Vengeance

Lazar’s fourth novel (after I Pity the Poor Immigrant) is a moving if hyper-intellectualized meditation on wrongful imprisonment and America’s broken criminal justice system. The work is inspired by a rendition of The Life of Jesus Christ that the author saw performed at the Louisiana State Penitentiary at Angola, and includes rough biological sketches from his own life. The book’s unnamed narrator is a fiction writer and journalist who visits Angola to interview inmates and document their lives. There, he meets Kendrick King, a 31-year-old black man who has already served nine years of his life sentence for murder. The catch: King insists he’s innocent. Over the next several years, the narrator becomes more invested in King’s case and interviews those close to King: his mother, his estranged brother, and the mother of King’s now-teenage child. In doing so, he becomes convinced not only of his own insignificance, but also of the futility of King’s predicament. When unpacking King’s complicated backstory, Lazar ruminates on hot-button issues—racial profiling and discrimination, police brutality, incarceration and rehabilitation, poverty and privilege—but the lack of three-dimensional characters diminishes the impact of these ideas. Readers looking for an analytical, thorough examination of the justice system will find much to consider here. [em](Feb.) [/em]