Božović. These photos are supposed to represent Rora’s photos. The reader learns about Lazarus’s early life in Kishinev, how he grows up in a loving Jewish family, how he makes his bar mitzvah, and how most of his family is killed in the pogrom. He and his sister Olga escape to America where they struggle to survive with menial jobs. Lazarus dreams of going to college and one day writing a novel. He is a hard worker and his employer has been planning to train him in the egg-packing business by sending him to Indiana. Lazarus, in fact, is so reliable that his employer trusts him with the crucial task of delivering an important letter to the Chicago chief of police.Lazarus’s employer is a “loyal American” named Mr. Eichgreen. Eichgreen is writing to Chief Shippy to warn him that he has heard rumors from his employees that the well-known anarchist Emma Goldman would be arriving in Chicago soon to stir up the populace with her radical, anti-American ideas. Lazarus, it turns out, has not been sent to kill Chief Shippy. He is merely a naive nineteen-year-old Jewish immigrant who happens to be in the wrong place with the wrong person at the wrong time.Intertwined with Lazarus’s story is the story of his older sister, Olga, left behind in Chicago after her brother’s murder. Olga is interrogated relentlessly by the police. She tries in vain to make the police understand that Lazarus is a good boy, not an anarchist. She tells them that she does not know where his friend Isador is hiding and she herself has nothing to do with any of it. All she wants is her brother’s body back, to give him a proper Jewish burial, but the body has disappeared. Has Lazarus really risen from the dead like the Biblical Lazarus? No, medical students have stolen the body. Eventually, some prominent members of the Jewish community help Olga reclaim and bury what is left of Lazarus, even though she protests that it is a sacrilege to bury a body that is not whole. These same Jewish citizens also smuggle Lazarus’s friend Isador to Canada by hiding him underneath the corpse of another Jewish man who has died after having been tortured by the police. In the anti-Semitic fervor of 1908 Chicago, Jews fear that Lazarus’s murder will lead to an anarchist uprising and that the Jewish community will be blamed.Meanwhile, Brik and Rora travel to Eastern Europe. It is 2008; the Berlin Wall has been torn down for almost twenty years, and Communism has collapsed in Eastern Europe. In its wake, however, are countries still trying to define themselves ethnically, politically, socially, and economically. Crime is rampant, the mob is thriving, prostitution is widespread, and desperate people are meandering through life either starving or stoned—this, at least, is Brik’s view. Brik and Rora travel through the Ukraine where they visit a Jewish Center hoping to uncover information about Lazarus’s family for Brik’s novel. They then travel to Moldova, Bucharest, and Belgrade where they arrange to be driven to Brik’s hometown, Sarajevo, Bosnia, by a driver named Vasiliy who they soon discover is a pimp. Convinced that Vasiliy plans to kill them after the harrowing ride, they arrive in Sarajevo, free the young woman Vasiliy has been transporting, and practically beat him to death. Brik breaks his hand in the fight and Rora takes him to his sister Azra, a doctor, to be patched up. In spite of being gone for so many years, Brik feels at home in Sarajevo where the asphalt feels “softer than on any other street in the world.” An old high school friend asks him where he has been, validating his belief that “home is where somebody notices when you are no longer there.” Brik also realizes that the longer he is away from his wife, Mary, the less he misses her and America. A few days later, Rora is gunned down in a cafe while drinking coffee.

Who is responsible for Rora’s death? Brik believes it has to be a criminal named Rambo. Brik left Bosnia before the war with Chechnya, but Rora had remained during most of the siege. Rora was in Rambo’s unit in the Bosnian army. As Sarajevo fell, however, Rambo and his fellow thugs looted and pillaged their own city, killing neighbors and friends when they got in the way. After the war, Rambo continued his lucrative life of crime. During their long voyage through Eastern Europe, Rora entertains Brik with fantastic stories about Rambo and a myriad of Bosnian folktales, jokes, and his life experiences. Rora knows too much about Rambo, unfortunately. He knows about the many people Rambo has killed, including an American war correspondent named Miller. Brik asks if Rora fears returning to Sarajevo. He reminds Rora that everyone who knew anything about Rambo is now dead. Rora brushes off Brik’s fear, explaining that because his sister Azra operated on Rambo and saved his life, Rambo owes him. Besides, Rambo has “discovered Islam and now has prayer beads in his hand all the time.” Rora is not afraid. At Rora’s funeral, Azra tells Brik that most of what Rora has told him about Rambo is pure fiction. Miller is alive and well and reporting on the war in Iraq. Rora was shot by “a boy with a gun” who simply wanted Rora’s camera to sell for drug money.