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[MUG]∎ PDF Preparation for the Next Life (Audible Audio Edition) Atticus Lish Robertson Dean Audible Studios Books

Preparation for the Next Life (Audible Audio Edition) Atticus Lish Robertson Dean Audible Studios Books



Download As PDF : Preparation for the Next Life (Audible Audio Edition) Atticus Lish Robertson Dean Audible Studios Books

Download PDF  Preparation for the Next Life (Audible Audio Edition) Atticus Lish Robertson Dean Audible Studios Books

Zou Lei, orphan of the desert, migrates to work in America and finds herself slaving in New York's kitchens. She falls in love with a young man whose heart has been broken in another desert. A new life may be possible if together they can survive homelessness, lockup, and the young man's nightmares, which may be more prophecy than madness.


Preparation for the Next Life (Audible Audio Edition) Atticus Lish Robertson Dean Audible Studios Books

This extraordinary novel received a rave review in the New York Times, with the reviewer quoting long passages from the text to illustrate his point that the writing style is in itself remarkable: stark, unsentimental, yet incredibly poetic and evocative. The plot is heartbreaking but simple - the romance between a physically and emotionally damaged Iraq war vet and a a half-Han, half Muslim - an ethnic minority in China - illegal Chinese immigrant. The characters are three-dimensional and their story is tragic and compelling. The real story, however, is the theme of cultural, social and economic conflict and disintegration in modern urban America. The little injustices and expression of inhumanity that the characters face at each turn - the seemingly random, gratuitous physical and emotional violence - make their struggles seem at once noble, Inspiring and, perhaps futile. The descriptions of the landscape in which they struggle, give their story an iconic quality - they are themselves, and have no vision of being anything more than that, yet to the reader are everyone.

Depressing? No, gripping - Lish's incredibly detailed, poetic descriptions of the burnt out, busted landscape in which his characters try to forge a relationship and a life - the food malls, junkyards, garages, basements, highways, train station, municipal buildings of the working and lower middle class, particularly immigrants - give this novel a luminous, surreal quality that you will not soon forget. The landscape is transfigured by - what? Hope? Determination? Despair? Spirit? Not a word in this novel is smarmy or sentimental - it is pitiless - yet something else is going on here; humanity.

I wondered from the first page what the heck Atticus Lish has been doing for the past 20 years - he is 42, son of the editor, Gordon Lish. Turns out he's been working in factories, becoming a martial arts competitor - lost, yet found. He has certainly found his voice. This is the best novel that I have read in at least the past 5 years. You need to read it.

Product details

  • Audible Audiobook
  • Listening Length 15 hours and 7 minutes
  • Program Type Audiobook
  • Version Unabridged
  • Publisher Audible Studios
  • Audible.com Release Date April 14, 2015
  • Whispersync for Voice Ready
  • Language English, English
  • ASIN B00UNNR0RA

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Preparation for the Next Life (Audible Audio Edition) Atticus Lish Robertson Dean Audible Studios Books Reviews


Three quarters of the way through this beautifully grim depiction of life at the bottom, Zou Lei, an illegal immigrant who lives in fear of being thrown in jail again, of losing her barely paying backbreaking job, of seeing Skinner, the physically and mentally scared Iraq war vet who she has fallen in love with fail to surface from his overmedicated nightmares, meets a Muslim who wants to save her.

He wants her to come back to the religion she learned a bit about growing up dirt poor in rural Western China

“But, he said , you cannot have these beautiful things if you lead a bad life, if you are sinning, doing what you want. Of course you must live properly and obey the law. He pointed at the bilingual Arabic and English sign over the mosque’s doorway, which he read aloud for her. It said Preparation For The Next Life.”

This may be one of the few places in the book in which the author intrudes to include irony. Instead author Atticus Lish describes in loving detail the blasted housing projects, the unending trips for fast food, the meaningful meaningless of running and hiding through the demotic argot of those from Latin America, China, Afghanistan, as they try to survive in the outer orbit of New York City. The title of the book, however points to one of the few times that anything even remotely redemptive enters into the minds of the characters or the unfolding of a plot that we know, from the beginning, will not end well for some. Zou Lei is far more sinned against than sinning. In fact she is far more holy than most who have shrines. Skinner, however, haunted by demons, fights for a soul he lost in the killing zones. Others have lost their souls in prison or in the pursuit of money. The redemptive act of running may be the way of escaping dark thought. Zou Lei is always running, figuratively and literally. Her story is in some ways an update of Huck Finn-- a mattress for raft and then lighting out for the territories--and in this she may be more American than most of us.

The book has earned some rave reviews for its poetic prose put into service to give the largely voiceless to the voiceless. It’s not as if there are not millions who speak and live like Lish depicts; it’s just that they don’t write books or appear often in the media except when they are arrested or are themselves the victims of crimes. Lish’s sentences are clear and clean but also have a ‘deluging onwardness’ that makes what happens seems fated.

For those who want to read a writer using all his skills to bring readers into this world that so few seems prepared for, then I would encourage you to read this book. It is one of the better novels I have read in the past few years.
This book, which won the 2015 PEN/Faulkner award for fiction, is Lish's debut novel. A profoundly sad story of a young Muslim illegal immigrant from China and a veteran the Afghanistan war suffering from PTSD, it leaves the reader with no hope of a happy ending.

Happy endings are sometimes overrated, and as the book wends its way to the inevitable sad ending, it leaves the reader with a sense of satisfaction and hope. Zou Lei is the stronger of the two lovers. A member of a Muslim sect in China, she is used to being on the fringes. Nevertheless, a core of steel will not allow her to give up. In spite of everything she continues to struggle. Skinner, the war vet, has had his core destroyed by the war. The two unlikely lovers struggle to keep their love alive in the face of overwhelming odds.

The writing is luminous, and that is what kept me reading to the end, long past the time I had given up hope for the couple. The world is against them, and they simply lack the skills to cope with the challenges they face.
One of the best female characters a male author has written and I learned a lot about the people who remain unseen, partly because others fail to see them. Don't read this book if you have never started a conversation with the people sitting on the bus next to you. If you think that lacking empathy is a sign of your superiority, you will probably be disappointed.
This extraordinary novel received a rave review in the New York Times, with the reviewer quoting long passages from the text to illustrate his point that the writing style is in itself remarkable stark, unsentimental, yet incredibly poetic and evocative. The plot is heartbreaking but simple - the romance between a physically and emotionally damaged Iraq war vet and a a half-Han, half Muslim - an ethnic minority in China - illegal Chinese immigrant. The characters are three-dimensional and their story is tragic and compelling. The real story, however, is the theme of cultural, social and economic conflict and disintegration in modern urban America. The little injustices and expression of inhumanity that the characters face at each turn - the seemingly random, gratuitous physical and emotional violence - make their struggles seem at once noble, Inspiring and, perhaps futile. The descriptions of the landscape in which they struggle, give their story an iconic quality - they are themselves, and have no vision of being anything more than that, yet to the reader are everyone.

Depressing? No, gripping - Lish's incredibly detailed, poetic descriptions of the burnt out, busted landscape in which his characters try to forge a relationship and a life - the food malls, junkyards, garages, basements, highways, train station, municipal buildings of the working and lower middle class, particularly immigrants - give this novel a luminous, surreal quality that you will not soon forget. The landscape is transfigured by - what? Hope? Determination? Despair? Spirit? Not a word in this novel is smarmy or sentimental - it is pitiless - yet something else is going on here; humanity.

I wondered from the first page what the heck Atticus Lish has been doing for the past 20 years - he is 42, son of the editor, Gordon Lish. Turns out he's been working in factories, becoming a martial arts competitor - lost, yet found. He has certainly found his voice. This is the best novel that I have read in at least the past 5 years. You need to read it.
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