The Lightning Jar is about lonely children. It may be more about lonely children than any other book. These children are good at making imaginary friends but have trouble keeping them. For instance, there鈥檚 the Morra, who plunges the world into eternal winter. But she also teaches Mons the meaning of love and helps him burn down his house after some Gypsies turn it into a middle school.
Then there鈥檚 the Gorbel. Amanda invented it to scare the Guest, but it ended up liking him best. A bit like a cat but more like a spider, it turned out a lot cuter than she鈥檇 intended. And the Wisps鈥攖hey鈥檙e pretty unhappy about being dead. Karl accidentally turned his smallest cousin into a Wisp. They were trying to catch some lightning in a jar, but they caught the smallest cousin鈥檚 ghost instead. Karl had to drown it for its own good. Something similar happened with his grandma Astrid and a rock named Melisande. But the loneliest character is probably Christian. He insists on being from J盲mtland, where Karl and Amanda live. When his cousin Eskild got married, Christian rewrote their past so it鈥檚 like The Little Mermaid, except Eskild drowns and Christian doesn鈥檛 earn a soul.
In the spirit of Tove Jansson, William Blake, and Calvin & Hobbes, The Lightning Jar contains a volatile mix of innocence and experience, faith and doubt, nostalgia and a sense of all there is to gain by accepting reality on fresh terms.
鈥. . . eerie and wondrous. Gypsies and ghosts, colors and sounds, forests and dances: they all twirl together in this lonely, lively book.鈥濃Foreword Reviews
鈥淭he stories in Felt鈥檚 collection tap into the mysteries of childhood, incorporating folklore, ghost stories, and Mormonism along the way. Alternately unnerving and heartwarming, this book's evocation of family life is compelling stuff.鈥濃Kirkus Reviews
鈥淭he sentences in this book are small shots of beauty and compression. The prose has the feel of life, but life seen and experienced deeply, with great sensitivity and intelligence, carrying the reader with such grace into the mysterious simplicity of childhood.鈥濃擱ebecca Lee, judge, John Simmons Short Fiction Award
鈥淚magine Ray Bradbury鈥檚 summer-drenched Dandelion Wine set in Hans Christian Andersen鈥檚 Scandinavia, and you鈥檒l have a hint of The Lightning Jar鈥檚 pleasures: two story sequences that unfold with secrets, cousins, and ghosts; two pivotal memoir-like stories; and Felt鈥檚 pocket-sized masterpiece, 鈥楾he Guest on Summer Island.鈥 This book dazzles and delights.鈥濃擳ed Deppe, author, Liminal Blue
鈥淚f the film director Wes Anderson wrote stories. If Isak Dinesen channeled Louisa May Alcott and a young Mormon man. If the Dawn Treader landed in Sweden. No. Christian Felt鈥檚 The Lightning Jar, full of spark and glow, is charmingly and utterly his own.鈥濃擭atasha Saj茅, author, Vivarium
鈥淚n the tradition of Shirley Jackson鈥檚 We Have Always Lived in the Castle, the interrelated stories in The Lightning Jar are by turns funny, sad, haunting, and deeply strange. The wonder and terror of childhood come alive in Christian Felt鈥檚 uncannily observed and captivating debut.鈥濃擯orter Shreve, author, The End of the Book
