Raw, high-contrast black-and-white photography adorns the pristine walls at Stop Smiling Studio on Milwaukee Avenue. Just a few blocks from the Six Corners, trendy Wicker Park women in pashminas mingle with men in cable-knit sweaters and mussy-haired, hip college boys. “I’m a huge fan,” says Zohra Sakwall as she takes her seat. “He writes about the immigrant experience with humor and sincerity.”
Sakwall has arrived at the launch party for Aleksandar Hemon’s new novel, “The Lazarus Project.” Hemon, the local author who won praise for his previous works, “A Question for Bruno” and “Nowhere Man,” collaborated with his good friend of twenty-three years, Velibor Bozovic, on the novel.
Bozovic traveled through Poland, Ukraine and Bosnia with Hemon while researching the new book; twelve of his photographs from the trip appear in its pages. “I have always secretly been a photographer,” Bozovic explains, lighting up a cigarette just outside the studio. “When I was in high school, during the siege…I took pictures. Then one year ago I quit my job [as an aerospace engineer], left the corporate world and became a photographer officially.”
Hemon’s voice carries lingering traces of Eastern Europe, an almost inaudible monotone. “The Lazarus Project” pictures two large, graphic eyes on both covers, and when Hemon reads, it is as if the book itself is ogling the audience. “Our President once said, ‘Books are great because they sometimes have fantastic pictures in them,’” Hemon laughs. “So I felt I had to put pictures in ‘The Lazarus Project.’ Maybe now the President will read it!” (Laura Hawbaker)
Saving American Prairies: A Review of "Back from the Collapse" by Curtis H. Freese Ecologist Curtis H. Freese describes the recent destruction of the Great Plains ecosystem due to Euro-American hunting, farming and cattle grazing, and convinces us that every living creature that was once part of the whole is required in the restoration of this biodiverse ecosystem.
Independent Thinking: A Review of "Invention: A Life" A two-fold tension runs throughout the book: Dyson’s persistence and creativity in solving engineering and design challenges, and his run-ins with British institutions and cultural prejudices about manufacturing
Life Is But A Dream: A Review of Rita Woods’ “The Last Dreamwalker” Set in the South, the book jumps back and forth between two protagonists: Gemma, a dreamwalker who walks in the dreams of her dying master, and Layla Hurley, an illustrator who’s prone to mysterious dreams and dreaming.
