A short life of the author
Atticus Lish (b. 1972) is the son of the legendary editor Gordon Lish. He grew up in New York, served in the United States Marine Corps, and studied Chinese. He spent years in obscurity before publishing his debut at forty-two.
Life and Career
Preparation for the Next Life (2014) follows Zou Lei, a Uighur Muslim woman who entered the United States illegally after fleeing Chinese persecution, and Brad Skinner, a soldier returned from three deployments to Iraq with severe PTSD. They meet, fall in love, and try to survive in the margins of New York City. The novel won the PEN/Faulkner Award and was named one of the best novels of the year by multiple publications.
The War for Gloria (2021) — about a young man in Boston whose mother is dying of ALS and whose father is a violent fraud — was his second novel.
Major Works and Themes
Lish writes about physical life — bodies, food, work, exhaustion, violence — with a reporter’s eye for detail and a novelist’s capacity for empathy. His New York is not the literary city of writers and publishers but the real city of immigrants, veterans, and labourers.
Key Works
- Preparation for the Next Life (2014)
- The War for Gloria (2021)
Collecting Lish
Preparation for the Next Life (2014, Tyrant Books) — the small-press first edition — is scarce. Fine copies bring $100–$400.