The Lazarus Project part 1

The novel starts out obscure with a description of a young poor immigrant looking for Sheriff Shippy, but must return at a later time to speak to him. The young immigrant who we find out later to be named Lazarus, then goes into a store with a growling stomach and is quickly stereotyped for looking that way. He then returns to the sherif's home and hands him a letter, with out thinking the sheriff accuses him of being an anarchist and the Sheriff ends up killing Lazarus and his own son, while everyone is waiting to change the story. Then in a change of scenery our main character Brik, is a Bosnian - American who lives in chicago as a writer while his wife is a successful brain surgeon. The men in many of our books are similar, all freelance writers living off of their wives. Well it is weird how the Bosnians are all paranoid of Brain Inflation. Anything bad they do will cause their brain to inflate. Describing the Bosnian Reunion was a great way for the author to relay the beliefs and stories of the Bosnian culture. The background to the war is told and Brik runs into his long lost friend Rora who is the photographer. He was there for the war and survived it while Brik escaped. He describes there childhood as Rora had all the cool stories to tell and how he envied him, when in actuality Rora did not live a glamourous life. He made it all up. But it was there tradition to believe in what everyone says. I liked how the author incorporated such deep thoughts about the world as " All the lives I could live, all the people i will never know, never will be,they are everywhere. That is all the world is." He has very profound thoughts on life. But he also is very engaged to write this book but does not want to be another failure to his wife. He discovers he receives a grant and decides to dig deeper into the story of Lazarus and go back to Ukraine. He wants to make this story real. The two story lines keep the book interesting and easy to read.

Otiose- being at leisure, idle

burly-large in body size, sturdy,stout

kibitz- to infer or offer unwanted advice.