Tom Lynch

National Book Critics Circle Award-winner Jim Crace triumphantly returns with the brilliant "The Pesthouse," in which the author ejects American staples such as strip malls, big buildings, billboard advertising and more to create a vast wasteland (curious my first instinct is to call it a "wasteland"--how's that for an American?) with no government, no laws and only one way out--a chance to board ship en route to Europe. His book follows a handful of weary travelers, injured and desperately seeking a way out--but it's really an indictment of the "American" lifestyle, a breaking down of sorts to this country's ravaged core. What would this land be without possessions? The book, much like Crace's new America, is bare and beautiful, with the poetics and power of a Cormac McCarthy novel--it's embedded with soul and vibrancy.

Jim Crace reads from "The Pesthouse" May 22 at the Harold Washington Library Center, 400 South State, (312)747-4300, at 6pm. Free. (2007-05-15)

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