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A review by koreilly
The Lazarus Project by Aleksandar Hemon
4.0
Sometimes things don't always have to have a nice resolution. Sometimes they just end and the sudden stop leaves a nice little trail of echos. That's how I'd describe The Lazarus Project, a historical novel/memoir project that's at times, funny, sad, drunk and violent (just like those lousy immigrants am I right?).
I'm not gonna give you a synopsis because you can get that up there. I will give you my two cents on it though. It's a book about relationships between men. Not that kind, but the kind where one man admires the other and the other man clearly knows it. In the past we have an immigrant egg-packer who admires his fiery anarchist friend and in the present we have our nebbish narrator who admires his childhood friend-turned world traveling giggolo/photographer. We pick up one relationship at the beginning and the other at the end but the quiet interactions and subtle reactions to one another's bull shit is what makes the story great. Hemon has a real grip on awkward silences.
He does kind of over-describe the same shitty eastern european hotel over and over. We get it. The nineties were tough for eastern europe you don't have to keep telling us by emphasizing the cockroaches and the crime.
Still, this a good book. You should read it.
I'm not gonna give you a synopsis because you can get that up there. I will give you my two cents on it though. It's a book about relationships between men. Not that kind, but the kind where one man admires the other and the other man clearly knows it. In the past we have an immigrant egg-packer who admires his fiery anarchist friend and in the present we have our nebbish narrator who admires his childhood friend-turned world traveling giggolo/photographer. We pick up one relationship at the beginning and the other at the end but the quiet interactions and subtle reactions to one another's bull shit is what makes the story great. Hemon has a real grip on awkward silences.
He does kind of over-describe the same shitty eastern european hotel over and over. We get it. The nineties were tough for eastern europe you don't have to keep telling us by emphasizing the cockroaches and the crime.
Still, this a good book. You should read it.