inside and throughout your life, through accidents and illness, your count is depleted until you reach zero.</p><p>As a city encroaches daily on the village, threatening their antiquated life, and the Earth grows warmer, Remy sets out to accomplish something no one else has: to increase her sick mother's crystal count.</p><p>An allegory, fable, touching family saga, and poetic sci-fi adventure, Shane Jones underlines his reputation as an inspired and unique visionary.</p><p><B>Shane Jones</B>'s (b. 1980) first novel, <I>Light Boxes</I>, was originally published by Publishing Genius Press in a print run of five hundred copies in 2009. The novel was reviewed widely, the film optioned by Spike Jonze, and the book was reprinted by Penguin. <I>Light Boxes</I> has been translated in eight languages and was named an NPR best book of the year. Jones is also the author of the novels <I>Daniel Fights a Hurricane</I> and <I>The Failure Six</I>.</p><br></div>