Feeling festive this fall? Check out our new title picks for the season.

Summary and Reviews of The Lazarus Project by Aleksandar Hemon

The Lazarus Project by Aleksandar Hemon

The Lazarus Project

by Aleksandar Hemon
  • BookBrowse Review:
  • Critics' Consensus:
  • Readers' Rating:
  • First Published:
  • May 1, 2008, 304 pages
  • Paperback:
  • May 2009, 304 pages
  • Rate this book

  • Buy This Book

About This Book

Book Summary

In 1908, 19-year-old Lazarus went to the home of George Shippy, the Chicago chief of police to deliver a letter - but Shippy shot Lazarus twice, killing him. Now, in the 21st century, a young writer, Brik, becomes obsessed with Lazarus' story - what really happened and why? As digs deeper, the stories of Lazarus and Brik become inextricably entwined.

Aleksandar Hemon has earned a reputation as one of the English language's most original and moving wordsmiths. In The Lazarus Project, Hemon turns these talents to a novel that intertwines haunting historical atmosphere with sharp—sometimes hilarious, sometimes heartbreaking—storytelling.

On March 2, 1908, 19-year-old Lazarus Averbuch, a Jewish immigrant from Eastern Europe to Chicago, knocked on the front door of the home of George Shippy, the Chicago chief of police. When Shippy came to the door, Lazarus offered him what he said was an important letter for him. Instead of taking the letter, Shippy shot Lazarus twice, killing him. Shippy released a statement casting Lazarus as a would-be anarchist assassin and agent of foreign political operatives, leaving Lazarus's sister, Olga, bereaved and stranded at the center of a city and a country simmering with ethnic and political tensions.

Now, in the 21st century, a young writer in Chicago, Brik, also from Eastern Europe, becomes obsessed with Lazarus' story—what really happened, and why? In order to understand Lazarus Averbuch, Brik and his friend Rora—who overflows with stories of his life as a Sarajevo war photographer—retrace Lazarus's path backwards across Eastern Europe, through a history of pogroms and poverty, and through a present-day of cheap mafiosi and cheaper prostitutes. The stories of Lazarus and Brik become inextricably entwined, augmented by the photographs that Rora takes on their journey, creating a truly original, provocative, and entertaining novel that will confirm Hemon once and for all as one of the most dynamic and essential literary voices of our time.

Excerpt
The Lazarus Project

The time and place are the only things I am certain of: March 2, 1908, Chicago. Beyond that is the haze of history and pain, and now I plunge:

Early in the morning, a scrawny young man rings the bell at 31 Lincoln Place, the residence of George Shippy, the redoubtable chief of Chicago police. The maid, recorded as Theresa, opens the door (the door certainly creaks ominously), scans the young man from his soiled shoes up to his swarthy face, and smirks to signal that he had better have a good reason for being here. The young man requests to see Chief Shippy in person. In a stern German accent, Theresa advises him that it is much too early and that Chief Shippy never wishes to see anybody before nine. He thanks her, smiling, and promises to return at nine. She cannot place his accent; she is going to warn Shippy that the foreigner who came to see him looked very suspicious.

The young man descends the stairs, opens the gate (which also creaks ...

Membership Advantages
  • Reviews
  • "Beyond the Book" articles
  • Free books to read and review (US only)
  • Find books by time period, setting & theme
  • Read-alike suggestions by book and author
  • Book club discussions
  • and much more!
  • Just $45 for 12 months or $15 for 3 months.
  • More about membership!

Reviews

BookBrowse Review

BookBrowse

It is simple to predict the fate of The Lazarus Project: it will deservedly turn up on many "best of 2008" lists. Its characters have lingered in my mind, but what sets the novel apart is the language that Hemon has imagined into being for describing the reality just to the side of the one in plain view. To dive into a Hemon novel is to feel, at least for the duration of its pages, that we are all exiles from the country of the real...continued

Full Review (999 words)

This review is available to non-members for a limited time. For full access, become a member today.

(Reviewed by Amy Reading).

Media Reviews

Esquire
Now here's a reason to get excited: a true work of art that's as vast and mysterious as life itself. This tender, devastating book is evidence indeed that Hemon is a writer of rare artistry and dept.

Los Angeles Times
[With The Question of Bruno] Hemon proved himself as inventive as Nabokov or Salman Rushdie. He seemed, in other words, to possess the kind of bold talent that doesn't come around very often. And in his follow-up book, Hemon again displays his prodigious gifts—nearly every sentence of this novel is infused with energy and wit. . . . A true original.

New York Times
An extraordinary writer: one who seems not simply gifted but necessary.

The Washington Post - David Leavitt
The novel is full of jokes and linguistic riffs that justify comparisons to Nabokov. And though the prose occasionally lapses into turgidity…these overwrought moments are more than made up for by the many gorgeous ones.

Kirkus Reviews
Profoundly moving...A literary page-turner that combines narrative momentum with meditations on identity and mortality.

Library Journal
Starred Review. Hemon brings us a novel worth reading with as much fire as its composition must have demanded.

Publishers Weekly
Hemon's workmanlike prose underscores his piercing wit, and between the murders that bookend the novel, there's pathos and outrage enough to chip away at even the hardest of hearts.

Reader Reviews

Kim

Not what I expected
I was actually a bit disappointed in this book. I think it’s likely that from the jacket description that I was expecting a historical fiction book that explored the turn-of-the-century life and death of Lazarus Averbuch. It seems as if there’s a ...   Read More

Write your own review!

Membership Advantages
  • Reviews
  • "Beyond the Book" articles
  • Free books to read and review (US only)
  • Find books by time period, setting & theme
  • Read-alike suggestions by book and author
  • Book club discussions
  • and much more!
  • Just $45 for 12 months or $15 for 3 months.
  • More about membership!

Beyond the Book



Aleksandar Hemon

Aleksandar Hemon's extraordinary life story is more than simply fodder for book publicists. It informs everything he has written, for his work is restlessly autobiographical, infused with the urgency of thinking through his life on paper.

In 1992, Hemon was a young Bosnian writer, just two years out of the University of Sarajevo and about to publish his first book, a collection of spare and modernist short stories. Then Sarajevo was surrounded by the Yugoslav National Army and the Bosnian War broke out. Hemon's book was never published. As he said later, "Stopping that was the best thing the war ever did."

Hemon was on a one-month tour of the United States when his city was besieged, and the visit turned him into an ...

This "beyond the book" feature is available to non-members for a limited time. Join today for full access.

Membership Advantages
  • Reviews
  • "Beyond the Book" articles
  • Free books to read and review (US only)
  • Find books by time period, setting & theme
  • Read-alike suggestions by book and author
  • Book club discussions
  • and much more!
  • Just $45 for 12 months or $15 for 3 months.
  • More about membership!

Read-Alikes

Read-Alikes Full readalike results are for members only

If you liked The Lazarus Project, try these:

  • The Invention of Exile jacket

    The Invention of Exile

    by Vanessa Manko

    Published 2015

    About this book

    Through the unforgettable character of Austin Voronkov, Manko explores the little-known period in American history of the Palmer Raids and the far-reaching implications of exile and loss.

  • A Replacement Life jacket

    A Replacement Life

    by Boris Fishman

    Published 2015

    About this book

    More by this author

    A singularly talented writer makes his literary debut with this provocative, soulful, and sometimes hilarious story of a failed journalist asked to do the unthinkable: Forge Holocaust-restitution claims for old Russian Jews in Brooklyn, New York.

We have 10 read-alikes for The Lazarus Project, but non-members are limited to two results. To see the complete list of this book's read-alikes, you need to be a member.
More books by Aleksandar Hemon
Search read-alikes
How we choose read-alikes
Membership Advantages
  • Reviews
  • "Beyond the Book" articles
  • Free books to read and review (US only)
  • Find books by time period, setting & theme
  • Read-alike suggestions by book and author
  • Book club discussions
  • and much more!
  • Just $45 for 12 months or $15 for 3 months.
  • More about membership!

Top Picks

  • Book Jacket: Final Cut
    Final Cut
    by Charles Burns
    Illustrator and writer Charles Burns is no stranger to the horror circuit. Most prominently known ...
  • Book Jacket: Season of the Swamp
    Season of the Swamp
    by Yuri Herrera
    Though he will go on to become President, reformer, and national hero of Mexico, in 1853 Benito Ju&#...
  • Book Jacket: Playground
    Playground
    by Richard Powers
    The primary narrator of Richard Powers' latest novel, Playground, is Todd Keane, who at 57 years old...
  • Book Jacket: The Empusium
    The Empusium
    by Olga Tokarczuk
    Not long after checking into Willi Opitz's "Guesthouse for Gentlemen," young Mieczysław Wojnicz...

Members Recommend

  • Book Jacket

    Libby Lost and Found
    by Stephanie Booth

    Libby Lost and Found is a book for people who don't know who they are without the books they love.

  • Book Jacket

    The Bog Wife
    by Kay Chronister

    Five West Virginia siblings unearth secrets after the rupture of a supernatural bargain tying their fate to their land.

Book Club Giveaway!
Win Let Us Descend

Let Us Descend by Jesmyn Ward

Jesmyn Ward imagines the life of an enslaved girl in the years before the Civil War in this instant classic.

Enter

Wordplay

Solve this clue:

H I O the G

and be entered to win..