The Lazarus Project by Aleksandar Hemon (Riverhead Books, 2008)
Author Aleksandar Hemon, born in Sarajevo and now living in Chicago, creates a strangely intertwined narrative that centers on a struggling writer named Brik (also a Bosnian native who lives in Chicago post-9/11) who is inspired by the story of an Eastern European Jewish immigrant who was shot to death in Chicago in 1908 amidst an ugly American obsession with anarchism. In his quest to write this immigrant story, Brik secures a grant, and with a thuggish childhood friend, travels to Ukraine, Moldova and ultimately to Sarejevo to realize the full story. During this strange, bleak journey, much is revealed about Brik, particularly about the nature of his strained marriage to an accomplished American neurosurgeon. But also, there are flashbacks to the surviving sister of the said unjustly murdered immigrant who is left alone to cope with abusive, crooked Chicago cops. Hemon is a skilled writer and manages to inject odd humor into weird predicaments, but ultimately details about pogroms and massacres, whore-houses and hateful murders, death and despair dominate this cinematic and complex narrative whose central mysteries are never fully resolved (7.5/10).
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