Atticus lish preparation for the next life
She was using both hands to hold up the triangular pizza slice, which kept buckling in the middle, like a corpse being carried to a helicopter.
There are some words that have become meaningless in criticism. Many of the adjectives blazoning my copy of Preparation for the Next Life can be found on that list: “extraordinary”, “compelling”, “masterful”, and so on. There are others, too, though, in the blurbs that preface the book itself, and they’re less common—”superlucid”, “breathless momentum”, “a low centre of gravity”, “heat-seeking precision”—as though the authors of these reviews were trying, consciously or unconsciously, to replicate the power of the prose that had left them so breathless, moving so unstoppably. Perhaps the most overused word of all, in contemporary media at least, is “tragedy”. Preparation for the Next Life is a tragedy too: not the fall of a great man, but the remorseless crushing of an unlucky one. Though our male protagonist, Brad Skinner, isn’t the only one; there’s also his lover, Zou Lei, an ethnic Uighur from northwest China who
BOOK REVIEW: Preparation for the Next Life by Atticus Lish – March 2017
Reviewed by Jane Tompkins
This novel, the first by Atticus Lish, is angry, depressing, self-righteous, overwritten, and pretentious. It’s also, in a way, brilliant and ground-breaking. A weird descendant of Dos Passos and Pynchon joint, it’s darker than both, and harder to read than either. Stylistically percussive, disjointed, and excruciatingly detailed, its energy is bounding and relentless.
The story concerns Zhou Lei, an illegal refugee from Northwest China where the Uighur people live, who scrapes by working in fast food places with no day off; Skinner, an American soldier tossed into civilian life after three tours of duty in Iraq, his duffel stuffed with antidepressants, pain-killers and anti-anxiety medication; and Jimmy, out of jail for the first time in ten years, the son of a aggressive, alcoholic father and a brutalized mother, whom he lives off of in a poverty-stricken neighborhood in Queens. If you’re thinking the story might be a downer, you’re correct.
Skinner and Zhou Lei, who meet through their common obsession with working out, use weight lifting, calisthenics, and running to cl
'This behemoth of a novel packs an emotional punch that will send you reeling...a disturbing and compelling picture of lives in the margins'.
Mail on Sunday
'Into the field of post-9/11 literature wades America's latest literary darling, Atticus Lish...Lish was awarded the PEN/Faulkner award for this book. Those who have read it will agree with the decision'.
Times
'Extraordinarily powerful...Lish's remarkable debut fuses raw realism with narrative poetry to memorable effect'.
Sunday Times
'A stunning, brilliant novel...Every word, every encounter, rings true.'
Observer, `Pick of the Week'
'This book is a masterwork.'
Alan Warner, author of Morvern Callar
'Devastatingly good. My heart was a different size by the time I finished: swollen from the terrible beating it took, but also, I think, permanently augmented.'
Ned Beauman, author of The Teleportation Accident `Powerful... Lish writes with rare confidence... he doesn't forget that a good love story should break your heart'
Metro
`Punches its way, bare-knuckled, through every millennial New York novel centring around middle-class intellectual characters... kicking typical tales of artsy, east-coast
Atticus Lish’s Preparation for the Next Life is this generation’s most significant novel about “otherness.” Using the story of two individuals that end up in a relationship as a vehicle to explore life on the fringe, Lish delves deep into the realities, challenges, and feelings of an undocumented immigrant and an Iraq war veteran whose body and psyche have been affected by three consecutive tours filled with fear and carnage. Packed full of details, vivid descriptions, and unflinching honesty, Preparation for the Next Life offers readers a touching and brutal look at the way those on society’s margins manage to keep on dreaming while they struggle to survive.
The narrative kicks off with Zou Lei, an ethnic Uighur from northwest China who barely speaks English. She slips into the country without papers, with no one to reach or ask for help, and is in desperate need of shelter and a job. After a short stint in a prison, effectively serving as her introduction to life in the United States, Zou holds a string of dead-end jobs in stores, kitchens, and even selling DVDs on the subway. Finally, she ends up working in the kitchen of a Chinese restaurant in Queens where she’s at the
Review: PREPARATION FOR THE NEXT LIFE by Atticus Lish
Review by ELIZABETH MIKESCH
This is what we should be reading right now. Most writers aren’t generous enough to generate books this clean or of heft. Books about what it means to be an American feel clammy and flaccid. We’re usually asked to quietly and safely consider what already makes sense. I’ve yet to be moved by a contemporary novel daring to sum it all up because they lack agility in rendering the “all-seeing” approach to storytelling and resume summoning trite, too often self-congratulatory, overly assertive litanies summarizing, based on conjecture and not investment, fraught by research and data and not driven by the violent coming to of a realization that life isn’t now . Shouldn’t literature train us to become comfortable with not knowing?
Here, Atticus Lish transcends authorship to invite our minds to delve into the hellscapes of the disenfranchised forging new lives post-9/11 in Queens. Zhou Lei, an illegal Chinese immigrant, and Skinner, a vet back from three tours in Iraq, seek respite in each others’ survivor vibes in 24-hour McDonald’s and KFCs, in extreme workouts, in the streets and in shitty bars, an