The Book of My Lives

January 14, 2013
Hemon is known for fiction like Nowhere Man and The Lazarus Project, a finalist for the 2008 National Book Award, but this work is his first volume of nonfiction. A collection of 15 mostly previously published essays assembled in somewhat chronological order, the book has the feel of a patchwork memoir that focuses on defining and enlightening moments in the author’s life rather than his existence as a whole. The “lives” of the title refer to his formative years growing up in Sarajevo and his adult life as a resident to Chicago and the stories are basically split between these two worlds. The first half of the book finds Hemon writing about himself and socio-political beliefs such as communism, socialism, and journalism, and the tales—while important in the context of the Bosnian War of the ’90s—lack a wider perspective that would make them more inviting and compelling. But with the eighth entry, “Dog Lives,” which centers on two family pets and straddles both Hemon’s homes, the author begins to reveal more of his feelings, dwelling less on philosophy, thereby creating a true connection with his subject and audience. As he goes on to focus on his adopted hometown, the immigrants he plays soccer with, the chess players at his local cafe, and his past and present lovers, the themes and writing become more personal, emotional, and dynamic. The book culminates with “The Aquarium,” 28 heart-wrenching pages of powerful prose originally published in the New Yorker, about his infant daughter’s battle with cancer that is nothing short of a tour de force; its terrible beauty demonstrates Hemon’s transformation as a writer and a man. Agent: Nicole Aragi, the Aragi Agency.

January 1, 2013
An acclaimed novelist--winner of a MacArthur Foundation genius grant and finalist for the National Book Award (The Lazarus Project, 2008, etc.)--returns with an affecting memoir about his youth in Sarajevo and his escape and adjustment to the West. Hemon begins with the birth of his baby sister. He evokes his boyhood jealousy and confusion with honesty and clarity, recalling how he once nearly murdered the infant. When war in the Balkans erupted (once again) in the 1990s, his family eventually fled. His father went to Canada with his wife and the author's sister in 1993; Hemon had been eking out a living as a journalist in Sarajevo, a city he loved. He maintains an appealing, self-deprecating voice throughout these early chapters, readily recognizing his own delusions and youthful arrogance. He got a chance to visit Chicago for a month in 1992 and didn't return. The second half of the memoir charts his early struggles in the city and his passions for soccer and chess, passions he was able to release once he found like-minded groups of others. Always a voracious reader (and aficionado of American popular culture), Hemon learned English, taught ESL for a while, then began writing in English, as well. He writes forthrightly about the failure of his first marriage: Something so right, he thought, quickly declined into something bad (shouting matches). But later he met and fell in love with his current wife, who, at the time, was editing a collection to which he was contributing. Hemon's technique is not conventional--this is no linear boyhood-to-manhood narrative. The chapters, in fact, could in many ways stand alone. But their cumulative emotional power--accelerated by a wrenching final section about the grievous illness of his younger daughter--eventually all but overwhelms. Amuses, informs and inspires--then, finally, rips open the heart.

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October 1, 2012

Anyone familiar with MacArthur Fellow Hemon's three distinctive story collections, as well as his formally inventive novel, The Lazarus Project--a finalist for both the National Book Award and the National Book Critics Circle Award--knows to expect his first nonfiction venture to go beyond standard memoir. Hemon recounts the arc of his life, from enjoying a childhood in vibrantly multiethnic Sarajevo, to being stranded in Chicago as his hometown came under siege, to building a new life here. Folded into this narrative, though, is a tale of two cities and his love for them both, for his family, and for soccer. Look for a tour.

Copyright 2012 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

February 1, 2013
MacArthur fellow Hemon's potent fiction (Love and Obstacles, 2009) is seeded with autobiographical elements now brought forward in his first book of nonfiction. In revised versions of essays first published in Granta and the New Yorker, Hemon chronicles with defining intensity, rueful self-critique, and piquant humor indelible revelations personal, cultural, and political. He is passionate about his hometown, Sarajevo, which he ardently explored and wrote about as a young militant journalist, to the point of realizing that my interiority was inseparable from my exteriority. This made his exile in the U.S. after war broke out in his homeland while he was away all the more excruciating. In his incisive, masterfully crafted, and complexly affecting family stories; Sarajevo exploits, including the party-performance piece that led to a 13-hour interrogation at State Security; tales of remapping the geography of the soul in Chicago, his adopted home; and his staggering chronicle of his daughter's tragic death, Hemon writes with deft force, piercing observation, and commanding candor about the individual's place within life's web and the horrors and beauty of the human condition.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2013, American Library Association.)