THE BOX

In a snowed-in city, a legend grows around a mysterious white box.

Wong’s experimental novel centers on a simple but enigmatic object, “a pocket-size box, dizzyingly woven all in white, tapestry-tight,” which only one person has ever been able to open. Various nameless narrators relate experiences they’ve had with the box. There are few scenes of immediate action, instead mostly complex anecdotes by people obsessed with the box’s history, as if the box is trying to “set the story free, dismembered and darkened by its own protagonists.” Wong deploys dense, theoretical wordplay instead of developing characters; much of the book is disorienting. “The counterfeit thing exists to bear the burden of this secret, the secret of its nonidentity,” says one character. “A thing isn’t for any of you; a thing is for itself. A thing’s real self is its secret self,” says another. There are references to a Seeker and Keeper in what may be a timeless conflict to possess the box in “this hell of a city boxed up in snow” and suffering from possibly box-induced climate change and slow, violent societal collapse. By the final third of the book, the disparate plot threads come together just enough to show that “the box at so many crime scenes” may be an eternal force causing mass disruptions. “In a search for origins or meanings, the more you don’t find, the more certain you become of things’ strangeness,” thinks one character near the end. While the prose can be tiring, Wong also delivers something rare, evoking a creepy sort of glamour around books and stories, as if craving a good read is itself sometimes a form of dark desire.

Casts a curious spell despite its stylistic density and lack of traditional plot.