The Lazarus Project

"The time and place are the only things I am certain of" are the opening sentences of Aleksandar Hemon's strangely beautiful "The Lazarus Project", a novel that moves back and forth in time to build up its narrative. Since English is not the author's mother tongue, but he has a master command of the language, he has often been compared to Nabokov. Being a non-English native speaker is not the only reason to bring Hemon and Nabokov in the same sentence. Both writers deal, at some point, with the immigrant experience, with the not belonging that surrounds "The Lazarus Project" double narrative. This subject, though, also brings Hemon closer to another great writer, the great late German W. G. Sebald - whose most notable work tackles the same subject. But if it the subject matter was not enough to link these two writers, the photograph would. Sebald was innovative not only because he illustrated his narratives with real pictures - photographs that, actually, bring something to the narrative, to the readers' experience, and not only to make the book look nice. What made his literature worthwhile was his urgency, his sense of contemporaniety of handling a matter that is in debacle specially in Europe. His approach is hardly the economical one, but specially the one dealing with the identity of a person who leaves his or her country and moves to another one. Hemon main characters - there are two in "The Lazarus Project - are forced to leave their countries and move to the United States. There is a narrative inside a narrative in this novel. Brik, a young Bosnian who lives in Chicago, writes about Lazarus Averbuch, a Jewish immigrant who was shot to death by the police for no apparent reason - afterwards, police plotted he was a communist, therefore a menacing. Who was Lazarus? And who is Brik? These are questions we should have in mind while reading the novel. The Lazarus name works both for the character and a metaphor as the Bible's Lazarus - a man who Christ raised from the death. Both of them have a sister who will fight for their integrity. Each chapter of "The Lazarus Project" are opened by a picture either from Chicago Historical Society or taken by Velbor Bozovi. The add not only a sense of image, but they do enhance the narrative, since, they are supposed to be by one of the characters - a Bosnian photographer living in the USA that travels back to Eastern Europe with Brik. In his third book, Hemon displays an assurance that some old timers do not have. His prose is beautiful, but his tackling is more important. He brings an old story about intolerance and connects it to the contemporary USA making "The Lazarus Project" as beautiful as relevant.

Aleksandar Hemon was visiting the United States from Sarajevo in 1992, when he found himself stranded here, due to the Bosnian war. He learned English and, within 3 years, was having his short stories published in magazines like "The New Yorker," "Esquire," and "The Paris Review." He has also had two previous books published (The Question of Bruno and Nowhere Man), both critically acclaimed. His latest book, The Lazarus Project, is one of the finalists for the National Book Awards, and continues his literary excellence. The story floats between the current time and the beginning of the last century, as a modern Bosnian-American writer Vladimir Brik, obtains a grant to explore the story of Lazarus Averbuch, an eastern European immigrant Jew, killed by the Chicago chief of police during the anarchist movement roil 1908 Chicago. Brik eventually goes to Eastern Europe with his friend, Rora, a Bosnian war photographer, to further explore where Lararus came from and those he left behind. The places and people he sees and visits are well crafted and interesting, but the journey ends up being more about Brik and Rora's history than that of Lazarus. The ongoing back story of Lazarus' sister, Olga Averbuch, who is harassed by the police and media after his death, helps shed some light on the discrimination in the early years of the twentieth century, against immigrants, Jews, and the anarchist movement. That period of time has parallels to today's terrorism fears and concerns, and Hemon skillfully weaves that into his story, without hitting you over the head with it. There are a number of pictures in the book, both historical from the actual Lazarus Averbuch case, and photos taken by Hemon and his real-life photographer friend when he was researching the novel. Hemon shows a great use of English throughout the book, especially noticeable when you realize that he wrote the book in his nonnative tongue. Highly recommended.

I don't write reviews often, but I felt compelled to do so for this book . As said before, the Lazarus Averbuch affair is interwoven with a strange modern-day odyssey into various cities in Eastern Europe in search of answers. What's really special about this book and what made me really crazy for it was the language. Read it and see for yourself. Some expressions and phrases are so effective and so original that they made the narrative many times more colorful than it already is.

One hundred years ago, a young man named Lazarus Averbuch, a Bosnian Jew and new immigrant to Chicago, knocks on the door of George Shippy, the Chief of Police. He is shot dead, accused of anarchist ties thanks to attending lectures by Emma Goldman. His wife Olga is forced to pick up the pieces alone: to find some solace and justice for Lazarus, to survive as a widowed woman, and to manage the ethnic tensions of living in a city with little tolerance for Jews, unwelcome immigrants and heterodox politics. Brik, a modern newspaper columnist and Bosnian immigrant, becomes fascinated with this true story and decides to uncover more of its censored history. Feeling generally displaced by the path of his life, an uneager participant in an alienating marriage, he jumps at a grant that would allow him to travel and research both Lazarus's heritage and his own. Not to say he has particularly strong ties to Bosnia, but he capitalizes on the project to supplement his only half-hearted sense of immigrant otherness: "Just like everybody else, I enjoy the unearned nobility of belonging to one nation and not the other; I like deciding who can join us, who is out, and who is to be welcome when visiting." So off to Bosnia! In the hopes of finding some "home," to lay down any firm ties (be they Bosnian or American), Brik travels with Rora, his decidedly Bosnian friend and tour guide. The original purpose of the trip --- a fact-finding expedition to Lazarus's hometown --- is soon left behind as Brik visits sites from his childhood and elsewhere in order to escape his American life and find something resembling a cultural identity. Rora is more or less like every oh-so-Eastern-European local, with an alien sense of humor and street-smart sensibility most recently incarnated in Jonathan Safran Foer's EVERYTHING IS ILLUMINATED. While certainly the most stereotypical character in the novel, Rora's jokes and stories from his war reporting career brilliantly pepper Brik's already bizarre road trip. Rora and Brik's exchanges are both wildly comedic and deeply poignant as Brik gains some sort of understanding, even if he doesn't like what it is. Complementing this narrative is a constant throwback to Olga in 1908, also trying to solve the mystery of Lazarus's death. Through brief imagined letters to her mother and conversations with Lazarus's friend hiding in an outhouse from the police, she is forced to come to terms with the fact of her immigrant otherness. This portion of the novel is told in a disarming present tense that makes even its historical parts come to life. Aleksandar Hemon absolutely nails the atmosphere of 1908 Chicago, showing with an impressive economy of words the scope of what has changed and what has remained the same. At the heart of both these stories is Hemon's incredible sense of style. His prose bubbles and pops with originality and humor --- one-liners convey whole images and extended descriptions hone in on single moments. His dialogue manag

Mr. Hemon has taken the historical mystery of the death of Lazarus Averbuch in 1908 and created a rich novel around it. His fictional hero, Vladimir Brik, is lost in America culture and in his life, and decides to solve the mystery behind the circumstances of Lazarus' death. The name Lazarus is a methaphor for the author who himself left the Balkans in the civil war of the 1990's, for Brik and for the New Testament Lazarus. Mr. Hemon is clearly writing about his former homeland when Brik returns there to solve the mystery. This is not a murder mystery (though it functions as one) but the tale of a man seeking his salvation and meaning of his life through the completion of a quest.