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The Lazarus Project | 
| Author: Aleksandar Hemon
Publisher: Riverhead Hardcover
Category: Book
List Price: $24.95
Buy New: $15.67
You Save: $9.28 (37%)
Rating:  17 reviews
Sales Rank: 6231
Media: Hardcover
Pages: 304
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1
Dimensions (in): 8.4 x 5.5 x 1.2
ISBN: 1594489882
Dewey Decimal Number: 813.54
EAN: 9781594489884
ASIN: 1594489882
Publication Date: May 1, 2008
Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours
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| Editorial Reviews:
Amazon.com Review
Amazon Best of the Month, May 2008: America has a richer literary landscape since Aleksandar Hemon, stranded in the United States in 1992 after war broke out in his native Sarajevo, adopted Chicago as his new home. He completed his first short story within three years of learning to write in English, and since then his work has appeared in The New Yorker, Esquire, and The Paris Review and in two acclaimed books, The Question of Bruno and Nowhere Man. In The Lazarus Project, his most ambitious and imaginative work yet, Hemon brings to life an epic narrative born from a historical event: the 1908 killing of Lazarus Averbuch, a 19-year-old Jewish immigrant who was shot dead by George Shippy, the chief of Chicago police, after being admitted into his home to deliver an important letter. The mystery of what really happened that day remains unsolved (Shippy claimed Averbuch was an anarchist with ill intent) and from this opening set piece Hemon springs a century ahead to tell the story of Vladimir Brik, a Bosnian-American writer living in Chicago who gets funding to travel to Eastern Europe and unearth what really happened. The Lazarus Project deftly weaves the two stories together, cross-cutting the aftermath of Lazarus's death with Brik's journey and the tales from his traveling partner, Rora, a Bosnian war photographer. And while the novel will remind readers of many great books before it--Ragtime, The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay, Everything Is Illuminated--it is a masterful literary adventure that manages to be grand in scope and intimate in detail. It's an incredibly rewarding reading experience that's not to be missed. --Brad Thomas Parsons
Product Description
In two collections of stories, The Question of Bruno and the NBCC-finalist Nowhere Man, Aleksandar Hemon has earned unmatched literary acclaim and a reputation as one of the English languages most original and moving wordsmiths. In The Lazarus Project, Hemon has turned these talents to an embracing novel that intertwines haunting historical atmosphere and detail with sharp and shimmeringsometimes hilarious, sometimes heartbreakingcontemporary storytelling.
On March 2, 1908, nineteen-year-old Lazarus Averbuch, a recent Jewish immigrant from Eastern Europe to Chicago, knocked on the front door of the house of George Shippy, the chief of Chicago police. When Shippy came to the door, Averbuch offered him what he said was an important letter. Instead of taking the letter, Shippy shot Averbuch twice, killing him. When Shippy released a statement casting Averbuch as a would-be anarchist assassin and agent of foreign political operatives, he all but set off a city and a country already simmering with ethnic and political tensions.
Now, in the twenty-first century, a young writer in Chicago, Brik, also from Eastern Europe, becomes obsessed with Lazaruss storywhat really happened, and why? In order to understand Averbuch, Brik and his friend Rorawho overflows with stories of his life as a Sarajevo war photographerretrace Averbuchs path across Eastern Europe, through a history of pogroms and poverty, and through a present-day landscape of cheap mafiosi and cheaper prostitutes. The stories of Averbuch and Brik become inextricably entwined, augmented by the photographs that Rora takes on their journey, creating a truly original, provocative, and entertaining novel that will confirm Hemon once and for all as one of the most dynamic and essential literary voices of our time.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 12 more reviews...
 mesmerizing language, intriguing story December 30, 2008
Carrie LaGree (Albany, NY)
The Lazarus Project was the first book I read in my quest to read all of the National Book Award nominees. I had not read Aleksandar Hemon before, but I will again. Hemon is originally from Bosnia-Herzogovenia, but has lived in Chicago more than ten years. His transforming method of writing English is mesmerizing. Although this story is intriguing, I found myself most enthralled with his writing. He uses semicolons more brilliantly and intriguingly than anyone I've ever read. There's a reason he won a genius grant from the the MacArthur Foundation.
The story occurs in two time periods. First, it's the story of Lazarus Averbuch, who went to see the chief of police in Chicago in 1908, handed him a letter, and was shot. His death, which really happened, remains a mystery, and is a subject of much speculation, particularly for anarchists and immigrants. Contemporarily, Vladimir Brik, a writer and immigrant from Sarajevo married to an American neurosurgeon and living in Chicago, becomes fascinated by the case of Lazarus Averbuch and sets off to retrace the steps of Lazarus' life. The chapters alternate between the two centuries, and the story unfolds beautifully through this combination of voices.
Hemon is a brilliant talent, and I hope his mastery and transforming power with the English language continues.
Lazarus Project - Original, Absorbing and Confusing December 27, 2008
Stuart Mowat (New Canaan, CT United States)
This book was original, absorbing and yet confusing. Billed as being the story of Lazarus Averbuch, murdered by the Chicago Chief of Police in 1908, and the research journey a century later of a writer, Vladimir Brik, planning to write Lazarus' history, it evolved into many more stories than those two.
I had expected something like "the devil in the white city" with a chapter to each story, but instead, the two stories become intertwined, sharing chapters, switching stories from paragraph to paragraph. To add to my confusion, some of the names are the same in 1908 and 2008. For example, the Chicago Tribune reporter in 1908 is called Miller, as is a journalist who features prominently in the third story in the book. Similarly, the police investigator in 1908 (Schuettler) is the same name as the person who can give grants to writers in 2008.
The third story is that of Vladimir's friend, fellow-traveler and photographer Rora, who joins Vladimir on his research journey through the post-Communist states of Europe looking for Lazarus' history. Rora and Vladimir knew each other in Sarajevo prior to the war, but Rora stayed behind and his adventures (which may or may not be imaginary) form the third narrative of the book. Rora also livens up the book with periodic jokes about the legendary Bosnian character Mujo and his reaction to impossible situations. As a fourth story, Vladimir describes his own history, and meeting with his American wife and the state of their marriage. And finally, I found it very difficult to separate the author himself from the character of Vladimir Brik, as the book itself was obviously the result of the journey, and seems very autobiographical.
Having listed all that confusion, however, the fact is that it worked well, if you read it at a stretch. Putting it down and coming back to it was more problematic for me, in that I had to try to remember where I was - am I in Ukraine 2008 or Chicago 1908? I really liked the Chicago 1908 bits - the evocation of the lot of immigrants and the whole atmosphere of fear of anarchy that was going on at the time was splendidly described. The author has created a very believable history of how Lazarus lived through the pogroms in the time of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, found his way to Chicago and then ended up a victim of the Chief of Police, and almost a symbol of both the anarchist movement and the born-again Christian movement (who are interested in having him seen to be born again, due to his name). The journey through the modern states of Ukraine, Moldova, through to Bosnia is quite sad, showing people making money any way they can, and in some ways reflecting back to 1908 where people did the same thing.
A very original book, and well worth a read.
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