Preparation for the Next Life – Atticus Lish (****)
One of the Reading Challenges that I created for 2016 was to read more literature the goal I set was 24 books. The challenge includes books classified as general fiction, along with classics that I should have read, New York Time Bestsellers and Award-Winning books. Since there are four subcategories I made it six books for each subcategory! Preparation for the Next Life by Atticus Lish is the seventh book I’ve finished in 2016 and it’s the first in the subcategory of award-winning books. The book won the 2015 Pen/Faulkner Award for Fiction. In addition to that award the book was also among the ….
New York Times Best of 2014
Wall Street Journal’s Best of 2014
Vanity Fair’s Best of 2014
Publishers Weekly’s Best of 2014
BuzzFeed’s Best of 2014
Needless to say, it is a damn good book. Christopher Kennedy author Ennui Prophet provides a much better summary of the book than I can…..
An illegal Chinese immigrant meets a broken American warrior, and the great love story of the 21st century begins. The intersection of their paths seems inevitable, irrevocable. Their story: tender, violent, terrible, and beautiful. Atticus Lish’s prose, lyrical and taut, sentences as exact and indisputable as chemical formulas, is trance-like, evangelical in its ability to convert and convince its reader. Preparation for the Next Life is that rare novel that grabs you by the shirt and slaps you hard in the face. Look, it says. It isn’t pretty. Turn away at your own risk. In case you haven’t noticed, the American Dream has become a nightmare. Atticus Lish has your wake up call. He has created a new prototype of the hero, and her journey provides us with a devastating perspective on the “promised land” of the post 9/11 U.S., where being detained is a rite of passage and the banality of violence is simply part of the pre-apocalyptic landscape.
Yes the story of Zou Lei and Brad Skinner was at times horrifying. In Zou Lei’s case it was a WAS a wake up call to read about the way that illegal immigrants to our great nation have to live and the private hell that many Iraq and Afghanistan veterans live in. Neither life is a bed of roses but somehow these two found love and with it hope for a new beginning. But the more you read of Zou Lei’s troubles to become a legal citizen and Skinner’s deteriorating mental condition you know that new beginning may just not happen!
Bottom Line: If you like typical love stories then this book is not for you because as the New York Times says Preparation for the Next Life is “perhaps the finest and most unsentimental love story of the new decade”. I kept hoping that love was going to conquer all and our two heroes would live happily ever after, but the new nightmarish American Dream got in the way. But if you want a glimpse into the worlds of illegal immigrants and veterans suffering from PTSD, you will be hard pressed to find a better book. Frankly, I wouldn’t wish there lives on anyone and you have to admire anyone who can survive the ordeal of living in the poorest sections of 21st century New York City.
Review for the Further Exploration of Preparation of the Next Life by Atticus Lish
New York Times: Preparation for the Next Life, by Atticus Lish
The Guardian: Preparation for the Next Life by Atticus Lish review – a debut of unsettling power