Book of Extraordinary Tragedies

by Joe Meno

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 South Side of Chicago, the pair were inseparable until each was forced to confront the absurdity of tragedy at an early age: Aleks lives with hearing loss, while Isobel struggles with preposterous expectations from herself and her family.

Both 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 to move back into the family home with her three-year-old daughter, everything changes for Aleks. Over the course of several months, he becomes deeply involved in the endless challenges that surround his relatives. Once Isobel begins playing cello again and announces her intention to audition for an amateur symphony, 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?

Genres: Fiction, Contemporary, Audiobook, Coming Of Age, Literary Fiction, Music, Family

338 pages, Kindle Edition

First published September 6, 2022

About the author

Joe Meno is a fiction writer and playwright who lives in Chicago. A winner of the Nelson Algren Literary Award, the Great Lakes Book Award, a Pushcart Prize, the Society of Midland Author's Fiction Prize, and a finalist for the Story Prize, he is the author of seven novels and two short story collections. He is also the editor of Chicago Noir: The Classics. A long-time contributor to the seminal culture magazine, Punk Planet, his other non-fiction has appeared in the New York Times and Chicago magazine. He is a professor in the Department of Creative Writing at Columbia College Chicago.

Reviews

[Kristina · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is one of the most tragic yet hopeful books i've read in a long time. The authenticity of everyday life heavily imparts the story as we follow a family trying to survive despite all of the struggles, setbacks and misfortunes. The music element ties all the previous and future generations in a single attempt at delivering that final composition of everything lived and almost forgotten. I've sympathized and rooted for the family but found myself relating a bit too much for some things so i had to take teary-eyed breaks and go over some chapters again, slowly absorbing and marveling at them. Here's one of my favorite quotes from the book:

Everything important is part of some larger tragedy, the beautiful failure of all human beings struggling against their own glorious mistakes. It’s at the moment of weakness when people are most profoundly human, the one experience everyone has in common. There’s just no running from it. All you can do is try to build something from the tragedies you’ve faced, to arrange them, to put the pieces together in some new, compelling way.

I heartily recommend this to everyone.

Thank you Edelweiss and Akashic Books for sending me ARC in exchange for an honest review.

[Chris · Rating 3 out of 5]

A heartbreaking story about a Polish/Bosnian/Croatian family “cursed by history”, about life and its disappointments, and the failing system, well told, with not your average characters. Meno describes his characters with insight and sensitivity. Dreams are lost and sometimes found again, but often not. I had high hopes for this new Meno, as I had enjoyed ‘Office Girl’ years back, and I did like it, but there’s so much sadness and life going wrong, that it depressed me. Only in the last 10 pages or so is there a spark of hope. For me it was too late.
Thank you Akashic Books and Edelweiss for the DRC.

[Lori · Rating 5 out of 5]

In 2008, 20-year-old Aleks is living with his Bosnian-Polish-American family on the South Side of Chicago and trying to figure out how to survive another day in the face of continuous challenges. I just loved Aleks and the characters of this book. While not plot-heavy, the sense of time and place is strong and I was rooting for the Fa family to find their way.

[Linda Galella · Rating 4 out of 5]

When a reviewer I highly respect DNF’d this book I was expecting a rough go. This isn’t an easy read, because of the events that happen repeatedly, but speaking as one who has lived a life very much like it, this story is not so far fetched.

I’m not going to replay the storyline. It’s been done over and over already. Aleks is a fabulous character, drawn with complexity, humor and a quirk that’s long to be remembered. He loves fiercely and completely and his passion for classical music made me his fan long before I really came to “know” him.

This little family has one disaster after another. Aleks does everything super humanly possible to keep everyone together and well, or as good as they can be. He fights, scrapes, cries, laughs and loves his way with every ounce of his being. The relationship between him and his sister is magic.

All things considered, a family filled with “Extraordinary Tragedies” but the book certainly is not📚

Read & Reviewed from a PW Give Away

[Renee G · Rating 5 out of 5]

Everything we think is important or unique about ours lives means nothing in the face of history. Even our tragedies are entirely ordinary.

It’s been a while since I’ve read something that moved me the way “Book of Extraordinary Tragedies” has. I feel like I know quite a bit about author Joe Meno, as well, because Aleks has such depth and nuance that must come from the author having a personal relationship of his own with both the characters hearing loss as well as his life in the south side of Chicago.

… the moments in between history where all the living happens, the moments that almost always get forgotten, where all the exceptional tragedies and invisible triumphs actually occur.

The story is horribly sad, yet hopeful, and the prose simply gorgeous. I found myself highlighting passage after passage. I can’t wait to share this treasure with others, and will be buying multiple copies of this beautiful story as gifts. I’m headed off to find more of Meno’s books now!

Everything important is part of some larger tragedy, the beautiful failure of all human beings struggling against their own glorious mistakes. It's at the moment of weakness when people are most profoundly human, the one experience everyone has in common.

I received an ARC through the LibraryThing Early Reviewers program

[Peter · Rating 5 out of 5]

Funny, heartbreaking, bittersweet saga of a scrappy Eastern European family on the gritty Far South Side of Chicago. Simply put, the best Joe Meno book I’ve read yet.

[Klara · Rating 5 out of 5]

I would like to thank Joe Meno for writing this book and myself for dedicating hours of my life to rummaging through secondhand bookstores on a quest to find books the almighty algorithm would have never suggested to me.

Chicago's southside, 2008: Aleks, Isobel and Daniel, the children of an immigrant family from Eastern Europe, are struggling to make ends meet. All of them are extraordinarily gifted - Aleks is a musical genius, Isobel got accepted into MIT at seventeen, Daniel spends his days buried in library books, seemingly studying nonstop. And yet, the financial struggles of their family, the lack of social security, their troubled history and their neighborhood of lost souls (their words, not mine) are placing more obstacles in their way than they have the strength to overcome.

In fast-moving, sober and yet literary prose Joe Meno tells a story so tragic it makes you want to do nothing but curl up and contemplate the appalling injustice of the capitalist hellscape we all live in. I would love to force-feed this book to any *eNtRePrEnEuR* who tells people that all you have to do to succeed is work hard. The "Book of Extraordinary Tragedies" lets you meet wonderful, dedicated, intelligent people who want nothing but to be good and do their part - in a system that was designed to make them fail.

If this hasn’t become blatantly clear by now: I loved this book more than I ever would have thought. Get your hands on it, read it, learn from it, and then recommend it to all your friends. We need it.

[Brian · Rating 4 out of 5]

I love a good quirky cast of characters and this book does not disappoint. The book centers around a rather sad family; Aleks, our main character has trouble holding down a job and has hearing loss in his ears. His older sister Isobel is dealing with some health issues and has a daughter who is acting out in school. His brother, Daniel, also has some behavior issues. Add to this cast a kooky mother who is also very out of it and you have what makes this title ring true. The book is engaging and I really enjoyed to see what next misfortunate would befall this very sad family. I enjoyed all of the side characters and thought this was a fun and pleasant read.

[Claudia Greening · Rating 4 out of 5]

This read to me like a love letter to Chicago, or any hometown that weaves its way through your soul and spirit.

[Marco Nerlini]

3.5

[Greg Zimmerman · Rating 5 out of 5]

First appeared at https://www.thenewdorkreviewofbooks.c...

Joe Meno is the best, and his new novel, Book of Extraordinary Tragedies, is another terrifically quintessential Chicago story from him. It's a novel about family and striving and choices, and whether or not anyone is able to escape their fate, their history, their family's past.

Mitt Romney famously said that if someone really wants to go to college, all he has to do is "borrow money from his parents." For Aleks Fa, who wasn't born on third base thinking he hit a triple, that's not an option. Aleks, a 20-year-old southsider navigating life in a Polish neighborhood with an absent father and a sick mother, is the only thing keeping the rest of his family together - getting his three-year-old niece Jazzy to preschool, looking after his 13-year-old brother Daniel who is having some trouble, and taking his older sister, Isobel, a former music prodigy and math genius, to chemo. It's a lot.

It's 2008 and the Great Recession is just starting. But to this family that barely scrapes by -- and only then by all helping each other -- the financial collapse barely registers. That's just how the world works, to them. People are poor. They struggle. Money is barely a real thing. So for a family like this, and an extremely likable and root-for-able character like Aleks, is there even a path out of poverty? What if hard work simply is never enough?

Meno gets this just right -- it's a story that feels real and immediate. And there are moments of pure levity -- especially in the relationships between Aleks and Isobel -- two siblings who spend as much time at each others throats as they do genuinely caring for each other.

I really loved this book. I love Meno's insightful writing and how he portrays Chicago. It really has that Chicago gritty feel. I've loved all his books, but this one is my favorite from him.

[Nathan · Rating 4 out of 5]

🌟🌟🌟🌟
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“…I think that’s what my grandfather was trying to do: compose something that was meant to be unfinished, that was meant to be added to, the story of a family told in fragments and intervals and pauses, the moments in between history where all the living happens, the moments that almost always get forgotten, where all the exceptional tragedies and invisible triumphs actually occur.”
-
Joe Meno’s wonderful story telling style shows us the magic of quiet moments in his characters’ lives. The often passed over, forgotten intimacies contained in a look, a brief exchange, a seemingly mundane routine are imbued with meaning, familial context and history. Meno’s ability to portray details of a Chicago neighborhood and all its implications make the city itself an enduring character. I have been a Meno fan for some time and Extraordinary Tragedies is my favorite since Boy Detective Fails. Tragedies is an intimate, funny, tough and creative picture of an immigrant family doing what they need to survive on the south side of Chicago, and love each other in their own complicated, broken ways.

[Gabrielle (Estel.Edits) · Rating 4 out of 5]

What I liked
- first time I read a character with tinnitus and hearing loss (like me)
- characters you grow to love and then can't figure out how/when you started to love them because they were so frustrating at the start
- felt like Chicago

What could have been better
- I felt like the little moments were colors were mentioned for sounds took away from the hearing theme of it all. It cheapened what would have sounded more true with just facts. There was also one sentence that talked about him wanting to get away and back to the silence, but there's never silence for someone with tinnitus. Only ringing.

[Ramit B · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5 but rounding this up to 4.

The narrative speed of this book is nothing like I've read before. Felt deeply attached to Aleks and some of the other characters.

There's also something weird about reading a book where the plot takes place in a city you live in, but in a neighborhood you never visit or think about much.

[Kristine · Rating 4 out of 5]

I enjoyed the protagonist’s internal language of classical music juxtaposed over his mundane struggle with survival. Seeing the world through Alek’s eyes was a joy, even if it seemed he was continually playing a loosing game of Frogger with misfortune.

[Danielle H · Rating 5 out of 5]

The way this felt the way life does, just moments all happening one after the other, most of them repeating in ways that sometimes feels mundane and sometimes feels profound.

[Hargun Kaur Sachdev · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5

[Jeremy · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was a beautiful and tragic story. Sad and hopeful. And it has left me with a lot to think about.

[Melissa B · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book shattered my heart but I truly loved it.

[Christine · Rating 5 out of 5]

Well... This was my first Meno book, and I will definitely be searching out his others. I won this book through LibraryThing, and it's easily the best book I have won. Meno has the wonderful ability to make the reader care about all of his characters on a deep level. I will not forget this book for a very long time.

[Olga Podobed · Rating 5 out of 5]

Loved it, it's so beautiful, so heartbreaking, sad, but full of good humor and irony and love. In my times of hardship I hope to go through as Aleks, with kindness and still able to find joy.

[Kathie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Instead of being a book of extraordinary tragedies, this is more of a book of ordinary tragedies. I can't help but compare it to A Little Life, which is filled with the most fiendish, devilish tragedies an author could conceive. Maybe it's good that this book deals with more realistic tragedies. In this book, Aleks is confronted by the mounting tragedies of living in poverty in America. And even more tragically (to me at least), the mountain is built upon the false promises of music and mathematics and intellectual talent.

It's funny that the novel revolves so closely around the metaphor of music, because as anyone who has studied music seriously knows, it's full of failure. Endless and endless failure. And most people have to give up and try to start their lives anew. It's tragic that Aleks's grandfather tried to create a better life for himself in America, and it just didn't fucking work. So much for the American dream.

I liked the juxtaposition between Aleks and Alex. Literal mirrors of each other, showing what could have been. But of course, they cannot relate to each other because they are a Venn diagram with very narrow connections. They don't connect in all of the ways that count. I thought it was sweet to see how they attempted to understand each other, but ultimately failed.

I'm not sure that I will remember this novel forever or if it will have a huge impact on my thinking, but I thought it was clever and not overwrought. I liked that there were glimmers of hope and joy, and honestly every single character felt realistically flawed, but still sympathetic and even likeable.

[mn · Rating 5 out of 5]

Grief, hope, disappointment and longing are beautifully interwoven into this tragic tale of the Fa family. It is centred around Aleks, one of the three Fa siblings. Due to unfortunate circumstances, Aleks has to take up the responsibility of looking after his family of 5. Various elements of his life are described artfully by the author, with an undercurrent of unhappiness and dissatisfaction serving as a commonality in all of them. Throughout his journey, Aleks faces hardship after hardship; his life seems to be riddled with hindrances, and he cannot catch a break. His is a state of constant toil because every day, his objective is to do just enough to keep his family and himself afloat. To keep them from going under. Throughout all this, Aleks nurses an almost impossible hope for a better future, one where life isn't chasing him every second of the day. He yearns for a guiding light to help pull his family out of the deplorable pit they are stuck in. After all, he is only twenty; he has his entire life in front of him, and he desperately wants to live with this weight off his shoulders.

The Fas are a beautiful family with so many dimensions to each person. Each of them has many flaws and their own little tragedies, but in their heart, this goodness ties them all together and unites them in their strife for a better life. As I read this book, I rooted for this broken family with all my heart and felt a great relief as they gradually picked up their fallen pieces and assured me that things might turn out okay. I love each member because Joe Meno made them so real and human; it was heart-touching.

[Shams Alkamil · Rating 5 out of 5]

The story begins with a brief, but painful, history of the oppression of Poland and Bosnia. A family living in Chicago tries to come to terms with remembering and forming their family legacy. I thought the title was a bit dramatic, but Joe Meno manages to insert either a physical, spiritual, or emotional tragedy in every paragraph without taking away from the general storyline flow.

At times, the narrator's daily accounts felt repetitive, but my personal theory is that Joe Meno re-tells each instance with a deeper level of tragedy and a dimly lit hope of unfounded wisdom to be learned from the tragedy.

Speaking of the narrator, I found myself pleasantly surprised at the depth of his dialogues versus his internal monologue. On the outside, he is an emotionally unavailable brother / side piece who shows glimpses of validation towards others. On the inside, he is a composer who makes sense of his ruminations of school, finances, and love by transmuting these experiences into themed symphonies. I have learned so much about classical music and Eastern European artists just by reading Alek's account.

I highly recommend this book to anyone who is a refugee, immigrant, or feels they have a dysfunctional family system. The dynamics within the family are strikingly obtuse at times, but mainly filled with unconditional love that is brute.

[Jim · Rating 5 out of 5]

Joe Meno’s latest is such a joy to read. Book of Extraordinary Tragedies centers on a family that is literally falling apart and facing every economic hardship and health crisis imaginable but is still full of magic and hope. That sounds corny so let me take another stab at it.

Meno is a master of the moment. He’s not a writer who goes on and on for dozens of pages, nor does he do a ton of exposition or editorializing. His stories and chapters tend to be accumulations of scenes that more or less speak for themselves, and when I look back on all the great stories and books he has written I think this is something I’ve learned from him.

In any case, there’s a moment near the middle of the book where Meno returns to characters from the story “Midway,” which won the Nelson Algren Award all the way back in 2003, and I squealed with delight. It was like an old friend I hadn’t seen in ages walked into the room.

Book of Extraordinary Tragedies is a sweeping novel about being caught up in the day-to-day indignities of the working poor where every minor setback comes with a whiff of calamity. Meno doesn't offer up an easy apotheosis but if your faith in the human project is taking a beating Book of Extraordinary Tragedies offers a heartfelt reprieve.

[Susie Williams · Rating 4 out of 5]

(thank you to the publisher for my copy of this book!)

This is one of those books where you keep waiting for something good to happen to somebody because it seems like one terrible thing after another happens. But there are moments of hope and the characters are all so unique and compelling, that you want to keep turning the pages.

Our narrator Aleks is a 20-year-old living on the South Side of Chicago with his older sister and her 3-year-old daughter, his ill mother, and his younger brother. When I say things are not going well for anyone, I mean things are not going well for anyone. And, for whatever reason, Aleks seems to be taking the brunt of it. Despite being quite young, he takes responsibility for so many things in the family just to keep everyone afloat.

In many ways, this is an odd sort of book. Everyone had something a little quirky to them and you never really know what is going to happen next. But I also found it pretty entertaining and, like I said, I wanted to keep reading to see what would go wrong... Or possibly go right next.

[Alexis Hester · Rating 2 out of 5]

The back summary of this book says “full of as much comedy as tragedy”, so I thought I would like this, at least somewhat. That was. Not the case.

The best thing I can say about this book was that it was, at least, a quick read. I wouldn’t have made it through if the momentum of the book had paused for even a second, so I appreciated that it went fast.

Gosh DARN, it was depressing though. I’m not a person who likes depressing books - reading Angela’s Ashes for school was the WORST - and even though there was some humor, it couldn’t make up for the fact that this book was DEPRESSING. I just don’t get the appeal of books where nothing good ever happens. Yeah, I guess that’s life, but don’t you want some form of escapism in your books? Goodness gracious.

Anyways, if you like books that are nothing but sad, you’ll probably like this

[sna · Rating 5 out of 5]

* Wow! Didn't think I would love this book as much as I did.
* Highlights lovely parts of Chicago that only people who live here would appreciate.
* Cycling is constant in the story! LOVE LOVE LOVE this. Wild to hear that he bikes down Cicero and Western though.
* Meno really captured what its like to deal with and try to escape inter-generational poverty on Chicago's White Southside.
* This is set in and around the financial crisis of 2008.
* Meno speaks of what happened after the steel mills shutdown in the decades prior. This was only a single one of what the main character considers a series of "extraordinary tragedies" that span generations.
* Dives a bit into race in Chicago too, but very superficially.
* The story is a very sad one that's peppered throughout with funny moments.
* The main characters eventually find a place for themselves in this world.

[Jennifer N. · Rating 5 out of 5]

Being from the south side /suburbs of Chicago, I absolutely loved this book. It’s a more poetic version of the tv show shameless. The tragic oddball family moments and Aleks feeling the pains of his family and trying to keep things afloat reminded a bit of that drama tv show. I smiled, I laughed (especially when it came to daniel) and the moments between Aleks and his niece were endearing as all heck. I found the beauty in this book, despite its gloomy outlook. I love Meno’s writing and this book just FLOWS like a dang orchestra. I think that’s the magic - he wrote this as if it’s a tragic symphony piece with all the various parts making a masterpiece. I honestly could read a never ending novel with these characters because I didn’t want it to end. They felt part of me. 5/5.

[Carol Hoenig · Rating 5 out of 5]

"Book of Extraordinary Tragedies" pulled me into a world that felt heavy and tragic yet expressed without asking for pity. It’s described as the “outrageousness of ordinary life” on the book flap and that is certainly true. The family is sunk in debilitating albeit sometimes humorous mental illness, or just above that in this layman’s diagnosis; surviving each day is a challenge but giving up is not an option. I couldn’t stop rooting for Alek throughout. If readers are looking for a tidy ending, they won’t get it. However, if readers are looking for a well-written work of fiction, I cannot recommend this highly enough.