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The Lazarus Project

3.55 of 5 stars 3.55 · rating details · 3,266 ratings · 538 reviews

On March 2, 1908, nineteen-year-old Lazarus Averbuch, an Eastern European Jewish immigrant, was shot to death on the doorstep of the Chicago chief of police and cast as a would-be anarchist assassin.

A century later, a young Eastern European writer in Chicago named Brik becomes obsessed with Lazarus's story. Brik enlists his friend Rora -- a war photographer from Sarajevo -...more

Hardcover, 294 pages

Published May 1st 2008 by Riverhead Hardcover (first published January 1st 2008)

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Jul 08, 2011 D.R. Haney added it

It's hot as hell at the moment, and I just got home after finishing this book while riding on the bus. A dull-eyed, fat kid at the back of the bus kept tapping on his seat with drumsticks, while his equally dull-eyed, fat (though not equally fat) girlfriend stared into space beside him. The incessant, arhythmic patter of the drumsticks drove me mad. I wanted to break them over that kid's head. That was, in fact, the least of what I wanted to do.

All of this has nothing to do with The Lazarus Pro...more

15 likes · like · see review

Jan 21, 2009 Karen rated it 3 of 5 stars

Jeremy gave this book three stars and said that if he'd picked it up before reading Hemon's other stuff, he might have given it more. I feel exactly the same way. This book certainly isn't bad, and I think Hemon has a lot of potential as a writer. But it seems like the whole world has been telling him (in the form of grant upon million-dollar genius grant and over-the-top praise such as "this guy = Nabokov" and "this writer is not only good, he's NECESSARY") that we're all really friggin fascina...more

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Jun 03, 2008 Leanna rated it 4 of 5 stars

In 1908, Lazarus Averbuch, an immigrant from Eastern Europe, is shot dead by the Chicago Chief of Police. Almost a century later, fictional Vladimir Brik, an immigrant from Bosnia, decides to write a book about Lazarus. Aleksandar Hemon’s latest novel, The Lazarus Project, imagines Averbuch's life and Brik's research.

Armed with a grant and a fellow-Bosnian photographer, Brik returns to Eastern Europe to learn more Lazarus’s life there. They travel through Ukraine, Moldova, and Bulgaria before fi...more In 1908, Lazarus Averbuch, an immigrant from Eastern Europe, is shot dead by the Chicago Chief of Police. Almost a century later, fictional Vladimir Brik, an immigrant from Bosnia, decides to write a book about Lazarus. Aleksandar Hemon’s latest novel, The Lazarus Project, imagines Averbuch's life and Brik's research.

Armed with a grant and a fellow-Bosnian photographer, Brik returns to Eastern Europe to learn more Lazarus’s life there. They travel through Ukraine, Moldova, and Bulgaria before finally returning to Sarajevo. The chapters alternate between Brik and Averbuch, and each is accompanied with a black-and-white photograph.

Lazarus’s murder is shocking. In essence, the novel suggests he is killed because the chief recognizes him not only as an immigrant but a Jew whom he suspects of anarchy. These actions appear outrageous to the contemporary reader. Yet, how different is early twentieth-century Chicago from early twenty-first century America? Don’t many Americans still fear immigrants? Don’t many Americans still fear anarchists—though we now call them terrorists? The reality of this comparison is disturbing.

The novel also raises the interesting question of what makes an American an American. While traveling in Eastern Europe, Brik often refers to himself as American rather than Bosnian. At some point does he truly morph from one nationality—one culture—to another? Does an immigrant ever truly feel American?

Lazarus invites contemplation and introspection. At times, though, I was distracted from the novel by Hemon himself. What little I know about the author’s biography is surprisingly similar to his character.

Hemon, like Brik, was visiting the U.S. when the conflict in Bosnia broke out. Hemon, like Brik, is married to an American. Hemon, like Brik, received a grant to write his book. Hemon and photographer Velibor Bozovic traveled through Eastern Europe researching Averbuch’s story.

Brik does not always have the most flattering view of his wife, his in-laws, marriage, and fatherhood. I continually imagined how Hemon’s wife felt reading these passages.

Hemon is not a native English speaker. He makes some interesting vocabulary choices and seems overly-obsessed with Madonna, but in general Lazarus is beautifully written. I will definitely be reading more Hemon.(less)

6 likes · like · see review

Sep 04, 2008 Jeremy Allan rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: modern-fiction

I probably would rate this book higher than three stars if I'd have come to it first among Hemon's work, but after reading his first two books, this one loses some lustre. Most of my problems with the book were related to where tropes common to Hemon's previous works seemed stale. For example, he often gets compared to Nabokov since his first language is not English. Still, even as Nabokov returns again and again to stories about Russian emigrees, each character stands apart from the others. Mea...more

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Feb 17, 2009 rmn rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: fiction

A surprisingly perceptive and intriguing novel juxtaposing the life and subsequent murder of a Jewish immigrant to the United States in the early 1900s after he had escaped from a Ukranian pogrom, with the life of the protagonist and his friend who each immigrated to the US from Bosnia one before the Yugoslavian civil war and the other after.

The protagonist is a Bosnian writer living in present day Chicago who wants to write a book about the murder of an accused anarchist in 1908 by the Chicago...more

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Aug 25, 2009 Knitography rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: fiction-other

The Lazarus Project consists two intertwined threads; in 1908 Lazarus Averbuch, a Russian immigrant and pogrom survivor is shot by the Chicago chief of police. The story is told from the perspective of his sister Olga as she tries to make sense of her loss. In the present, Vladamir Brik, a writer and Bosnian immigrant, is researching Lazarus' story, hoping to turn it into a book.

Those parts of the book set in 1908 were well-written and enjoyable to read. The author really succeeded at getting in...more

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Jan 13, 2009 Benny rated it 3 of 5 stars

The Lazarus Project follows two storylines, one about a late 19th century Jewish-Ukrainian immigrant to Chicago who is murdered by the Chicago Chief of Police, and the other following a writer researching a novel-to-be about that immigrant by traveling through Southeastern Europe. The latter drags a little at times as the narrator gets bogged down in Ukrainian Jewish Cultural Centers and the like, but the story of Lazarus, the immigrant is good enough to pull the reader through.

Hemon's style is...more

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Jul 12, 2009 Matt rated it 4 of 5 stars

I should say up front, Aleks Hemon is one of the two or three living writers that I like most, who I am most excited when I see that they have a new book. I really love his work, on the basis of his wonderful book of stories and his even better first novel, _Nowhere Man_.

This is why it's too bad that I didn't think so much of this new book, _Lazarus Project_. It's Hemon's entry in the "return to the old country" genre of novels, of which everyone has one in them. Hemon's version intercuts that p...more

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Feb 06, 2009 Karlan rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: adult

This arresting novel was a finalist for the National Book Award and is for the National Book Critics Circle award. It is wonderful that someone could write such a novel who came to the US in 1992. Two stories are told in alternating chapters and both deal with problems of immigration, misunderstanding, prejudice. It was fascinating to read the fictional author's story interspersed with the novel he was writing about a tragic incident in Chicago at the turn of the century.

1 like · like · see review

Aug 21, 2008 Ashaspencer rated it 5 of 5 stars Recommends it for: Choua

This book is by a Serbian writer who has been living in Chicago since 1992. The author lived in Uptown and Andersonville -the two neighborhoods in Chicago that I grew up in.

The book begins in these neighborhoods, and then follows the main character on a trip across Eastern Europe - prague, vienna, budapest, etc.

I read the book on a train trip from Vienna to Budapest, as I was in the process of planning my upcoming trip to Prague. It was a somewhat strange experience, as the book seeemd to be fo...more

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Jan 27, 2009 Debbie rated it 1 of 5 stars Recommends it for: NO

Shelves: tossed

I really tried to like this book. I forced myself through 150+ pages before I finally decided that it was not going to get any better. The book has 2 main subjects -- Lazarus, a 19 year old immigrant shot in 1908 by a policeman in Chicago for unknown reasons and the story of the author that is struggling to write Lazarus's story.

While the Lazarus sections are very good and engaging, the struggling writer parts are not. Basically those chapters have this format: Mujo joke, Rora story, author lame...more

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Sep 09, 2008 Brent Legault rated it 4 of 5 stars

I've read a few reviews of this novel (one of them is quoted on the back cover) which invoke the name and the ghost of Nabokov. If I believed in ghosts (and cliches) I might wonder if old Vladimir Vladimirovich isn't spinning in his grave. The comparisons are facile and thoughtless but perhaps unsurprising. Critics love to find precedents. In that case, let me add one of my own: Jonathan Safran Foer. I'm sure I'm not the first to say that the stories of this novel and of Everything Is Illuminat ...more

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Aug 21, 2008 Nathan Rostron rated it 4 of 5 stars

I saw Hemon read recently with Junot Diaz, who got a rock star reception at Central Park's Summer Stage. Hemon is not a rock star writer and garnered only polite applause. Unlike Diaz (in Oscar Wao, at any rate), Hemon's writing is not flashy or stylistically strutting somewhat awkwardly to allow for humongous cojones. Born in Sarajevo, Hemon writes with a syncopated English-language sensibility; it seems quiet but then it will sneak up on you and knock you flat. This one's definitely worth read...more

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Apr 02, 2009 Jim rated it 5 of 5 stars

My friend Kathie "assigned" this book to me - with a due date and everything. And yes, my connections to young Zander could have prejudiced me in his favor (mutual writer and Bosnian acquaintances, sweet home Chicago, etc.) But I gotta say - recent hacks at Modern Popular Literature have left me sore and wanting. (e.g. I've got at least as many connections to "The Time Traveler's Wife", and pee-fucking-you on that.) So disclosures, schmishclosures.

TLP surprised me on almost every page with it's...more

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Mar 18, 2009 Joe rated it 3 of 5 stars

The double narrative of this, like Everything is Illuminated, is off-putting and decentralized, not something suited for fiction. The voice, if there was one, teeters back and forth between an ever-present and annoyingly self-important writer who seems to resemble weirdly the writer of the book itself and a Jewish immigrant's sister in the early 1900s in Chicago. Lazarus, the immigrant, was killed a Chicago police chief and the writer sets out to "solve" this crime. We are then introduced to the...more

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Dec 01, 2008 Sanja rated it 4 of 5 stars

A mesmerizing book that manages to capture some of, to me otherwise indescribable, Bosnian identity. What it means to be Bosnian, what it means to be an immigrant to this grand ol' complicated country, what it means to lose everything once and then keep on losing, intentionally, hopelessly.

A master wordsmith, Hemon nevertheless cannot compare, in my view, to Miljenko Jergovic, whose prose is so much more intense, rife with allusion, dialect, history, pain, and, in those rare moments, happiness....more

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Apr 19, 2013 emi Bevacqua rated it 1 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: euro, magical-realism

The Lazarus Project begins by describing a murder in 1908, when a young Jewish immigrant named Lazarus Averbuch was killed by the Chicago chief of police. Time Magazine describes this book as a "sort-of-fictional sort-of-biography", and Aleksandar Hemon was a finalist for the National Book Award for writing it.

Rather than explain what actually happened following the murder, or tell the story about what led up to the murder, instead the book involves a modern day Chicagoan via Eastern Europe nam...more

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Mar 09, 2013 Teressa rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: fiction

I am still a little in shock that I ended up putting down an Ann Patchett novel to finish this gem at a breakneck pace. I feel like a straying lover. Sorry, Ann.

This book sat on my shelf for months. The only reason I picked it up 48 hrs ago was because I was too sore from snowboarding to go back upstairs to retrieve "State of Wonder." Who knew that laziness could pay such great dividends?

I admit, my inner elitist was skeptical about this book. Any book that is uniformly hailed with praise by cr...more

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Mar 05, 2013 Plamen Miltenoff added it

for her, the prime mover of very action was a good intention, and evil occurred only if the good intention was inadvertently betrayed or forgotten.
Mary and I had a desultory, hurtful fight over the Abu Ghraib pictures, for example. All the random insults and unsupportable accusations aside, the gist of it was that what she saw was essentially decent American kids acting upon a misguided belief they were protecting freedom, their good intentions going stray. What I saw was young Americans expres...more

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May 08, 2012 Carl Brush rated it 4 of 5 stars

In May, I wrote about Hemon’s Nowhere Man that I wasn’t sure how to respond to it. I gave it a mixed review that, had it been a stock market chart, would have looked like an outline of the Sierra Nevada. I have no such doubts about The Lazarus Project.
This one is mature, sensitive, focused, painful, and beautifully realized. In a style post-modernists seem to like to claim for themselves, this is a book about a man writing a book. The book is, of course, about a man named Lazarus. Not the bibl...more In May, I wrote about Hemon’s Nowhere Man that I wasn’t sure how to respond to it. I gave it a mixed review that, had it been a stock market chart, would have looked like an outline of the Sierra Nevada. I have no such doubts about The Lazarus Project.
This one is mature, sensitive, focused, painful, and beautifully realized. In a style post-modernists seem to like to claim for themselves, this is a book about a man writing a book. The book is, of course, about a man named Lazarus. Not the biblical Lazarus (though Hemon draw inevitable parallels), but a young Jewish immigrant of the same name who was shot down in the foyer of Chicago’s chief of police’s house in the 1920’s. I’d love to remember where I heard or read of this incident before--it might have been in a film. In any case, the incident actually happened, and it occasioned one of the multiple convulsions of the red scare hysteria that was so much a part of the history of the first twenty years of the American twentieth century. I am reminded of Dennis Lehane’s The Given Day (see my review of Dec. 4, ’08) about the Boston police strike. I am also reminded of the current anti-Islamic hysteria.
Hemon’s protagonist, Brik, receives a grant to write a book about this Lazarus, who was gunned down before he could declare his intentions for presenting himself at the chief’s home. Brik uses his grant money for an expedition to Europe both in an attempt to trace the emigration of Lazarus’ family from Russia after a 1908 pogrom and to visit his own roots in Sarajevo, where he spent much of his boyhood dodging bullets during the Yugoslavian civil war.
Chapters alternate between Lazarus’ story and Brik’s. The parallels are numerous and bountiful. The pain of being uprooted from one’s home, family, memories, language (Many characters in the book speak several languages.) pervade the events. The judgements of dominant cultures on foreigners and vice versa create a rich and bewildering kaleidoscope of color, light, darkness. So many opportunities for wrong actions, misunderstandings. Even married to a successful surgeon who obviously loves him, Brik cannot be settled in himself. He is driven by despair and violence to reject and hurt the very things that would nurture him.
I also said in my review of Nowhere Man that I envied writers like Hemon and conrad and Nabakov who can acquire another language and use it better than many--most--of us for whom it is a native tongue. My envy is doubled now, as is my admiration. Hemon is the real deal.(less)

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Mar 13, 2012 Cameron rated it 1 of 5 stars

I often think that many critics give the book (or movie, in many more familiar cases) a good review because it is something they are supposed to do. You don't want to be known as the critic who turned his nose up at the Latvian drama about a gay, existentialist teen trying to survive the drab, grim reality of life in a post-communist regime, would you? What about the Paraguayan masterpiece about the girl that left that life of street gangs to become a school teacher that was later murdered by st...more I often think that many critics give the book (or movie, in many more familiar cases) a good review because it is something they are supposed to do. You don't want to be known as the critic who turned his nose up at the Latvian drama about a gay, existentialist teen trying to survive the drab, grim reality of life in a post-communist regime, would you? What about the Paraguayan masterpiece about the girl that left that life of street gangs to become a school teacher that was later murdered by street gangs. Well, you better give it a review, praising it for its "honesty" and "integrity". If all else fails, try to pigeon-hole it into a category that will make it seem like you totally got it on a different level than everyone else.

In my experience, The Lazarus Project is just such a book. It had to be good. So many people were saying such good things. It was nominated for a National Book Award, and they don't just hand those things out to any old James Patterson. With excitement, I started reading, and reading, and reading and before I knew it, I was in the Chariots of Fire of novels and I wanted to get out as soon as possible.

The idea for a decent book is there—a Bosnian man discovers his own identity while researching the historical account of an immigrant murdered by a police sergeant in Chicago. Yet, so many elements are missing that there is little left to bring it all cohesively together. It weaves in and out of the two stories; the first being an over-fictionalized and over-dramatized retelling of the after-effects of the immigrant's murder and the second being the on-the-road story of the writer aimlessly winding his way through Eastern Europe. Story A is poorly told to the point of being very uninteresting. Story B is told in a stream-of-consciousness style that comes off as smug and utterly confusing when it comes to advancing the plot.

There is so much about this book that is not true from the reviews. It isn't a "tour-de-force" as I read in one review. It also isn't, as I read in another, "a page-turner" unless you are turning the pages without reading them just to see how many more pages you have left to get through. It is not a comedy as one review ridiculously put it. Sure, some characters tell jokes to each other. But they are jokes that are constructed in an Eastern-European mindset, and something that makes no sense to someone who hasn't had to stand in a breadline. There is no comedy in this, however "wryly-drawn" as one review said.

It could have used a better editor. It could have used a better plot. It also could have used some more honest reviews. Like this one. Which you should trust. Really. Because I totally hated that one Latvian movie.(less)

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Dec 10, 2011 Greg rated it 4 of 5 stars

The Lazarus Project is interesting, difficult, disturbing, poignant, and original. While not thoroughly enjoyable, and somehow leaves the reader without some revelation despite the meticulous care with which the story was articulated, it still provides moments of great brilliance and is deserving of a thoughtful and careful read.

The plot revolves around a struggling writer. He is a Bosnian immigrant to Chicago, where he is married but hasn't found it within himself to create roots in America. He...more

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Aug 29, 2011 Melisa rated it 3 of 5 stars

I just can't get behind the insistence of the publishing industry on pimping out adjectives and adverbs in service of claims of excellence. "Dazzling! Stunning! Makes you thank God Almighty that you can read the English language! The savior of the American novel!" Enough already. This novel is not the second coming of E.M. Forrester or any other mythic creature. However, it's good. I liked it. I learned things, about Chicago at the dawn of the 20th century and Emma Goldman and the raging anti-se...more

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Jul 29, 2011 Catherine Woodman added it

I agree with another reivewer on two points--the first that it is truely amazing that the author is writing in what is at least a second language, and the writing is lyrical. I also agree that the two stories, one of the past and another of the present, and the first is far more compelling than the second. Perhaps this is because the second is too close to the author's home, the events in Bosnia that led to his immigration to the US. The older story is the persecution that Jews faced inthe US as...more

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Jul 26, 2011 Stuart added it

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 par...more 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.

(less)

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Mar 31, 2011 James rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Aleksandar Hemon has been on my radar screen since The Question of Bruno, which I read a while ago and remembered quite fondly, but what with one thing and another, I let his works slide by me, and then, several months ago, I noticed The Lazarus Project remaindered in paperback, and I thought, oh, right, that's The Question of Bruno guy, and I bought it, and it sat on a pile of books by the front door, waiting for me to grab on my way to the subway.

(Oh, and yes, I've kept up with Hemon's appeara...more Aleksandar Hemon has been on my radar screen since The Question of Bruno, which I read a while ago and remembered quite fondly, but what with one thing and another, I let his works slide by me, and then, several months ago, I noticed The Lazarus Project remaindered in paperback, and I thought, oh, right, that's The Question of Bruno guy, and I bought it, and it sat on a pile of books by the front door, waiting for me to grab on my way to the subway.

(Oh, and yes, I've kept up with Hemon's appearances in The New Yorker--again, I thought, hey, this guy is really good.)

So then I hadn't been taking the subway for a while because my girlfriend has been helping me get to work, which is great, and I love her, and so forth, but a few days ago, circumstances prevented her giving me a ride, and so I grabbed The Lazarus Project and headed out the door. And then I damn near missed my stop.

This is a book that you start and you think, wow, this guy is really good, and then you keep reading (because you can't stop), and then you think, holy crap, this guy is REALLY really good, and the pages burn through your hands because you cannot stop, and--now, here, we come specifically to this novel--you realize that this book is not merely good. It's great, and when I say great, I don't mean, you know, as great as the last great Stephen King novel great, or as great as the last page-turner you finished great. The Lazarus Project is a great novel on the order of . . . Bruno Schulz. Franz Kafka.

The fact that I knew how this book would end in no way diminished the power of the ending, or the writing (English is Hemon's *second* language! Amazing), or the scope of the novel. Incidentally, it's structured as a kind of parallel story--at the moment, I'm reminded of Murakami's Kafka on the Shore or his earlier Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World, though Hemon's use of history is closer to The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle.

I absolutely cannot wait to read this again. I probably won't.(less)

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Jan 25, 2011 Darryl Mexic rated it 3 of 5 stars

*** “The Lazarus Project” by Alexsandar Hemon. Fiction. Mr. Hemon is a Bosnian-American, who came to America on a visit to Chicago, but was unable to return to Bosnia because of the Bosnian-Serbian war of the 90’s. Reviewers for the New York Times, the San Francisco Chronicle and the Los Angeles Times praised Hemon and his novel, with the comments, “extraordinary writer”, “virtuoso linguist, stylist and social observer”, and “a true original”. Not being qualified to agree or disagree, I will onl...more *** “The Lazarus Project” by Alexsandar Hemon. Fiction. Mr. Hemon is a Bosnian-American, who came to America on a visit to Chicago, but was unable to return to Bosnia because of the Bosnian-Serbian war of the 90’s. Reviewers for the New York Times, the San Francisco Chronicle and the Los Angeles Times praised Hemon and his novel, with the comments, “extraordinary writer”, “virtuoso linguist, stylist and social observer”, and “a true original”. Not being qualified to agree or disagree, I will only say that at times I thought the novel was terrific and at other times I felt the author digressed too much into dreamlike, unrelated sequences. The novel weaves together two primary stories and at least two secondary ones. First there is the story of Lazarus Averbuch, nineteen year old immigrant from Kishinev, Moldova, living in Chicago during a period of unreasonable fear of anarchists and immigrants. (Fear of immigrants being a social condition that seems to be unlimited as to time and country). Struggling and poor and living with his sister Olga, Lazarus had escaped the 1903 pogrom that destroyed property and lives of Jews in Kishinev to come to America. In 1908 he attempted to deliver a letter to Chicago’s chief of police, only to be shot and killed by the Chief. Despite the absence of any supporting evidence, he is accused of being an anarchist and plotting to kill the Chief. A search for his alleged co-conspirators results in the questioning and beating of his neighbors and acquaintances. Olga has to put up, not only with the loss of her brother, but also the official lies about him. Secondly, there is the story of Brik, a Bosnian-American living in present day Chicago and trying to gather information for a book about Lazarus’ murder. He doubts himself, his marriage, his worth, and his life in general. He traces Lazarus’ escape from Eastern Europe by traveling the same path taken by Lazarus in his journey from Kishinev to America and researching the conditions during the early part of the twentieth century of the places he visits. The third story is about Rora, a photographer, who accompanies Brik on his journey and relates spectacular sounding episodes of his time spent accompanying an American journalist during the Bosnian war. The fourth is about the pogrom in Kishinev. Except for the latter, the author jumps back and forth in time and between the stories of Lazarus, Brik and Rora. While I did not love this book, I hope you read it and give me your comments. It is a book I would like to understand better and might be able to do so with some discussion from others. (less)

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Dec 18, 2010 Jennifer Swapp rated it 3 of 5 stars

I was interested in this book for a few different reasons:
1. The life of an immigrant is interesting to me. Often people immigrate because of wars. The process if painful- their children often adapt quite easily to a different language and culture, and can be embarrassed of their parents. Parents often don't understand the system, the language, and often don't have an advocate to help them adapt successfully. This can really impact the relationship between the two generations.
The lives of these...more

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Nov 05, 2010 Jeff rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: documentary-narrative, novel, 311-312

I think what some (James Wood at The New Yorker, for example) must find new about this is the strain of bi- or transnational anti-Americanism in especially its account of progressive-era American tribalism, which the novel tries to equilibrate with the tribalism of the present-day neo-nationalistic movements -- Hezbollah, Hamas, what have you. The basic analogy is between terrorism in our present-day moment, our treatment of terror-suspects, for example at Abu Ghraib, and the treatment of suspec...more I think what some (James Wood at The New Yorker, for example) must find new about this is the strain of bi- or transnational anti-Americanism in especially its account of progressive-era American tribalism, which the novel tries to equilibrate with the tribalism of the present-day neo-nationalistic movements -- Hezbollah, Hamas, what have you. The basic analogy is between terrorism in our present-day moment, our treatment of terror-suspects, for example at Abu Ghraib, and the treatment of suspected anarchists in the Jewish community of 1908 Chicago. This analogy structures the novel: In one line of plot, the sister of a suspected anarchist, Lazarus Averbuch, murdered in the home of the Chicago police chief, is interrogated and treated with deeply cynical motive by both the leaders of Chicago's Jewish community as well as by the police and the newspaper reporters trying to report the brother's murder. This sister, Olga, is made to pay an enormous price for her deep loyalty to her brother and to her people. In the other plot, a Bosnian-American novelist, Brik, receives a fellowship and uses it to accompany his friend, a photographer and a Croat Muslim, Rora, to the Ukraine and Sarajevo on the trail of the earlier, unjustly killed Lazarus Averbuch. Nabokov's journey into the American pastoral orient is troped in Brik's adventure to retrieve his Lolita/Lazarus, which turns out to be none other than Brik's murderous anger toward the "American midwestern welkin," as Brit describes it referring to his American-born wife, Mary, who at the end of the journey Brik dumps. Hemon, the author, is highly conscious of his bi-lingual fathers, Conrad and Nabokov. Conceptually the book is audacious, right down to its use of photos by a photographer-friend of the author, Velibor Bozovic, which are mixed with archival photos of Averbuch from the Chicago History Museum, but the audacity extends to including Bozovic's fictional counterpart, Rora, who at times seems to be merely an aspect -- particularly nihilistic -- of the narrator's psyche. The fictive quality of the dilemma facing the narrator (is he carpet bagging for information on Averbuch? ) tropes Hemon's sense that none of the meaning available to Rora or Brik is authentic if they can't see or represent or experience it themselves. Thus the utopian politics of the anarchists (like Emma Goldman) in the Chicago narrative seems just delusional to Hemon, and beyond the archival photos, there's no effort to represent this pole of his historical analogy accurately. You can find the anarchist Chicago of this period in Sandburg's letters, in Rexroth's Autobiographical Novel, but you won't buy it here if you've read about it in those other places. Hemon is making an argument about the necessity of tribalism which won't bear too subtle a picture. (less)

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Oct 01, 2010 Angela rated it 3 of 5 stars

I think maybe this book is too smart for me? The gold fat seal on the front, declaring it a Pulitzer Prize/National Book Award finalist did help me with this selection. Set in two periods (turn of the century) and current day Chicago, two immigrant characters draw parallels between their struggle with what is it to be in a new country. The book feels segmented, like a short burst of memories or journal entries.. and you hardly care about the main character (which is written better than his clunk...more

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Disappointed with the book	3	36	Nov 27, 2011 02:05pm
The Ishpeming Car...: Overall Impression	1	1	Oct 11, 2011 09:37am
The Ishpeming Car...: Pictures	1	1	Oct 11, 2011 09:36am
The Ishpeming Car...: History	1	2	Oct 11, 2011 09:36am
The Ishpeming Car...: Lazarus	1	0	Oct 11, 2011 09:35am
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About Aleksandar Hemon

Hemon graduated from the University of Sarajevo with a degree in literature in 1990. He moved to Chicago, Illinois in 1992 and found that he was unable to write in Bosnian and spoke little English.

In 1995, he started writing works in English and managed to showcase his work in prestigious magazines such as the New Yorker and Esquire. Finally in 2000, he published his first book of short stories (...more

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