Tonally and stylistically, this novel echoes authors like J. D. Salinger and William Vollman in its attention to grubby details and its meandering through the darker corners of the human psyche and experience. As though even the pages are cheap and ill-used, we rarely get a clear, measured description of any scene; characters are introduced as "he" or "she" rather than their names, and there are no quotation marks to distinguish dialogue from narration. Crucial actions are glossed over, leaving the reader to piece them together post mortem. It is as if Zou Lei's language barrier and Skinner's fractured sanity extend to us as well, and the feeling is accordingly depressing.
This depression, which permeates the whole novel, is punctuated alternately by beauty and horror on the occasions that Lish's descriptions are clear, focused, and sequential. The first of three critical such sequences is a workout routine the couple share:
The last exercise they did was flutter kicks. He and Zou Lei lay down on the floor and moved their legs like goose stepping soldiers. They got to fifty and her feet fell on the ground. One hundred, he said. No, she said. But she pulled her feet up again. They continued kicking and counting together, chanting the way everyone does in group calisthenics. At one hundred, both of their sets of feet fell on the ground. She groaned and held her stomach. When they stood, they left behind sweat patterns in the shapes of themselves. She stared down at their spirit-patterns on the ground. The intensity of the exercise made her think strange things. (pp. 217)In a world where legal, mental, and communicative agency is withheld from them by ideologies too systematic to be tangible, the couple is joined by their common physicality. Another passage illustrates the immaterial barriers that nevertheless keep Zou Lei from attaining legitimacy, and therefore security (no quotation marks in text):
How did you come here? You...
Snuck in.
Snuck in from Mexico? In a truck?
When they arrested you and let you go, they would have given you a piece of paper. Do you have it?
I think so.
Let me see it.
No, on my body I don't have it. I have it at home.
Bring it next time, because that will make a difference when filing a petition. You want to file a petition?
Okay. Yes. I think, whatever is possible. I don't know what is possible right now. I want to stay in this country if it's possible. An American says he can marry me. That's the real thing I want to know. Can I get married with him even if I have no identity? ...
As she was leaving, the lawyer came out and spoke to her while he put another folder in the wire basket. I overheard you. If you're getting married, it better be a real marriage or you'll be in big trouble. That I'll tell you for free. Free advice.
She didn't understand what he meant. What do you mean? Maybe we're ordinary people, but the feeling between us is real. (pp. 292, 294)The question of reality in their relationship takes a sharp turn when, in one of their darkest fights, Zou Lei runs away and Skinner gives chase. This exhilarating sequence both highlights the physical impulses to which the main characters' choices are limited and packs all the bleak material structures into one short space. A later, more drawn-out sequence features Zou Lei alone and without any of the belongings (money, keys, or phone) to plug her into the urban environment. She simply walks on as a part of the ever-changing multitude of the city. Both these dynamic passages are concluded only when the characters meet their physical limits; I will quote neither because of their length and the fact that they give away details of later events in the plot. Yet Lish's prose is at its strongest here, and in fact either passage could be an excellent standalone vignette. Ultimately, although the story has weight, the descriptive lens through which we are shown it is the major strength of the book.
My final praise is that although Preparation for the Next Life undoubtedly swims in the most politically-charged of waters, it in itself is not a political book. Although this single text leaves little doubt of Lish's perspective of certain American policies, it stays true to form as a novel attempting to present a realistic fiction. The protagonists are deeply flawed themselves, and the antagonistic background (for it truly does seem to be "the world" that has it in for Zou Lei and Skinner) is not written as inexplicably evil. If anything, one message of this novel is that one evil begets another, and as long as this lineage continues, all individuals can do is survive and care for each other. If I had any criticism of this novel, I would decry its entrenched pessimism, but ideologies aside, I simply can't deny the physical straits of those who haven't been as fortunate as I have.
