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Book Reviewed by:In between the space of time when Ezra lights themself on fire and when Ezra dies the world of this book flashes before their eyes. Everyone Ezra's ever loved, every place they've felt queer and at home, or queer and out of place, reveals itself in an instant.
Unfolding in fragments of memory, Ezra dissolves into the family, religion, desire, losses, pains and joys that made them into the person that's decided on this final act of protest.
Told in lyric fragments that span both lifetimes and geography, Yr Dead is a queer, Jewish, diasporic coming of age story that questions how our historical memory shapes our political and emotional present. Visceral, propulsive, and at turns fluorescently beautiful and fluorescently tragic, Yr Dead is the electric debut novel from award-winning writer Sam Sax, one of our most dynamic and imaginative writers.
Excerpt
Yr Dead
I can't make heads or tails of it, the goat on the corner of Union and Metropolitan. Of course, I've seen stranger things, living in this city: the Chabad men dragging a straw effigy down Myrtle Avenue cursing each other in Yiddish, the woman selling infant-sized dolls made out of her own human hair, the apartment fire at the popular Chelsea orgy – flames licking up the side of the building like the cheap wig of some messy god. But this goat, mottled gray coat with a short white beard, is just standing on the corner chewing on some long grasses that appear to materialize in his mouth as he chews. It's 7 a.m. and commuters walk past without noticing. A group of boys run by on their way to school, trailing their baseball gloves behind them like giant leather hands. The elder waitress in ancient caked-on makeup smokes outside the terrible twenty-four-hour diner, looking deep into the distance, not about to be bothered by goats.
I pause only a moment; the twin slits of ...
Presented as a series of fleeting, non-linear vignettes, the novel plays very literally with the notion that our whole life flashes before our eyes just before we die. Ezra's memories of pain and joy as a queer, Jewish youth flood over them, and accumulate for the reader into a moving exploration of suffering and desperation... While Ezra's personal pain is a large factor in their decision to end their life, external factors, like the climate emergency and international war, also play a role. Ezra clearly feels the weight of these social issues, and struggles to reconcile their passionate desire for change with the futility of their actions...continued
Full Review
(851 words)
(Reviewed by Callum McLaughlin).
Jordy Rosenberg, author of Confessions of the Fox
A rare, compulsively readable combination of thunderous lyricism and pitch-perfect humor. There is not a wasted sentence, or even word, in this brilliant queer gem of a book. Peter Scalpello, author of Limbic
With Yr Dead, Sax revivifies the novel form, sculpting a poignant narrative that accumulates in meaning and sticks in the mind long after reading. There is rage in this work, and resistance against the pervasive horrors of our times, which Sax engages towards a delicate and astute exploration into the contradictions of a self and society. Refreshing as it is revelatory, Yr Dead demands attention to the need for change―I am grateful for it. Safia Elhillo, author of Home is Not A Country
A perfect ghost story..it surprised me―startling me into a laugh, into knowledge, into a deep and enduring ache. I love this book.Yr Dead is author Sam Sax's debut novel, but not their first published work; they have previously published four chapbooks and three full collections of poetry, one of which won the James Laughlin Award and another of which won the National Poetry Series. Many other well-established poets have also turned to fiction with great success. A few of them are featured below.
Ocean Vuong
Ocean Vuong is known for his emotionally charged work that explores sexuality, Vietnamese American identity, and human connection. His debut collection Night Sky with Exit Wounds was published in 2016 to much critical acclaim and a string of major awards, including the T.S. Eliot Prize and the Whiting Award. He followed it up with the 2019 novel On Earth We're...
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