“Hemon’s prose is exacting, calculated, full. Single sentences resonate with the weaving of other narratives within them, and nearly every sentence is so crafted.”

I’m not sure why it took me so long to open this book. Admittedly, the topic seemed less compelling to me: the investigation of the death of a Jewish immigrant a hundred years earlier. But wow–that is the only the opening of the door from the work of one the finest writers I have met.

Hemon’s prose is exacting, calculated, full. Single sentences resonate with the weaving of other narratives within them, and nearly every sentence is so crafted. Don’t go into this thinking that you are in for a fast read. The subtleties come often in the silences between characters, in the obfuscation of historical fact vs. speculative extension vs. narrator experience. As much as anything else, our narrator/researcher, a Bosnian self-alienated both from the US and his own country, has to reconcile the death he is researching, the deaths behind his own history, and the life he is (not?) consciously living in his own marriage.

How could these possibly overlap? Which story dominates? What can we trust in the narrative as absolutely true? Yes, yes, yes, those are the questions–and Hemon handles both story and his readers in surprisingly capable hands.

I mean, yes, Hemon has also worked with the Wachowskis on television and film, too (Sense8 may give you an idea of his plotting style), but I am eager to read more of him right away. For those who are already fans ahead of me, where should I go next?