BOOK OF EXTRAORDINARY TRAGEDIES

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.