Interview with Shane Jones

The Failure Six, by Shane Jones

Shane Jones recently gained acclaim in the indie lit scene after selling the film rights for his first book Light Boxes to Spike Jonze. The sale prompted Penguin to purchase print rights for the debut, and Penguin will be re-releasing Light Boxes this summer.

Jones writes spare-fabulist prose. His books are driven heavily by plot, and his sentence-level style echoes such writers as Franz Kafka and Richard Brautigan.

We caught up with Jones to discuss his sophomore effort, The Failure Six, recently released by Fugue State Press.

In case you missed it, here’s a link to the first chapter of The Failure Six, which ran yesterday on DSM. — Brian Carr

Dark Sky Magazine: The Failure Six is your second release following the very successful Light Boxes which came out early this year. What’s different about publishing a second book?

Shane Jones: Nothing really. I wrote The Failure Six just before Light Boxes came out, so in a way, it felt like a first book again. I didn’t think Light Boxes would get any attention at all, so writing the The Failure Six was nice and quiet and just felt fun. What a boring and vague answer. Sorry. I just don’t think it felt any different.

DSM: Fans of Light Boxes will be happy to hear that you’ve not made drastic stylistic changes. The elements of this novella are unique, however, the tone and aesthetics of your writing in The Failure Six is fairly consistent with what we saw in your first book. How did you come to establish your style? Do you feel it is important for a writer to have a recognizable form?

SJ: Do I have fans? I think I was lucky that a core group of people online bought Light Boxes and supported it and then other things I got REALLY lucky with. And now people just want to know what the book is and they can’t buy it. So there’s interest. As far as style, I think your style is your personality as a person and you just have to let all your strengths and flaws come into your writing.

DSM: Do you ever see yourself writing more traditionally realistic pieces, or do you think you’ll stay true to a fabulist approach?

SJ: I really have no idea. I like to use my imagination.

DSM: What is your method? Do you have a routine?

SJ: Every morning I wake at 4am and jog two miles to the top of a grassy hill where a small castle sits. Here, in longhand, I write with a feather-pen for six hours straight. When finished, I fold the days writing into a small square of paper that I feed to a carrier pigeon named Squid. Squid races me back to the bottom of the hill where my house is and where I write on the square of paper that Squid coughs up until I fall asleep.

DSM: You’ve often employed lists in your writing? What’s the best list you’ve ever seen?

SJ: That’s a really good question. I always like lists because they are so quick and say a lot in a small space. They rush things along. I’m looking at my bookshelf trying to figure out where I got the lists from. Not sure.

DSM: The Failure Six was illustrated by Chris Pell. Did you know you wanted illustrations to accompany the work when you started writing?

SJ: No, I didn’t know until I finished writing it. I always liked Pell’s stuff and it just seemed fitting that each messenger, each failure, would be a drawing. I love visual artists.

DSM: Light Boxes will be re-released summer 2010 by Penguin. Have celebration plans already been made?

SJ: Not yet. I think maybe there will be some kind of release party in NYC organized by Penguin. It’s a strange feeling, because the book has already been put out and now has a second life. I’m still excited about it. I plan to do a bunch of readings in June all along the east coast, and maybe one or two on the west coast.

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Shane Jones was born in 1980. He lives in upstate New York and blogs at shaneejones. His novel, LIGHT BOXES, will be re-published by Penguin Books in June 2010.