The Review of Contemporary Fiction

The Book of Lazarus by Richard Grossman
Brian Evenson

Richard Grossman. The Book of Lazarus. FC2, 1997. 450 pp. $19.95.

Like Grossman’s earlier work, The Alphabet Man, The Book of Lazarus begins with a lot of promise. The book is an interesting collage of photographs, drawings, handwritten notes, letters, political statements, poems, and rants. Grossman cycles through a dozen narrators to reach a 110-page kernel narrative that stitches the parts into a (perhaps too) cohesive whole. The central situation—an old mafia debt, a woman uncovering the secrets of her dead father, a once brilliant man, the extermination over a span of thirty years of a group of anarchists—is an interesting one. There is much in Grossman’s language and formal manipulations both to satisfy the reader and to draw the reader in.

However, despite its promise, The Book of Lazarus doesn’t come together as effectively as it might, primarily for two reasons. The first is that despite Grossman’s skill at descriptions, nonlinear writing, aphorisms, and narrative prose, his moments of dialogue, as recorded by lesbian painter Emma Stronghorse O’Banion, read like something out of mediocre mystery plot. Strewn with exclamations and overreactions, it feels too artificial. Though this can be partly explained by Emma’s own eccentricities or can by a generous reader be seen as an attempt to subvert the mystery novel, it cannot be wholly justified by either of these things. When it is considered side by side with Grossman’s other much stronger prose, it is clear that his dialogue mars the piece.

Second, on page 167 Grossman begins to provide the key to the book’s design, revealing why certain sections have been as they are, sorting out different documents and explaining everything away in modernist style. Until that time, much of what makes the book interesting is the lack of explanation, the strangeness of moving from a photograph to a handwritten note to a list of New Year’s resolutions to poems written on the back of fortune cookies to a series of aphorisms. When the book is explained away, however, some of its power is lost.

Nevertheless, there is much to recommend Grossman’s work, especially when he is at is best, as he is for instance in giving a long and unpunctuated rant or in the presentation of certain letters and images. Though The Alphabet Man is a better place to start, The Book of Lazarus still has much to recommend it. [Brian Evenson]


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The Review of Contemporary Fiction The Book of Lazarus by Richard Grossman Brian Evenson Richard Grossman. The Book of Lazarus. FC2, 1997. 450 pp. $19.95. Like Grossman’s earlier work, The Alphabet Man, The Book of Lazarus begins with a lot of promise. The book is an interesting collage of photographs, drawings, handwritten notes, letters, political statements, poems, and rants. Grossman cycles through a dozen narrators to reach a 110-page kernel narrative that stitches the parts into a (perhaps too) cohesive whole. The central situation—an old mafia debt, a woman uncovering the secrets of her dead father, a once brilliant man, the extermination over a span of thirty years of a group of anarchists—is an interesting one. There is much in Grossman’s language and formal manipulations both to satisfy the reader and to draw the reader in. However, despite its promise, The Book of Lazarus doesn’t come together as effectively as it might, primarily for two reasons. The first is that despite Grossman’s skill at descriptions, nonlinear writing, aphorisms, and narrative prose, his moments of dialogue, as recorded by lesbian painter Emma Stronghorse O’Banion, read like something out of mediocre mystery plot. Strewn with exclamations and overreactions, it feels too artificial. Though this can be partly explained by Emma’s own eccentricities or can by a generous reader be seen as an attempt to subvert the mystery novel, it cannot be wholly justified by either of these things. When it is considered side by side with Grossman’s other much stronger prose, it is clear that his dialogue mars the piece. Second, on page 167 Grossman begins to provide the key to the book’s design, revealing why certain sections have been as they are, sorting out different documents and explaining everything away in modernist style. Until that time, much of what makes the book interesting is the lack of explanation, the strangeness of moving from a photograph to a handwritten note to a list of New Year’s resolutions to poems written on the back of fortune cookies to a series of aphorisms. When the book is explained away, however, some of its power is lost. Nevertheless, there is much to recommend Grossman’s work, especially when he is at is best, as he is for instance in giving a long and unpunctuated rant or in the presentation of certain letters and images. Though The Alphabet Man is a better place to start, The Book of Lazarus still has much to recommend it. [Brian Evenson]

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