The Lazarus Project
CBC Books | CBC | Posted: March 13, 2017 5:44 PM | Last Updated: March 13, 2017
Aleksandar Hemon
On March 2, 1908, 19-year-old Lazarus Averbuch, an Eastern European Jewish immigrant, was shot to death on the doorstep of the Chicago chief of police and cast as a would-be anarchist assassin. A century later, a young Eastern European writer in Chicago named Brik becomes obsessed with Lazarus's story. Brik enlists his friend Rora — a war photographer from Sarajevo — to join him in retracing Averbuch's path.
Through a history of pogroms and poverty, and a prism of a present-day landscape of cheap mafiosi and even cheaper prostitutes, the stories of Averbuch and Brik become inextricably intertwined, creating a truly original, provocative and entertaining novel. (From Riverhead Books)
From the book
The time and place are the only things I am certain of: March 2, 1908, Chicago. Beyond that is a 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.
From The Lazarus Project by Aleksandar Hemon ©2008. Published by Riverhead Books.