The book starts out with Lazarus as a young man seemingly roaming around the streets of Chicago like a homeless person. Lazarus doesn't seem to have any family around him or at least anywhere close to him. It seems that he has come from Bosnia to America for work. One morning Lazarus tries to go to the chief of police's house, which to him seems like a very high scale mansion. But when he gets their the butler greets him at the door and tells him that he is to early to come back in a hour and he could see him. So Lazarus starts to walk around the city to pass the time until he can go back and talk to the chief of police. While walking around Lazarus stops in a store, mainly because he is hungry and the store he goes into smells good. While in the store the store owner and his wife seem to be very suspicious of Lazarus because of the way he is dressed and because he will not speak when spoken to. After a while Lazarus buys some candy thinking they will think different of him because he has money to spend on "pleasure items" as he says it. After that he pops some candy in his mouth and heads back to the chief's house.
When Lazarus knocked on the door the Chief opened it and Lazarus walked in a few steps. Lazarus didn't say anything and the chief just stared him down. At this time we get a glimpse of what the newspapers would say the next day, " In the brief all-comprehensive glance he gave his caller, William P. Miller will write in the Tribune, Chief Shippy took in a cruel, straight mouth with thick lips and a pair of gray eyes that were at the same time cold and fierce. There was a look about that slim, swarthy young man-clearly a Sicilian or a Jew- that could send a shiver of distrust into any honest man's heart. Yet Chief Shippy, never to be unsettled by malevolence, invited the stranger into the comfort of his living room.( page 7)". While standing there Lazarus threw an envelope into the chief's hand and from here seemingly for no reason all hell breaks loose. "I did not wait to examine the envelope any further. The thought struck me like a streak of lightening that the man was up to no good. He looked to me like an anarchist. I grabbed his arms and forcing them behind his back, called to my wife." (page 8) Seemingly for no good reason at all except that the young man looked like a foreigner there was a struggle and the chief eventually ended up shooting Lazarus killing him. Seems to me like racial profiling.
Next we get into the part with the main character. He mostly talks about the differences between American's and Bosnian people. His wife is a neurosurgeon and he is a writer. He seems to feel pretty bad or just simply embarrassed that his wife makes way more money than he does. He wants to do a story on the shooting of Lazarus that took place by this time a 100 years ago. But to do this he has to get some money and preferable a grant. He goes out the celebrate the Bosnian independence day and ends up meeting an older couple that own all kinds of foundations and surely have lots of money. The elderly woman finds out who he is and starts talking to him about all the articles and columns that he has written and about how much she likes them. Later on they start dancing it almost seems to me like he is just trying to get friendly with the old lady so that she will give him his grant. As the couple dance away he keeps stepping on her feet and eventually she falls down in pain and he drops down on his knees to see if he can help. But, everyone else thinks they are doing some kind of dance and pictures are taken and the old lady turns from pain to happy again. The book says, "Later on, all the Bosnians in the organization committee were delighted and praised me for giving Susie a good old time, for now that she and Bill had been exposed to the ecstatic joys of Bonian culture, a hefty check was doubtless in the offing." (page 16) So he pretty much did just get friendly with the old lady just to get at her money.
To me one of the more interesting parts comes up next when he runs into an old high school classmate Rora. He goes up to Rora expecting a big hug or slap on the back and ends up getting nothing. He then goes on to tell some stories of Rora back in high school. He seemed to be the cool kid in school always missing class never seemingly to worry about anything. He went to all kinds of exotic places, drove planes, fancy cars, sleep with older women, and ate lavish foods. All the kids were in awe of him and loved to here of his stories when ever he came back. There were lots of rumors about Rora's family, about his dad possibly being a spy or in some secrete agency, his family in some kind of mafia business and they were all killed so he lived with his dads friends and even some speculation that Rora himself was a spy. To me Rora seems like a pretty cool guy.
I know i havn't got into the story to far yet, it's kind of hard to find time to read towards the end of the semester but I think this story is starting to grab me a little more.
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