The Blond Box - Reviews

"Of all the writers of his postmod generation, Toby Olson is the most forgiving. Even when writing of the most mundane acts-performing in a backwoods porn show, for example, or inaugurating an outhouse-he grants all his characters the full wonder and mystery of their lives, and strokes language as a lover might the flesh of his beloved. The Blond Box, like the most memorable of his work, skirts borders-geographical, artistic, metaphysical-and explores the mysteries found there, especially the unfathomable mysteries of art. Toby Olson is one of America's most important novelists, and The Blond Box is perhaps his best book ever. A rich compelling read.."

-Robert Coover

"The Blond Box shimmers in a rich sheen of mystery... At every turn Olson reminds his reader how information inevitably recovers ambiguity, how the tidiest sense of remembered history and constructed plot are more journeys into accident and chance, how everyday lives must play out against and amid the luminous, albeit clumsy, mystery of attraction and want. The language, as always with Olson, is broad, adamant, and stunning, this text a conjured place fit for extended habitation."

-Review of Contemporary Fiction