Book of Extraordinary Tragedies

July 1, 2022
One-time musical prodigy Aleks begins to lose his hearing at age 10, and by 20 he's trying to keep his family of five off the streets, out of jail, and alive. Wolfgang Amadeus Aleksandar Fa, aka Aleks, lives on the South Side of Chicago with his ailing mother; his older sister, Isobel; her daughter, Jazz; and his younger brother, Daniel. Aleks tries to hold down odd jobs to pay the bills, but he's equally as liable to walk away from one as to show up to work at it. He's expelled from community college for plagiarism. Isobel drinks, smokes, does drugs, dates the wrong sorts of men, and generally might not be paying enough attention to 3-year-old Jazz. Jazz is biting classmates in preschool. Daniel, 13, is stealing luggage from unsuspecting travelers at the airport, dressing like a ghost, and taking a bow and arrows to school. To add fuel to the fire, "kuzyn" Benny and Aleks' absentee father take turns entangling Aleks in criminal activities. If these maladies of choice weren't enough, there are a litany of circumstances beyond the characters' control, all setting them further down the path to failure, not the least of which is the looming financial crisis that comes to be known as the Great Recession. Readers have an inherent desire to see talent recognized and to see it overcome adversity. Nothing drives the compulsion to follow Aleks and company to their literary conclusion more than this. At heart, these are good people, in tough circumstances, making the same mistakes that many of us make. Will they allow themselves the chance to obtain happiness? A family of gifted individuals can't seem to stop sabotaging their own lives, but you'll want them to.

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July 18, 2022
Meno (Between Everything and Nothing) follows two classical music prodigies whose dreams are thwarted in his sincere latest. Aleks, a pianist whose full name is Wolfgang Amadeus Aleksandar Fa, and his older, cellist sister, Isobel, named after mathematician Isobel Loutit, live in Chicago with their younger brother, Daniel, while their depressed mother undergoes dialysis treatments. “At the age of twenty I have come to know that even our best-laid plans are often overthrown,” Isobel narrates, having left behind the cello to pursue math. Further hardships ensue as Aleks develops significant hearing loss. Isobel, meanwhile, gets into MIT, but returns home after her second semester after a mental health episode, then gets pregnant and drops out to raise her daughter, Jazzy, in their parents’ house. With Isobel frequently sidelined by illness, Aleks helps take care of Jazzy. When a potentially cancerous cyst is revealed as the likely cause of Isobel’s health woes, Aleks helps with his sister’s medical bills by selling his beloved piano. Meanwhile, Daniel goes through a deep depression and their mother further loses her grip on reality. Though the family saga is relatively simple, the characters’ passions and their desire for fulfillment is made achingly real. This ought to please Meno’s fans and win him some more.

Starred review from September 1, 2022

This richly embroidered coming-of-age story is set in the south side of Chicago, home base of the Nelson Algren Literary Award-winning Meno (Marvel and a Wonder). Of Bosnian and Polish descent, 20-year-old protagonist Aleks comes from a family of talented musicians who have fallen on hard times. Aleks himself suffers from hearing loss, which derailed a budding career as a concert pianist. His sister Isobel is a brilliant mathematician, MIT dropout, and talented cellist who struggles with being a single parent to Jazzy, a four-year-old who also has hearing loss. Both of Aleks's parents are nonfunctional unemployed adults, and thus he and his siblings bear an extra burden, while Isobel faces the additional challenge of having cancer. The story centers on Aleks's trying to help Isobel raise Jazzy by providing childcare and working a series of menial jobs. Aleks also helps raise his 13-year-old brother Daniel, who collects vintage comics and has a penchant for stealing luggage. Each character is vividly described as they creatively overcome adversity with talent, wit, and charm. VERDICT An uplifting and interesting exploration of one family's struggle for existence in the United States, against the backdrop of history, classical and popular music, and the financial crisis of 2007-08; highly recommended.--Henry Bankhead

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Starred review from September 1, 2022
Aleks, whose musical promise has been undermined by hearing loss, rides his bicycle everywhere in all seasons, works grueling jobs, gets expelled from community college, and always puts his dysfunctional family first. Seeking refuge from his ever-more-precarious life in a rough Chicago neighborhood, he composes richly conceptual symphonies in his head. Isobel, his musically gifted, thoroughly discouraged sister, a single mother, relies on Aleks to help care for her young daughter. Aleks and Isobel's formerly dynamic librarian mother has taken to her bed; their larcenous father has abandoned them. Overwhelmed by the troubles of the world, their younger brother retreats into poignant obsessions, while their Sarajevo-born musician grandfather cites "the curse of history" as the source of this Polish Bosnian family's bred-in-the-bone traumas. Day after day, Aleks, a stubborn angel in a cruel world, a ragtag philosopher, recounts the spinning-in-place round of his endless daily battles, making for an exhausting if purposeful narrative spiral. Yet for all their sorrows and epic bad luck, Meno's characters are imaginative, funny, and tough and their wretched predicaments attain cosmic absurdity. As in all his tender and edgy fiction, Meno's poetic prose is infused with sweet compassion and sharp protest as he marvels over "the beautiful failure of all human beings struggling against their own glorious mistakes" while, somehow, finding a way forward.

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