The Lazarus Project by Aleksandar Hemon

I have just finished this phenomenal, phenomenal book.  It is hard to believe Hemon only began learning English such a short time ago.  He seems to have mastered it.  The comparisons to Nabokov are obvious and from what I can tell pretty well founded.  I can’t believe I’m saying that, but it’s true.  He might be that good.   

This book tackles some heavy topics - murder, war, racism, genocide, immigration, divorce, cancer, and on and on.  You’d think this book shouldn’t be funny, but it is actually hilarious.  Hemon has written one of my favorite characters ever, Rora.  Rora is a photographer and teller of tall tales.  The narrator is an aspiring Bosnian-American writer named Birk.  Birk tells us that, unlike in America where truth is the foremost quality of any anecdote, when someone is telling a story in Bosnia, as long as it’s entertaining, you let them speak.  That is what Hemon does with Rora, he lets him tell story after hilarious story.

And I suppose that ties in with the actual story of Lazarus Averbuch.  Hemon tells the story around Lazarus, yet we know the actual truth is lost to time and no one knows exactly why he showed up on Chief Shippy’s doorstep that March morning in 1908.

This a MUST read.  Here is an Excerpt.