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Yr Dead
In between the space of time when Ezra lights themself on fire and when Ezra dies the world of this book flashes before their eyes. Everyone Ezra's ever loved, every place they've felt queer and at home, or queer and out of place, reveals itself in an instant. Unfolding in fragments of memory, Ezra dissolves into the family, religion, desire, losses, pains and joys that made them into the person that's decided on this final act of protest.
Told in lyric fragments that span both lifetimes and geography, Yr Dead is a queer, Jewish, diasporic coming of age story that questions how our historical memory shapes our political and emotional present. Visceral, propulsive, and at turns fluorescently beautiful and fluorescently tragic, Yr Dead is the electric debut novel from award-winning writer Sam Sax, one of our most dynamic and imaginative writers.
Told in lyric fragments that span both lifetimes and geography, Yr Dead is a queer, Jewish, diasporic coming of age story that questions how our historical memory shapes our political and emotional present. Visceral, propulsive, and at turns fluorescently beautiful and fluorescently tragic, Yr Dead is the electric debut novel from award-winning writer Sam Sax, one of our most dynamic and imaginative writers.
281 pages, Hardcover
First published August 6, 2024
About the author
Sam Sax
19 books194 followerssam sax is a queer, jewish, writer and educator. They're the author of PIG (2023, Scribner) and Yr Dead (2024, McSweeney’s), as well as Madness, winner of The National Poetry Series and ‘Bury It’ winner of the James Laughlin Award from the Academy of American Poets. They're the two time Bay Area Grand Slam Champion with poems and stories published in The New York Times, Granta, The Los Angeles Review of Books and elsewhere. Sam's received fellowships from The NEA, Poetry Foundation, MacDowell, and is currently serving as an ITALIC Lecturer at Stanford University
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 34 reviews
September 25, 2024
Nominated for the National Book Award 2024
The Booker shortlist currently features two novels with a lyrical approach (Held and Orbital) that gave me nothing, as I found them rather pretentious and frequently esoteric. Sam Sax shows that poetic novel-writing can be in-your-face and forceful as well: "Yr Dead" starts with the protagonist, 27-year-old queer non-binary Jewish bookseller Ezra, setting themselves on fire in New York City. Then, we get numerous flashbacks into their past life experiences, some metaphorical stories and text conversations with their friend Ericka, plus some impressions of the ride to the hospital after the incident - a lot of the text is an exploration from beyond the grave though, adding a frame of Gothic horror to the experience of feeling like an outsider.
Sax dives into a lot of themes, from Ezra's Jewish ancestry to their mother abandoning them, their sexuality, their desperation because social and environmental protests seem to lead nowhere, their complicated love life, surviving domestic abuse and the repercussions of living in a world that is chronically online but lacks human connection. Ezra's forefathers get voices that are rendered as fiction-within-fiction, the parents merge and shift like ghosts through the lines and through Ezra's consciousness.
This author aims high and has no interest in playing it safe, and I appreciate it - this reads like a more high-risk version of Ocean Vuong, with a very distinct artistic vision. Kudos to the National Book Award for recognizing some daring new fiction.
The Booker shortlist currently features two novels with a lyrical approach (Held and Orbital) that gave me nothing, as I found them rather pretentious and frequently esoteric. Sam Sax shows that poetic novel-writing can be in-your-face and forceful as well: "Yr Dead" starts with the protagonist, 27-year-old queer non-binary Jewish bookseller Ezra, setting themselves on fire in New York City. Then, we get numerous flashbacks into their past life experiences, some metaphorical stories and text conversations with their friend Ericka, plus some impressions of the ride to the hospital after the incident - a lot of the text is an exploration from beyond the grave though, adding a frame of Gothic horror to the experience of feeling like an outsider.
Sax dives into a lot of themes, from Ezra's Jewish ancestry to their mother abandoning them, their sexuality, their desperation because social and environmental protests seem to lead nowhere, their complicated love life, surviving domestic abuse and the repercussions of living in a world that is chronically online but lacks human connection. Ezra's forefathers get voices that are rendered as fiction-within-fiction, the parents merge and shift like ghosts through the lines and through Ezra's consciousness.
This author aims high and has no interest in playing it safe, and I appreciate it - this reads like a more high-risk version of Ocean Vuong, with a very distinct artistic vision. Kudos to the National Book Award for recognizing some daring new fiction.
September 29, 2024
Another banger off the National Book Award fiction longlist. This book took huge risks and they all paid off. Playing around with form and structure to create something so wildly original and devastating. Themes of suicide, mental health, religion, trauma, identity, queerness. All the emotions, all the feels.
A writer to definitely look out for. Super impressed.
(Glad this was my final read off a ridiculously amazing NBA longlist. What a way to end things)
A writer to definitely look out for. Super impressed.
(Glad this was my final read off a ridiculously amazing NBA longlist. What a way to end things)
September 21, 2024
If I had a nickel for every gay, non-linear, intertextual, poetic, genre-crossing, raw af, quasi-semi-autobiographical, deeply entrenched engaged with religion and identity, centered around/culmitaniting in a violent (martyr's) death novel published this year, I'd have the equivalent of a dime— which ain't much, but it's weird that it happened twice.
September 29, 2024
Once I got into the rhythm of this, it was quite the emotional read
August 11, 2024
Thank you to Daunt Books for the proof of this book for review. Sam Sax's poetic novel is imbued with beauty and profoundity and mundaneity of being alive when you are engulfed in flames
August 16, 2024
The way Sax captures the dull ache of being young and solastalgia-plagued really resonates. It's true, we are kind of cooked, and despite being able to see the end so vividly, what else is there to do besides grow up? And when that happens, what now? I related strongly to Ezra's spinning wheels, the ways he struggles to find answers to those questions. The prose vignettes are oneiric and tender, I think fans of Ocean Vuong and Richard Siken would be really into this. And who wouldn't want to pick up a book with this magnficent cover?
The book gives you a lot to think about, handwaving at an unnamed president, an unnamed virus, nebulous protests, references to the violence of colonialism. These are things Ezra considers, but with more resignation than conviction, then the rest of the plot revolves around his interpersonal relationships. His choice to immolate is obviously politically charged, given Recent Events it's easy enough to fill in the blanks I suppose. I do wish that bridge between Ezra's life question and his death answer were more closely hewn anyway, if that was the point.
The book gives you a lot to think about, handwaving at an unnamed president, an unnamed virus, nebulous protests, references to the violence of colonialism. These are things Ezra considers, but with more resignation than conviction, then the rest of the plot revolves around his interpersonal relationships. His choice to immolate is obviously politically charged, given Recent Events it's easy enough to fill in the blanks I suppose. I do wish that bridge between Ezra's life question and his death answer were more closely hewn anyway, if that was the point.
September 16, 2024
longlisted for the 2024 NBA. this is perhaps the most mfa novel to ever mfa.
for me, it didn't work. to mitigate ruining the vibes further, here's a litmus test: watch this video of the author reading one of their own poems. if you like it, you’ll like this book.
for me, it didn't work. to mitigate ruining the vibes further, here's a litmus test: watch this video of the author reading one of their own poems. if you like it, you’ll like this book.
September 18, 2024
Sam Sax is a poet, and that comes through on every page. While I did find a few parts overwritten, I devoured their language and this book. This is a deeply political coming of age story in an entirely unique format. Sax is exploring nostalgia in its true meaning: suffering that comes from the desire of home, not sentimentality. And this book unveils a whole lot of suffering, but is never gratuitous. This is one I'm going to remember.
September 14, 2024
Favourite book of the year so far!
September 6, 2024
“There is how a news story exists in image and in text, and then there is how that story is actually a person’s entire life in sobbing and warped metal. Empathy eats you alive. You can only survive by separating these two, by reading the news and not connecting the whole wet network of human suffering to the breath you’re currently taking into your lungs. And if you cannot do this, well, what else is a person to do?”
Beautiful exploration on prose and poetry about topics such as death, loss, queerness and life. It took some time for me to get used to the format but it’s definitely worth a read.
Beautiful exploration on prose and poetry about topics such as death, loss, queerness and life. It took some time for me to get used to the format but it’s definitely worth a read.
September 26, 2024
TW: suicide, domestic abuse | September book for "White Whale Bookstore Pod Picks" bookclub
"The mind is always unstable," he says, "in its shallow chemical bath, it responds to what you feed it."
Ezra, a 27-year-old non-binary bookseller, sets themself on fire during a protest. The moments between suicide and death, Ezra looks back on their life in the form of snippets of poetry and short story, recalling the mundane and dramatic moments that impacted them.
It's heavy, I'm still sitting with my feelings about it. "Does life mean everything or nothing?" is the question this book left me thinking about.
"The mind is always unstable," he says, "in its shallow chemical bath, it responds to what you feed it."
Ezra, a 27-year-old non-binary bookseller, sets themself on fire during a protest. The moments between suicide and death, Ezra looks back on their life in the form of snippets of poetry and short story, recalling the mundane and dramatic moments that impacted them.
It's heavy, I'm still sitting with my feelings about it. "Does life mean everything or nothing?" is the question this book left me thinking about.
September 22, 2024
Unfortunately didnt work for me - lacks the focus and language economy that makes their poetry so brilliant, and as a novel loses his usually brilliant use of form. Some moments glitter in here, especially the exploration of Jewish identity in modern America, sexuality, gender euphoria and dysphoria, but it generally needed more groundwork and momentum to isolate the best parts and uncover what is otherwise a really great idea for a novel
August 21, 2024
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️!
—
“Alexandria burned and took with it centuries of knowledge. When we go, we do the same.”
—
“Alexandria burned and took with it centuries of knowledge. When we go, we do the same.”
September 11, 2024
Lyrical, sparse, and steeped in wordplay, Yr Dead carries the reader along its currents through history and the frightening reality of our political present.
Through brief vignettes, Ezra, the novel’s central figure, shares the history that has led them to the decision to set themselves on fire. The main character of Yr Dead self-immolates in the opening chapter, and what we’re left with is the burning.
Yr Dead follows Ezra through a tumultuous childhood with an absent mother, an adolescence marked by substances and dissociation, and abusive relationships with men. Alongside Ezra, at the moment of his death, we relive his trauma and that of his Jewish ancestors.
Yr Dead is also, in a sense, a novelistic reckoning with the history and impact of political resistance. Sax recounts the famous echoes of this decision to protest through one’s own destruction:, “I read about the monks who lit themselves on fire to protest their government’s violence… What I don’t manage to read is the news about the people who lit themselves on fire in Chicago. In East Texas. In Greece, or Israel, or Bulgaria, or Poland, or India, or China, or Saudi Arabia or – or– or–”
Ezra’s death is a political protest that feels futile. It’s hard not to read this book in the context of ongoing protests against genocide in Palestine and the video of Aaron Bushnell, in which he, wearing his military uniform, douses himself in gasoline and lights a match. Sax writes, “Someone might make the accusation that this is just a publicity stunt, and they wouldn’t be wrong, though would be hard-pressed to say exactly for what. Survivability? Living grief? Giving up my own two lungs with the hope it’ll give someone a little more good air to breathe?”
This book is sobering, startling, and heart-wrenching. It is the kind of book that both captures the fraught zeitgeist and communicates something timeless about one’s power over one’s own life, or at least the end of it.Even if the death at the novel’s heart is fictional, Sax seems to ask, “And what will you do?”
Through brief vignettes, Ezra, the novel’s central figure, shares the history that has led them to the decision to set themselves on fire. The main character of Yr Dead self-immolates in the opening chapter, and what we’re left with is the burning.
Yr Dead follows Ezra through a tumultuous childhood with an absent mother, an adolescence marked by substances and dissociation, and abusive relationships with men. Alongside Ezra, at the moment of his death, we relive his trauma and that of his Jewish ancestors.
Yr Dead is also, in a sense, a novelistic reckoning with the history and impact of political resistance. Sax recounts the famous echoes of this decision to protest through one’s own destruction:, “I read about the monks who lit themselves on fire to protest their government’s violence… What I don’t manage to read is the news about the people who lit themselves on fire in Chicago. In East Texas. In Greece, or Israel, or Bulgaria, or Poland, or India, or China, or Saudi Arabia or – or– or–”
Ezra’s death is a political protest that feels futile. It’s hard not to read this book in the context of ongoing protests against genocide in Palestine and the video of Aaron Bushnell, in which he, wearing his military uniform, douses himself in gasoline and lights a match. Sax writes, “Someone might make the accusation that this is just a publicity stunt, and they wouldn’t be wrong, though would be hard-pressed to say exactly for what. Survivability? Living grief? Giving up my own two lungs with the hope it’ll give someone a little more good air to breathe?”
This book is sobering, startling, and heart-wrenching. It is the kind of book that both captures the fraught zeitgeist and communicates something timeless about one’s power over one’s own life, or at least the end of it.Even if the death at the novel’s heart is fictional, Sax seems to ask, “And what will you do?”
August 28, 2024
A book about suicide. It contains a trigger warning from the author at the beginning and there's really no hiding from it. It doesn't just pop up at the end of the book, it's peppered throughout. So this is a book full of sadness following Ezra, a lonely queer Jewish non-binary person, as they flit between jobs, relationships and hook-ups. There is also humour here though, especially in the dry exchanges between Ezra and their (best?) friend Ericka.
It's told in little fragmented vignettes. Some are a single sentence adrift on a whole blank page; some flow to a couple of pages but nothing more. I really liked this poetic style and there were loads of bits that made me pause and read again and again:
Maybe what it means to belong to a city is that, if it could flee - the city, I mean - you might be one of the things it would grab in the night to carry with it so it could remember its name.
It's told in little fragmented vignettes. Some are a single sentence adrift on a whole blank page; some flow to a couple of pages but nothing more. I really liked this poetic style and there were loads of bits that made me pause and read again and again:
Maybe what it means to belong to a city is that, if it could flee - the city, I mean - you might be one of the things it would grab in the night to carry with it so it could remember its name.
August 29, 2024
4.5 - with a queer notion of time and space, YR DEAD goes fully brilliant with lyrical prose and experimental structure to tell a coming of age tale, for the queer jewish self, and our political moment more broadly. a book concerned with trauma, protest, and identity that takes a wildly heavy premise (self-immolation) and handles it with such care that you don’t leave feeling burdened by exploitative trauma porn. also, lovely to read a novel that indexes itself alongside contemporary struggles. devoured this in a day - absolutely loved it overall and wish it was around a couple years earlier when I was writing my MA thesis on queer time and queer riots.
September 22, 2024
this book fell onto my radar after i saw that it was shortlisted for the national book award and i was immediately intrigued by the premise. when i saw i could borrow it through my local library, i felt drawn to pick it up. this really is an intimate and beautiful look into someone -- their life and their history and how we can inherit the same yearnings of our ancestors despite living in completely different times and circumstances. i would be interested in reading any future novels sax writes.
content warnings: self-immolation, suicide, drug use, queerphobia, alcoholism, and an abusive relationship
content warnings: self-immolation, suicide, drug use, queerphobia, alcoholism, and an abusive relationship
September 7, 2024
I devoured this book greedily. It had a dream like quality that completely captivated me and made the gut punch blows of the situations and experiences that more devastating.
There were pages I had to put to memory in the way I loved them and had to recite these to my partner in order to gain a new perspective or to understand them deeper.
Some of the ways the author describes feeling, or more importantly the lack of it towards certain situations felt like a mirror and helped me even understand my self through reading the words put in another way or context.
Beautiful and hideous.
There were pages I had to put to memory in the way I loved them and had to recite these to my partner in order to gain a new perspective or to understand them deeper.
Some of the ways the author describes feeling, or more importantly the lack of it towards certain situations felt like a mirror and helped me even understand my self through reading the words put in another way or context.
Beautiful and hideous.
September 29, 2024
Is a poetic life one told in pieces? Poets break it down. A novel like life, scrambled, from beyond. A riff on Sunset Boulevard, floating in the pool, only self-immolated. Bad family, bookstore, problem lovers who stuff you in the closet. For days. Jewish folk tales, or riffs thereof. Undergrad unhappiness. Vivid, muffled, tragic. In youth, there is Denton Welch. Everybody is looking for something. (love)
September 21, 2024
For someone with an immense fear of fire and burns I have read and enjoyed an awful lot of books involving just that in the last year. This book took big risks in the way it played with form which doesn’t always work for me but really worked this time. A story about queerness, religion, trauma, and mental health where the disjointed way it was told just added to the impact of the story.
Read
August 18, 2024I wish this was a book of verse — it basically makes me understand thematic collection / novel-in-verse better — and now I have to go read Fatimah’s. Specifically I understand now that the timing and spacing given to a poem is not afforded in prose
September 12, 2024
Wow Incredible, I enjoyed reading the overview of "Yr Dead" and believe it has great potential. I have a few insights that could enhance the story and overall impact. Feel free to reach out to me at yunusmr574@gmail.com to talk about it more.
August 28, 2024
4.5/5
September 5, 2024
Impressive at parts but a bit too experimental / over-written / maudlin for my taste otherwise
September 18, 2024
This book is flashbacks of a page or so each, so I didn’t always know what was going on. But. It is beautifully written and tragic and sometimes quite funny and I loved Ezra very much.
September 24, 2024
Absolutely teeming with a love of language and stories, this is a profoundly beautiful, profoundly Jewish, and profoundly queer novel. I adored every single incandescent word.
September 24, 2024
glorious, poetic, honest. one of the great contemporary works methinks. i’m watching you sam
September 26, 2024
I’ll be thinking about this book for a long time. But, truly, read the author’s note and the trigger warnings before you pick this one up.
September 26, 2024
super poignant gay book about everything everything
Displaying 1 - 30 of 34 reviews