Preparation for the Next Life
By: Atticus Lish / Narrated By: Robertson Dean
Length: 15 hrs and 7 mins
—DEVASTATING—
Upon finishing Preparation for the Next Life I had to just sit back, let my mind let go of painful imagery, and then dash off to Google the beJESus outta author Atticus Lish. What kind of a mind can take a person There? Either love this or hate this, but know beyond the shadow of a doubt that Lish can write with the best of them. Short sentences, swollen with painful observations, muscular writing for a hero of a woman, nightmares for a man suffering PTSD all while being told he’s not to receive benefits for his disabilities, the horrors he relives again and again. And again.
Enter Zou Lei, a Uighur woman from the Northwestern deserts of China, a resilient woman who knows only soldiers and the strong survive. Her village was taken over by the Chinese People’s Army and was “modernized” all while the inhabitants are forced into squalor. Father a soldier, mother?—Well, we don’t rightly know how Zou Lei ends up where she does: An illegal alien in the US. Working like a slave for a pittance, she’s swept up in a post-9/11 hunt where the reality is that anyone can be caught up, detained, no trial, no sentence, just a life incarcerated, in limbo.
Determined not to be imprisoned again, Zou Lei heads to New York, to Queens where she decides she will live where EVERYone is illegal, everyone has put down roots, hiding in plain sight… but off in the margins, amongst filth and unimaginable poverty. With a roof over her head and a thin mattress that’s all springs sticking out, she’s grateful for the bare, oh so bare, minimum she has in her life: Finding work, never mind it’s in a hellhole, some money to be used sparingly, most saved and kept close to her skin, a bit of food to eat.
Enter Skinner, a Marine fresh off tours of duty in Iraq, an initial stint turning into three due to the George W. Bush’s Stop-Loss. During the time the story is set, PTSD has not come into vogue, is an acronym unfamiliar or simply unused as a diagnosis. Ditto TBI, traumatic brain injury, which Skinner most definitely suffers as well. After what he’s suffered, after what he’s seen and endured, after what he’s become, leaving war behind means only one thing to him: Drink and party until he somehow starts feeling again, starts feeling like he wants to be alive.
The two, resilient woman, broken man, meet by accident and bond immediately over feats of strength. Zou Lei open and strong; Skinner wanting oh so much to open to SOMEthing, they find with each other a kind of love, tho’ theirs is not what could be called a love story. It’s more a story of desperate need, of desperate survival.
Lish spent some time in the military but did not see action, so I wanted to know just HOW he could write such brutal visions of war. In an interview he said that he did a lot of reading, and he cites in particular House to House by Staff Sergeant David Bellavia. I can attest that THAT audiobook is indeed savage in its imagery, but I STILL wonder. Because Skinner lives in a world of torment, sleeping little, sleeping ill, losing his mind bit by aching bit.
This is a horror of a story, with only Zou Lei’s strength, her determination, to carry it forward. How does one love; WHY does one love? And is love even safe?
Things get worse and worse, dire and even more dire, as Skinner’s mental state declines, as his fits of violence and aggression, his complete and utter bouts of terror begin to overwhelm and dismantle here, erect fitful obsessions there. Suspicion and suspense mount, and the listener feels dread start as a trickle at first, when things are tenuous for the duo, and then it begins to roll into a tidal wave of despair and hopelessness. It is imPOSSible not to fear the worst. It reminded me of Spill Simmer Falter Wither by Sara Baume because we’re on a journey with the characters, a stone as it picks up speed even as it descends farther and farther down into an abyss where nothing good can happen. I expected the worst, feared it, geared up for it.
Robertson Dean is NOT one of my favorite narrators, as he’s made ooooodles of my beloved Military History audiobooks soooo boring. I was worried but not as worried if say, Frederick Davidson was narrating, but I deeeearly hoped Dean would be able to deliver. And deliver he does. What a surprise! Dude, this should be his oeuvre! Fiction fiction fiction because he captured Zou Lei perfectly, his pacing was spot on. Of COURSE I listened at my typical x1.3, but good golly gosh: When Dean does nonfiction, I’m usually jacking the speed up to x1.7 or so to get SOME sorta pacing outta him. Here, yeh yeh yeh, x1.3 etc. but I truly did NOT want to miss a thing (I just get twitchy at lower speeds, what can I say?). And when everything built, and we came to the ending, and then we got to the Epilogue, Dean just made this soar.
Preparation for the Next Life is a quiet scream that builds to a roar you will NOT be able to get out of your head. Tumbled, wrung out to dry, limp with exhaustion, maybe a hesitant tear or two at the very end. Beautifully wrought.
Etc. etc. et freakin’ cetera. World without end. We should all be so bold, we should all look so closely. Only the brave will look; only the fittest, or the untouched, will survive.
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