Review by Booklist Review
The narrator of this emotionally draining novel has been through horrors, having fled war-torn Bosnia as a teenager and then struggled to gain a foothold in America. This effort is complicated by his alcoholism, which also fuels the failure of his marriage. Desperate for closure or answers, the narrator pens his story as a "mix tape almost, a side A(merica) and side B(osnia)." Interspersed in this freewheeling and often careening tale are letters to comedian Bill Barr--the narrator is a fan--a "Hail Mary attempt to be heard." Following his award-winning debut, Shards (2011), Prcic writes here in a fractured style that is arresting yet proves distracting, reducing the story's emotional punch rather than adding to it. The reader must find an arc through disparate elements and narrative pyrotechnics, including moving descriptions of the aftermath of the Tuzla Massacre. Ultimately, this is a devastating story about the heavy toll of some of life's biggest challenges, including displacement, war, and addiction.
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
A middle-aged immigrant sorts through his memories of the Bosnian War and his present-day romantic woes in this clever and moving work of autofiction from Prcic (Shards). Izzy Prcic lives out of his car in Salem, Ore., where he drinks heavily and writes confessional and often self-deprecating fan emails to comedian Bill Burr. Interspersed with the letters are short stories written by Izzy and narrated by characters who, as Izzy explains in his letters to Burr, represent different versions of himself ("every chunk a snapshot of a particular brokenness"). In "Slouching Toward Pichka Materina," the narrator recalls how he escaped the war's privation by huffing paint with the other punk rock kids. The 17-year-old narrator of "Bosnian Dream" struggles to assimilate to life in the U.S., where his uncle advises him to cold-call DreamWorks for a job rather than go to college. In "Teletovič Grills Lamb, Defensively," set in the present, the narrator tries to connect with his American-born son through playing a violent video game. Prcic adeptly portrays his characters' shaky lives and painful pasts, and the blend of autobiography and metafiction evokes Izzy's disorientation. Prcic's impressive talents are on full display. Agent: PJ Mark, Janklow & Nesbit Assoc. (Aug.)
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Review by Kirkus Book Review
A writer who escaped war-torn Bosnia uneasily resettles in America. Prcic's tricky, prismatic, sardonic second novel features a narrator (also named Ismet, aka Izzy) working through past traumas. He's in Salem, Oregon, recently divorced, in recovery from alcoholism, and recalling his youth in Bosnia-Herzegovina, which was ravaged by the early 1990s war. To cope, he writes letters to the comic Bill Burr, whose brash, cynical delivery makes him a kindred spirit. Those letters introduce fuller chapters that are lightly fictionalized efforts by the narrator to address his pain--Prcic's characters all tend to drink heavily, fall in love hard, and strive to blot out memories of dead friends and family members. The backstories sometimes change slightly, but there are some bedrock elements: Southern California, acting school, writerly ambition, dead-end jobs. In one chapter, the hero, working in a movie theater for an abusive, lackadaisical manager, sublimates his rage by sending messages through the marquee; in another, he does it via his son's hyperviolent video game. This instability of identity in the story is disorienting, but to a purpose, revealing the chaos within the mind of a war refugee ("I start a page of fiction and it crumples into trauma, the past, and I can't stop the narrative and comment…"). Though at times the structure and prose threaten to become abstracted, Prcic has an excellent command of the everyday anxieties of the maintenance alcoholic--the deceptions of loved ones, the small preparations. And Prcic can be funny, with a hyperactive comic tone that cuts to the heart of his struggle: "When everyone else was going on and on about 'narrative coherence' you were like, 'Fuck narrative coherence, what about the dude is broken don't we understand!?'" An adventurous novel that meshes a fragmented narrative with a broken soul. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
