Between the Lines

The 24th annual Newberry Book Fair kicks off today at noon, featuring more than 100,000 donated books up for grabs and many available for less than $2. Located at The Newberry Library at 60 W. Walton St., the fair is open 12 p.m. to 8 p.m. Thursday and Friday, and 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Saturday and Sunday. Aside from Newberry's typical offerings -- which fall into 60 categories that range from discounted fiction titles to a smattering of cookbooks -- you can find a box of signed romance paperbacks and a sketch by Jean Cocteau among the collected oddities. I'll be posting pictures and impressions from Newberry this weekend.  

This weekend "the Midwest's largest literary event" will hit the South Loop, courtesy of the Trib and Chicago Public Library. The Printers Row Book Fair is bringing dozens of literary talents, including Scott Turow and Augusten Burroughs, downtown on June 7 and 8 for a weekend of discussion and conversation and gleeful book-selling in tents lining Columbia College's campus. And it's all free (though you need to obtain free tickets to gain access to some of the most popular speakers). The majority of the writers are Chicago residents; a few of my favorite writers from the city like Alex Kotlowitz, Audrey Niffenegger and Aleksandr Hemon, will be there reading and/or talking about their work. You can check out the somewhat overwhelming breakdown of the weekend's bookish festivities here. There's also a surfeit of activities for the kids, if you think your children may be bored by Rick Perlstein talking about Nixon for an hour.

Aleksandar Hemon moved from Sarajevo to Chicago in 1992, wrote his first story in English in 1995, and won a MacArthur “genius grant" in 2004. Not bad, right?

Last week Hemon released the fruit of his “genius grant," The Lazarus Project, a novel that jumps between the murder of a Jew in early 20^th century Chicago and a Bosnian immigrant in modern-day Chicago investigating the victim. Hemon’s 2002 novel Nowhere Man and 2000 debut collection of stories, The Question of Bruno, also feature Chicago heavily. His style is a mix of careful description and epic narrative, channeling the desires and dreams of immigrants in America; he lives in Edgewater, one of the most diverse and immigrant friendly neighborhoods in the city.

The Chicago Tribune ran its review of The Lazarus Project this weekend, the first one I’ve stumbled upon, applying the g-word judiciously:

All the same, I'm about to make a big assertion: Hemon just might have, in his third book, pulled it off. I'm not sure "The Lazarus Project" is a work of genius, but it may be the work of a genius.

Too much contemporary fiction seems purposefully to address small things in small ways—and it's not even a question of a writer's skill; it's a question of intent, of pinched ambition. But "The Lazarus Project" takes a healthy swing at the all-inclusive, the gripping, at the truly audacious. It's a book that manages to do what the best fiction does: It frames the public conscience of its own messy, changeful period. Hemon's is a majestic talent.

Hemon will be featured on 98.7 WFMT’s Writers on the Record on Sunday, May 18 at noon, which you can attend for free. Chicagoist posted a lengthy interview with him last week, as well.