The Storied Life Of Aj Fikry

A.J. reviews Aimee Bender’s Ironhead, a book about two parents who have a baby with features different from theirs. A.J. tells Maya that for “obvious reasons,” this story is on his mind (253). He also warns against falling for the logical fallacy called “appeal to tradition,” which claims that something is better just because it is older.

At Christmas, A.J.’s mother visits. She is as different from A.J. as could be—much more open and socially involved. She gets everyone e-readers—an item A.J. has long despised. He likes the physical feel of art objects and doesn’t like that digitalization is reining supreme. He tries to remain calm but asks his mother if she understands that e-readers have the potential to put him out of business. Both A.J. and his mother become upset over the gift, so Amelia steps in and chastises A.J. for being “rude” (258).

Right then, the smoke alarm goes off and alerts them to the burning Christmas brisket. Amelia is confused since she had set the alarm on her phone to avoid this scenario. A.J. says he put her phone on silent because he thought it might otherwise “ruin” the holiday, which leads Amelia to become even angrier and bring up other complaints she has (259). Maya is secretly very excited about the e-reader and tells her grandmother so.

At dinner, both A.J. and Amelia drink a lot to drown the pain of the evening. In bed that night, A.J. continues to complain until Amelia points out that e-readers allow people with poor vision to enlarge the text—a feature that would certainly help A.J. in the near future. At that point, he has one of his seizures and briefly blacks out. Amelia asks several times for him to go to the doctor, but he continuously refuses.

After the holidays, life goes back to its normal routine for A.J. until, while running in the dead of winter, he has another seizure. A brain specialist diagnoses A.J. with a rare form of brain cancer and recommends immediate surgery. The surgery, depending on its success, will leave A.J. with anywhere from two to eight years to live. Both the cancer and the surgery are likely to affect the language center of his brain.

On his way home, A.J. stops to have a beer with Chief Lambiase and reports the news. He says he does not plan to go through with the operation. Instead, he wants to commit suicide to save Maya from financial ruin. Lambiase tries to talk A.J. out of this decision.

Next, Lambiase tells Ismay that he knows she stole A.J.’s book and that he doesn’t care but he does want her to return it. In turn, Ismay reveals that Marian Wallace came to her, with Maya, and asked for money. She admits she was awful to Marian and that, because she didn’t want to lose her husband, she did not tell Daniel about the visit—or about his daughter. Ismay then explains that, after taking A.J.’s copy of Tamerlane, she brought the book to Marian and told her it was a gift from Daniel—that he wanted her to sell it for the money. Shortly afterward, Marian, Maya, and the book showed up at Ismay’s. Marian explained that the book was useless because everyone in town was on the lookout for the stolen copy; then she described Tamerlane as a “sad” story about love, power, and sacrifice (278). After Ismay turned the woman and her child away, she noticed that Maya had colored on the cover. Ismay hid the book, hoping eventually Daniel would ask her about it, but he never did. When Marian killed herself, Ismay tells Lambiase, she felt as if she committed “a crime” (279). He insists everything turned out for the best and that in some ways she “saved A.J. Fikry’s life” (280).

Lambiase sees A.J. at the next policeman book club and hands him an unremarkable package which he urges him to open. A.J. just sets it down, saying he has experienced “too many disappointments” to hope for anything amazing to happen again (281).