Pete Lit

More on Lazarus

I enjoyed Aleksander Hemon's The Lazarus Project to such an exquisite degree that I've decided to become somewhat of a Lazarus clearinghouse here for a while. Off we go:

+ Sara Ivry interviews Hemon at Nextbook.org.

+ An evaluation of the (to me, rather striking) cover design, at Publishers Weekly.

+ Some sort of Lazarus-related video here, at Hemon's site. Haven't watched this yet, but based on the physical beauty of the book itself, I'm sure it's a winner.

That's all for now. For Lazarus, and in general - we're heading off to Hilton Head tomorrow for a week of offline R&R (poolside lounging, beachcombing, Margarita-imbibing, sumptuous eating, copious reading) so don't be worried by the utter lack of activity here.

Viva California!

California Supreme Court overturns gay marriage ban.

Aleksandar Hemon, The Lazarus Project

Every now and then I come across a book that defies description, one whose beauty and power I can't adequately convey in mere words. James Meek's The People's Act of Love is one such book, and another is Ander Monson's Other Electricities, as is - despite its considerable artistic deficiencies - John Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath.

And now, also, Aleksandar Hemon's new novel, The Lazarus Project. Not that it can't be described, of course. Many critics and commentators will describe, at length and in depth, the book's narrative, structure and themes, along with the author's background and what his past brought to the telling of the story. Though I'll leave most of that discussion to them, I will still attempt a few words on this great book's behalf.

Through the shadowy and tragic real-life figure of Lazarus Avenbuch and Vladimir Brik, the fictional modern-day writer obsessed with uncovering Lazarus' century-old story, Hemon has crafted a courageous novel, one full of hope and longing and anger and isolation, one which explores the past while being vitally relevant to the present. Hemon's Lazarus does indeed rise - not from the dead like his Biblical namesake, but from the fog of forgotten history. He rises, and compels Brik to find out who he is, where he belongs, and what he wants out of life. As the story concludes, Brik hasn't figured any of that out, but he does see the negative of each - who he isn't, where he doesn't belong, and what he doesn't want out of life - in his present situation, which leads him to seek alternatives.

Yet despite these insights, Lazarus is a book whose greatness I can't adequately describe. For me it's one of those magnificent works of art, like the other books mentioned above or a Morphine song or Emil Nolde watercolor, that I simply can't do justice in words. All I can do is urge you to read and experience the book for yourself, as soon as you can.

Sax Man

(Previous installment)

For now it was nothing more than that - a thirst. Not dependence or even a habit; more of a pastime, a way to kill an hour after the morning crowds had dissipated and the start of his shift at the hotel. A man couldn't help being thirsty, he assured himself, after blowing a saxophone non-stop for three hours in the face of those brisk river winds. The bitter air dried his lips and tongue, and his playing could never cease, as commuters would never give money in return for silence. So he played until his mouth was raw, which was very hard work, and for that hard work he could see no reason to deny himself some refreshment at the Landmark Lounge if he chose. And it was still his choice. A pastime, he insisted.

Reading in Public: Washington, D.C., 1920

Here's a real charmer. Looks like the lad has been rudely interrupted and wants to resume his reading, though he's being polite about it. Washington, D.C., circa 1920, by an unidentified photographer of the National Photo Company. (Full photographic record here.)

(Reading in Public series is indexed here.)

"Quit These Hills"

My short story "Quit These Hills" has just been published in the recently launched online journal Big Pulp. My sincerest thanks to editor Bill Olver for accepting the story. While the journal classifies the story under Horror, I really don't think of it as a horror story. But the narrator's act could easily be considered horrific - at least to the polite society he disdains - so in that sense it is horror, I guess.

"Quit These Hills" is a combination and refinement of two shorter pieces that I previously wrote and submitted for story contests at The Clarity of Night. Neither submission was a finalist, so I salvaged their remains into this story, and I'm pretty pleased with the result. The story was originally inspired by the Pinetop Seven song of the same name, so I'd also like to thank that band's Darren Richard for permanently lodging that haunting tune in my memory.

Sax Man

(Previous installment)

But the morning rush slowly dwindled, the streams of office workers giving way to scattered clumps of tourists coming in on the train from the suburbs for the day. Though these people often had time to stay and listen, and even toss some change, they came by too infrequently to justify Henry staying around. By ten a.m. he had to be far to the east, on Michigan Avenue, changed into his uniform and ready to open and close doors for hotel guests for the next eight hours. As he packed up his saxophone and stuffed his middling take into his pants pocket, chasing for a few feet a dollar bill caught in a quick gust of wind, he realized without even checking his watch that he had barely an hour to spare. Barely an hour to ease his thirst.

(Next installment)

"Shea as in stadium, Bon as in Jovi."

Terrific artist and FoPL Austin Kleon finally clarifies (for me, anyway) the proper pronunciation of Michael Chabon's last name. The source is Chabon himself, who delivers quite the NY/NJ-centric mnemonic:

"Shea as in stadium, Bon as in Jovi."

You'd think, given the striking Jay Ryan-designed poster print of the cover of The Final Solution that hangs in our front hallway, that I already would have known how to pronounce his name, but no. As an aside, Austin loves the book design of Maps and Legends, too. Guess I'm in good company.

Hemon's parallel narratives

I'm about halfway through Aleksandar Hemon's new novel, The Lazarus Project, and it's a pretty marvelous read - in many ways even better than Nowhere Man, which I loved. The book is structured as two parallel but interconnected narratives: the first is of an early 20th Century Ukrainian immigrant killed by Chicago police and branded as an anarchist in those feverish anti-immigrant times; and the second is of a modern-day writer, also an immigrant, who is obsessed with the anarchist's life and longs to write about it. I really like the parallel structure, which keeps each narrative fresh. My hope is that Hemon ultimately unifies these two threads in the book's conclusion, and doesn't leave each enigmatic and unresolved - I doubt that the writer character will ever truly find out who the anarchist really was, but I'm hoping this somewhat aimless soul finds himself in the process even if the anarchist remains an elusive mystery.

Harry, Excerpted

FoPL Mark Sarvas (oh, who am I kidding? he's friends of hundreds of litblogs) has a nice new piece, "The colour of Anna's coffin cushions", in the latest issue (theme: "Rage") of The Drawbridge. I strongly suspect this is an excerpt from his debut novel, Harry, Revised, which is getting strong notices from just about every literary outpost other than the most self-absorbed newspaper in New York.

Rumor has it that a copy of the book is making its way to my doorstep, possibly via an underpowered barge moving upriver against a heavy spring torrent. I'm really looking forward to reading this one, whenever it happens to get here.