Book of Extraordinary Tragedies

by Joe Meno

Overview

From the best-selling author Joe Meno, a moving novel about the impossibility of fate and family.

“Joe Meno is one of those Chicago writers floating around so long that we take his sturdiness for granted. His latest, though, Book of Extraordinary Tragedies, the tale of Evergreen Park musical prodigies who reunite after ages of failure and loss, is a career best, a reminder of how unusually hopeful and buoyant Meno has remained all this time. It’s a charmer and a breakthrough.” —Chicago Tribune, Fall Books Preview

"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." —Booklist, Starred Review

Aleksandar and Isobel are siblings and former classical music prodigies, once destined for greatness. As the only Eastern European family growing up on their block on the far southside of Chicago, the pair were inseparable until each was forced to confront the absurdity of tragedy at an early age and abandon their musical ambitions.

Now in their twenties, they find themselves encountering ridiculous jobs, unfulfilling romantic relationships, and the outrageousness of ordinary life. Doomed by fate, a family history of failure, an odd mother, an absent father, and a younger brother with a peculiar fondness for catastrophes, the two siblings have all but given up.

But when an illness forces Isobel and her three-year-old daughter to move back into the family home, Aleks becomes deeply involved in the endless challenges that surround his relatives. Once Isobel begins playing cello again, Aleks comes to see a world of possibility and wonder in the lives of his extraordinarily complicated family.

Told in Aleks’s exuberant voice, and full of as much comedy as tragedy, this entertaining novel asks, Is it ever truly possible to separate our fates from those we’ve come to love?

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781636140612
Publisher:	Akashic Books, Ltd.
Publication date:	09/06/2022
Pages:	352
Sales rank:	1,176,005
Product dimensions:	5.70(w) x 8.30(h) x 0.90(d)

About the Author

JOE MENO is a fiction writer and journalist who lives in Chicago. Winner of the Nelson Algren Literary Award, a Pushcart Prize, and a finalist for the Story Prize, Meno is the best-selling author of several novels and short story collections including Marvel and a Wonder, The Great Perhaps, The Boy Detective Fails, and Hairstyles of the Damned; he also edited Chicago Noir: The Classics. He is a professor in the English and Creative Writing Department at Columbia College Chicago. Book of Extraordinary Tragedies is his latest work.

Editorial Reviews

07/18/2022

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. (Sept.)

Publishers Weekly

"With his nuanced portrayal of Chicago’s ethnic, class, and cultural dividing lines, Meno once again proves himself a true heir to Stuart Dybek for the way he captures the essence of life in our neighborhoods."

Chicago Reader - One of the ten best Chicago books of 2022

"[D]espite the long odds stacked against his characters, Meno keeps their story buoyant . . .They’re hopelessly optimistic in their own twisted way . . . What this story gets so right is how so many of us live in the past and the present all at once."

Chicago Reader

2022-06-08
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.

Kirkus Reviews

"Joe Meno’s Book of Extraordinary Tragedies captures something of a modern-day naturalism. His characters, a family of Eastern Europeans living on Chicago’s South Side, are—like those of Frank Norris and Ernest Hemingway—molded by their social conditions, shaped by their heredity, and victims of seemingly inescapable poverty, drugs, and crime . . . The novel itself can be seen as a symphony of artful complexity with careful timbre, melody, and countermelody all harmonizing together . . . if you’re seeking a dark commentary on the life of a third-generation immigrant family in 21st-century America—one that reveals its more subtle undertones only upon additional reads—the author gives you exactly that."

Washington Independent

"Joe Meno is among a couple other writers (Kevin Wilson and Patrick DeWitt) who do a genre I’m going to call SadQuaint. It’s a little Wes Anderson, a little morose, and a Joe Meno SadQuaint is always a pleaser."

LitReactor - A Best Book of 2022

"Meno knows how to make you love his characters, want what they want. But don’t think he’s going to let things turn out well for them."

New York Times Book Review

Additional Praise for Book of Extraordinary Tragedies:

“Joe Meno’s Book of Extraordinary Tragedies captures something of a modern-day naturalism. His characters, a family of Eastern Europeans living on Chicago’s South Side, are—like those of Frank Norris and Ernest Hemingway—molded by their social conditions, shaped by their heredity, and victims of seemingly inescapable poverty, drugs, and crime . . . The novel itself can be seen as a symphony of artful complexity with careful timbre, melody, and countermelody all harmonizing together . . . if you’re seeking a dark commentary on the life of a third-generation immigrant family in 21st-century America—one that reveals its more subtle undertones only upon additional reads—the author gives you exactly that.” 
—Washington Independent

"With his nuanced portrayal of Chicago's ethnic, class, and cultural dividing lines, Meno once again proves himself a true heir to Stuart Dybek for the way he captures the essence of life in our neighborhoods."
—Chicago Reader, one of the ten best Chicago Books of 2022

"Joe Meno is among a couple other writers (Kevin Wilson and Patrick DeWitt) who do a genre I'm going to call SadQuaint. It's a little Wes Anderson, a little morose, and a Joe Meno SadQuaint is always a pleaser." 
—LitReactor, A Best Book of 2022

"Book of Extraordinary Tragedies may have a grim title, but don't let that cause you to hesitate to pick it up. It's ultimately a rich, uplifting read of family, fate, and surviving (and maybe even thriving?) in this world that is so often unfair. Highly recommended." 
—Razorcake

"[A] richly embroidered coming-of-age story . . . 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." 
—Library Journal, starred review

"[Meno] writes of a South Side Chicago family of Eastern European descent that is full of damage—hearing loss, poverty, cancer, sick mothers and lost fathers—who are really just holding on for much of the book, yet full of love, curiosity and desire as well. As he always does, Meno brings a lot of sadness, a lot of humor, and something magical to all pages."
—LitReactor

"Set against the backdrop of the 2008 economic meltdown, Book of Extraordinary Tragedies is an incisive exploration of ethnic identity, uneasy family legacies, thwarted ambitions, and the city of Chicago itself."
—The Millions

"Joe Meno writes with a humor and tenderness that sometimes doesn’t feel made for this bleak hour of history . . . Or. Maybe it’s exactly what we need right now? . . . Meno reminds us that though family’s do, in fact, fuck you up, sometimes they’re the only thing that can put you back together."
—Lit Hub, Most Anticipated Books of 2022

“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.”
—Kirkus Reviews

“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.”
—Publishers Weekly

"We're longtime fans of Chicago author Joe Meno, whose work such as Hairstyles of the Damned and The Great Perhaps helped put the city on the literary map in the early 2000s. Book of Extraordinary Tragedies follows siblings and former classical music prodigies Aleksandar and Isobel as they navigate their messy, unfulfilling twenties and their abandoned ambitions. When an illness forces Isobel to return to their childhood home on the Far South Side of Chicago, she revisits her love for playing cello and opens a new world of possibility and wonder for her complicated family."
—Chicago Review of Books, 12 Must-Read Books of September

“[D]espite the long odds stacked against his characters, Meno keeps their story buoyant . . .They’re hopelessly optimistic in their own twisted way . . . What this story gets so right is how so many of us live in the past and the present all at once.”
—Chicago Reader

“When I sat down with Joe Meno at New Wave Coffee in Logan Square immediately after devouring his latest novel, Book of Extraordinary Tragedies, my primary campaign was to play it cool and maybe figure out why I’m literally filled with joy whenever I read anything he writes. (Even when there are extraordinary tragedies in the title.) Seconds into our conversation, though, I’m reminded that he’s the last person you have to play it cool for.”
—NewCity

“I don’t know how Joe Meno does it—if I did know, I’d copy him. This book has such velocity that it generates wind, yet it is meditative and steeped in love, music, and human connection. It’s stunning.”
—Luis Alberto Urrea, author of The House of Broken Angels

“Set on Chicago’s southside, this is a quirky, tender, and absurdly funny coming-of-age novel about not only caring for the ones we love, but also tending to the dreams they have for our future. It’s a novel about work and the relentless grind of surviving paycheck to paycheck. Joe Meno writes beautifully of the way tragic stories become a kind of inheritance in this bittersweet love letter to the immigrants who built Chicago.”
—Leigh Stein, author of Self Care

"'Catastrophe will never let you down,' we’re told in Joe Meno’s deeply felt new novel, one that plumbs the depths of family, all the painful ways we’re bound to the people who shaped us, and all the generations previous. But having been a fan of Meno’s work for so long, I also know that he will never let you down, that he will find some measure of the extraordinary in any story, some deeply human and beautiful thing that keeps us reading. A sensitive and imaginative work by a writer who deserves every reader.”
—Kevin Wilson, author of Nothing to See Here

From the Publisher

★ 09/01/2022

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

Library Journal