I Pity the Poor Immigrant Audiobook By Zachary Lazar cover art

I Pity the Poor Immigrant

A Novel

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I Pity the Poor Immigrant

By: Zachary Lazar
Narrated by: Cassandra Campbell
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This stunning novel by the author of Sway is another "brilliant portrayal of life as a legend" (Margot Livesey).

In 1972, the American gangster Meyer Lansky petitions the Israeli government for citizenship. His request is denied, and he is returned to the U.S. to stand trial. He leaves behind a mistress in Tel Aviv, a Holocaust survivor named Gila Konig.

In 2009, American journalist Hannah Groff travels to Israel to investigate the killing of an Israeli writer. She soon finds herself inside a web of violence that takes in the American and Israeli Mafias, the Biblical figure of King David, and the modern state of Israel. As she connects the dots between the murdered writer, Lansky, Gila, and her own father, Hannah becomes increasingly obsessed with the dark side of her heritage. Part crime story, part spiritual quest, I Pity the Poor Immigrant is also a novelistic consideration of Jewish identity. Jewish Middle East World Literature

Critic reviews

Praise for I Pity the Poor Immigrant:

"This is a true portrait of history...as understood by characters whose individual parts have been beautifully brought together by a master craftsman."--Antonya Nelson
"Here's a truly exciting novel. The conception is bold, the execution mesmerizing. Zachary Lazar makes the old stories dangerous and urgent again, and reveals the terror beneath our tidy versions of the now."-Sam Lipsyte, author of Home Land and The Ask
"I Pity the Poor Immigrant is work of intricate and precise mystery, a book that is like a bold monument in an empty desert, a thing built of dread, and silences, and dazzling elegance, by a worldly and masterful hand."-Rachel Kushner, author of 2013 National Book Award finalist The Flamethrowers
"I Pity the Poor Immigrant conveys on every page a radical intensity of emotion and intellect. It's epic in scope and yet, in bursts of fine flinty prose, of great economy. Plus it has gangsters in it, and murder, and old lovers, and, above all, a father and daughter whose story turns out to be a heartbreaker."-Joshua Ferris, author of The Unnamed
"I Pity the Poor Immigrant is the next iteration of story-making that attempts to tell the truth by means of blending fiction, nonfiction, memoir, and journalism. Like the novels of W. G. Sebald, Zachary Lazar's tale involves a collage of documents, a mix of voices and points of view, to get at the elusive (and inconclusive) nature of human experience. This is a true portrait of history-its circling, complicating elements-as understood by characters whose individual parts have been beautifully brought together by a master craftsman."-Antonya Nelson, author of Bound
"This novel of living myths and the way we manufacture them could not have found a more perfectly paradoxical backdrop: Jerusalem, the spiritual beginning of the West; and Vegas, capital of the other West, where our oldest places are restaged for fun and profit. Zachary Lazar transforms Meyer Lansky from famous mobster to mythic stateless antihero, a figure who might as easily walk out of an airport as out of Sophoclean tragedy."-Salvatore Scibona, author of The End (finalist for the National Book Award and winner of the Young Lions Fiction Award)
"A...tale involving Meyer Lansky, Las Vegas, an investigative reporter and the murder of an Israeli poet... The connections Lazar makes here are complex and artful." -Kirkus Reviews
"Lazar juggles the elliptical and fragmented narrative effectively; he is also an excellent stylist, cleverly mimicking multiple forms. The author ambitiously makes a point about history-public and personal-and how it can lead to unexpected byways... An interesting and challenging novel." -Publishers Weekly
All stars
Most relevant

What could have made this a 4 or 5-star listening experience for you?

Main character was dull and self-pitying. Interesting part of the story was Meyer Lansky, not her. And the narrator spent too much time using an annoying accent.

What could Zachary Lazar have done to make this a more enjoyable book for you?

make his character more interesting. less self-absorbed. Make the intersecting plots more compelling.

Would you be willing to try another one of Cassandra Campbell’s performances?

Only if there are no dialects.

What reaction did this book spark in you? Anger, sadness, disappointment?

Disappointment and boredom.

disappointing

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This is, among other subjects, a fascinating retelling of the life of the American mobster Meyer Lansky, The problem for this listener is that the narrator mispronounces nearly every proper name in the book. This is a shame, since the novel is a rich fictional rendering of real events and people.

Intriguing novel, but narrator doesn't get it

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Was this a story about Israel? Was this a mom story? This book had no idea what it wanted to be

What???

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What did you love best about I Pity the Poor Immigrant?

The person who read it could do Israeli and east European accents. Really added to the smokey flavor.

Who was your favorite character and why?

Hannah Groff, the main character, was so interesting as she grew in the story.

Have you listened to any of Cassandra Campbell’s other performances before? How does this one compare?

No, but she is tops!

If you could take any character from I Pity the Poor Immigrant out to dinner, who would it be and why?

Gila Konig probably.

Any additional comments?

The story is quite complicated at first. The author is a man but he makes his woman narrator totally believable.. The parallels with King David, referred to as Kid Bethlehem, and the founding of Las Vegas is a meta plot. The mix of organized crime and the entropic decline of a Kingdom/State/Gambling enterprise is interesting. The book is short, almost like a meditation.

This book is a real sleeper

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