Preparation for the Next Life by Atticus Lish was
one of the few books published by a micro-press I could find at my library to
meet this week’s challenge.
Zou Lei has just been released from jail. In the
United States without papers, she scrapes together enough cash with restaurant
jobs and redeeming bottles to pay for rent and food. The daughter of a Chinese
soldier, she’s intent on staying strong by running and improvising workouts in
the park and alleyways on her breaks.
Skinner has just returned from Iraq after a third
deployment. Wandering around the city, he crosses paths with Zou Lei outside
the noodle shop where she works. They begin hanging out, both desperate for
human contact. Some days he makes it to the gym, but most find him getting high
or drunk or manic from his meds.
Slated on the cover as the “finest and most
unsentimental love story of the new decade,” each page of Lish’s novel seems to
edge the reader closer to an inevitable tragic ending. It doesn’t disappoint.
“Micro-presses are like microbrews. You’re trying to
make something powerful and delicious, often in your basement with weird,
smelly equipment.” – Kevin Sampsell, Future Tense Books
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