I Pity the Poor Immigrant

by Zachary Lazar

  About the Author

  Zachary Lazar is the author of three previous books, including the novel Sway, chosen as a Best Book of 2008 by the Los Angeles Times, Rolling Stone, Publishers Weekly, and Newsday, and the memoir Evening’s Empire: The Story of My Father’s Murder, a Chicago Tribune Best Book of 2009. Lazar is the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship and the Hodder Fellowship at Princeton University. He lives in New Orleans, where he is on the creative writing faculty at Tulane University.

  also by ZACHARY LAZAR

  Evening’s Empire

  Sway

  Aaron, Approximately

  1. Israeli citizens are legally barred from entering major West Bank cities such as Bethlehem due to the security risk.

  2. Lacey, Little Man: Meyer Lansky and the Gangster Life

  3. Gosch, The Last Testament of Lucky Luciano

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  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Welcome

  Dedication

  Chapter 1: Checking Out

  Part One: Everywhere Present but Never Seen Chapter 2: Displaced Persons

  Chapter 3: Only Connect

  Chapter 4: Immigrants, Part 1

  Chapter 5: Criminology

  Chapter 6: Immigrants, Part 2

  Part Two: In the Presence of My Enemies Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9: Immigrants, Part 3

  Chapter 10: Reunion

  Part Three: World of Our Fathers Chapter 11

  Part Four: Facts on the Ground Chapter 12: Ghosts

  Part Five: Epilogue Chapter 13: The End

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Also by Zachary Lazar

  Newsletters

  Copyright

  Copyright

  The characters and events in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.

  Copyright © 2014 by Zachary Lazar

  Cover design by Lauren Harms

  Cover photographs: woman by Jasper James / Getty Images; Tel Aviv by Dmitry Pistrov / Shutterstock

  Cover copyright © 2014 by Hachette Book Group, Inc.

  All rights reserved. In accordance with the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, the scanning, uploading, and electronic sharing of any part of this book without the permission of the publisher constitute unlawful piracy and theft of the author’s intellectual property. If you would like to use material from the book (other than for review purposes), prior written permission must be obtained by contacting the publisher at permissions@hbgusa.com. Thank you for your support of the author’s rights.

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  First ebook edition: April 2014

  Little, Brown and Company is a division of Hachette Book Group, Inc. The Little, Brown name and logo are trademarks of Hachette Book Group, Inc.

  Portions of this book first appeared in Bomb, The Southampton Review, and Fence.

  Photography credits: Benjamin Siegel, here, © Corbis; Meyer Lansky, here, © Hulton Archive / Getty. All other images are from the author’s collection.

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  ISBN 978-0-316-25404-5

  E3