Bøger af Atticus Lish

I årene efter 9/11 immigrerer Zou Lei illegalt til USA fra Kina. I New Yorks beskidte sidegadekøkkener arbejder hun under forfærdelige forhold for at få del i den frihed, hendes nye hjemland har at tilbyde sine indbyggere. Brad Skinner lider af posttraumatisk stress. Han er veteran efter tre ture til Irak og tager til New York med ét i sinde: at forsvinde i byen og glemme, hvad han har set. Skinner er ødelagt, aggressiv og vred, og hans vej ind i samfundet synes næsten dødsdømt. Men da han møder Zou Lei opdager de sammen, at en ny begyndelse måske er mulig for dem begge – hvis altså de overlever hjemløsheden, varetægtsfængslingerne og Skinners frygtelige mareridt. Igennem Zou Lei og Skinners øjne og hjerteskærende skæbner blotlægges et moderne Amerika set fra samfundets udkant. Den amerikanske drøm vendes på hovedet i de e medrivende, rå og realistiske samfundsportræt, hvis dybeste, bankende hjerte er en inderlig kærlighedshistorie. "Denne roman er intet mindre end en triumf og fortjener hvert et storslået adjektiv, en anmelder kan finde på. Det er ganske enkelt en reminder om, hvad litteraturen er til for. "FINANCIAL TIMES "Dette årtis fineste, mest usentimentale kærlighedshistorie. "NEW YORK TIMES "Den vildeste, mest indtrængende kærlighedshistorie, du kommer til at læse i år. "WALL STREET JOURNAL "Imponerende. … Betydelig og medrivende. "THE GUARDIAN "En ufattelig debut. "NEW YORK REVIEW OF BOOKS "Utrolig stærk. "SUNDAY TIMES

A NEW YORK TIMES NOTABLE BOOK OF THE YEAR • This “deeply immersive novel” (The Washington Post) from the author of the award–winning Preparation for the Next Life is an “epic coming-of-age tale filled with pain, heartache, fear, and undying love” (The Associated Press), as a young man’s yearning to protect his dying mother requires him to risk destroying his estranged, enigmatic, powerful father.   “From its hypnotic opening pages, we find ourselves in the sure hands of a roaming omniscient narrator, one who knows intimately the beating hearts of its two central characters” —Andre Dubus III, The New York Times Book ReviewCorey Goltz grows up in the working-class outskirts of Boston as the only child of Gloria, whose ambitions were derailed early but who has always given her son everything she can. Corey, restless, dreams of leaving home for a great adventure. Instead, when he is fifteen, the world comes crashing down upon him, when Gloria is diagnosed with ALS and, too late, his estranged father, Leonard—a man of great charisma but dubious moral character—reenters the picture. Determined to be his mother’s hero at any cost, Corey begins shouldering responsibility for her expensive medical care, pushing himself to his physical and emotional limits as her disease cruelly progresses. And as Leonard’s influence over Corey grows, Corey must dismantle the myth of his father’s genius and confront the evil that lurks beneath it. Gritty, visceral, and profoundly stirring, The War for Gloria tells the story of a young man, straddling childhood and adulthood, whose yearning to protect his mother requires him to risk destroying his father. An indelible work from a strikingly original voice in American fiction.

Winner of the PEN/Faulkner Prize 2015 Winner of the 2015 Paris Review Plimpton Prize for Fiction In post-9/11 New York, Zou Lei is an illegal immigrant from northwest China. A Muslim with a Uighur mother and a Han soldier for a father, she's a pariah even within the Chinese community. Forced to work fourteen-hour days and live in squalor, she nevertheless embraces the many freedoms her adopted homeland has to offer. Damaged by three tours in Iraq, veteran Brad Skinner comes to New York with the sole intention of partying as hard as he can in order to forget what he's seen. Impulsive and angry, Skinner's re-entry into civilian life seems doomed. But when he meets Zou Lei they discover that new beginnings may be possible for both of them, that is if they can survive homelessness, lockup and Skinner's post-traumatic stress disorder. Set in the underbelly of New York, Preparation for the Next Life exposes an America as seen from the fringes of society in devastating detail and destroys the myth of the American Dream through two of the most remarkable characters in contemporary fiction. Powerful, realistic and raw, this is one of the most ambitious and necessary chronicles of our time.