book: Lush Life: A Novel | Richard Price     books:     Lush Life: A Novel   Lush Life: A Novel Richard Price Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2008 - 464 pages average customer review:based on 157 reviews view larger image  for more information click here        highly recommended Price's Best ? I picked up Lush Life prepared to like it, because I don't know of a better writer today with an eye for detail and an ear for detail. Those two senses make for a powerful combination when it comes to writing, as long as you have the discipline. And, for all of its 400-plus pages, Price shows he is up to the task. The writing never sags. In flashes, he shows that he could create such a creamy style that you might keel over from too many calories. In most of the book, you get the feeling that Price has set his characters in motion and just watches them act based on their essence. The narrative follows no typical arc for mystery fiction or suspense -- even though the centerpiece is a murder and how the city reacts around the violence. It might help to know New York's lower east side, but that's no requirement; I live out west. This is about humanity bouncing off each other, living with each other, setting standards for behavior as individuals and collectively, in small informal groups and in large organized ones. In the end, one line stays with me, and it surfaces in a brilliant spot: "Do you survive because of what is in you? Or because of what isn't..." Put this up there with Freedomland and Clockers, but don't overlook The Wanderers, Samaritan, and Bloodbrothers.  for more information click here For me, it was the characters that made "Lush Life", not just the dialogue, and Price seems to be able to make a name into a person with just a few words. I liked this book because it was a police procedural in which the victims, witnesses and perpetrators of the crime around which it centers were each treated fairly by the author. I was interested in all of them. Price really has the "show, don't tell" thing down. He's never preachy or morbid, like some crime-fiction authors, but doesn't shy away from the tension created by a neighborhood that is a gentrifying ex-ghetto cozying up to the modern-day projects. At the beginning of the book, the author makes the reader feel satisfyingly involved in the intense questioning of murder suspect Eric Cash by detectives Matty Clark and Yolanda Bello, but by the time it is revealed that Cash doesn't do it, the reader feels as sleazy and as sorry as the interrogators for how they leaned on him. Cash is a weak person -- and Clark and Bello are flawed, too -- but they are all very human. So are the neighborhood lawyers, reporters, crazies and thugs, and the young shooter himself. Price unflinchingly calls the racism, classism and PD bureaucracy as he sees them, but injects enough humor into the book that reading it is a sweet experience, not a sour one. "Lush Life"'s main draw isn't the plot, which is fairly standard. The best thing about the novel is the people who inhabit Price's Lower East Side, good, bad and indifferent.  for more information click here "The City of New York Was Not Finished With Him" Richard Price's now-bestselling Lush Life is not as much about a specific crime as it is about New York and the inhabitants of its Lower East side: cops, bartenders, wannabe actors and screenwriters, immigrants, rich kids, broken families, drug addicts, thugs, grocery store owners, the abused, and the abusers, all of them desperate. The murder of Ike Marcus is only a flashpoint. The people that the act brings to the surface define the novel through their individual stories. Detectives Matty and Yolanda are charged with solving Ike's murder despite the inexplicable reluctance of their superiors to support the effort. Billy Marcus, Ike's father, attracts Matty's sympathy, both as a victim and as a representative of fatherhood, a role that continues to baffle Matty as he tries to deal with his wayward sons. Eric Cash, a bartender who was with Ike when he was shot, follows a downward spiral in the wake of the murder. The shooter, a formerly good kid living in low-income housing, struggles to find some control in an otherwise helpless, and hopeless, situation. Even the more minor characters have burdens that overtake their dreams. This ambitious novel suffers at times from meandering subplots, some of which seem completely superfluous, not even adding to the larger portrait of life downtown; however, where the structure is more focused, Price shines. Stylistically, Lush Life makes demands on its readers through its sometimes unconventional prose and multiple points-of-view that skip from character to character, subplot to subplot. The result is a memorable, though fractured, portrait of the seedy side of New York. I recommend this complex novel for Richard Price fans, readers of literary fiction, and those who want more than the usual summer fare. Skip this if you want a suspenseful, quick-read crime novel.  for more information click here Literature or formula? Don't try for both Like many I'd heard of Richard Price but never really read his books, although many told me since I love Dennis Lehane I would definitely enjoy Price. "Lush Life" tells the story of a Manhattan mugging gone even more wrong, and his characters are soon going all over the place as the pieces start to come together. Price definitely has an ear for dialogue, but the story goes in so many different directions with so many different points of view that I literally said aloud at one point "would you just settle on one or two characters, I'm getting lost!" Like Lehane Price can go on the edge of crude elegance with his prose, which keeps "Lush Life" mostly readable, but the somewhat pat ending is a letdown. I will admit, though, that "Lush Life" intrigued me enough to want to seek out Price's other work. I would imagine those who are already fans of Price would enjoy this book, but it's hard going for a first timer.  for more information click here What was so great? I thought it was very good at plunking you down in this particular group of settings -- different neighborhoods in NYCity. Richard Price is good at characterization. Very good at dialog. It's set in NYCity so I love that. I"m not recommending though ... the ending is a bit of a let down -- I mean the ending not the climax. I'm not sure why I say that because in many ways the ending was satisfying. In a novel, dénouement is tricky ... it's a very tricky part of the book. Here's another thing: I didn't like any of the characters. That bothers me when I read. Is it a sign of true maturity when you can really like a book even though you don't like any of the characters? Dunno. I think it's a sign of maturity when you can recognize that a writer is really good at writing even though you dislike the characters. For example, I thought the plotting and writing in Ship of Fools by Katherine Anne Porter was really good. Really good. But I intensely disliked everyone. And, ultimately, that means I would only recommend the book with reservations. Maybe I'm being unfair ... because what if that was Porter's intention all along ... to portray these characters so that we wouldn't like them? Back to Lush Life: I'm not recommending it because the farther away from reading the book I am, I like it less and less and say to myself: yeah, so what was so great? There was something significant that was missing for me.  for more information click here reviews: 1, 2, 3, page 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13 products you might be interested in recommendations Some Super Fiction To Enjoy By On The Patio Supercharged Stories You'll Love Some Divine Summer Reading Some Appealing Fiction Irresistible Fiction novel Water for Elephants: A Novel Chasing Darkness: An Elvis Cole Novel (Elvis Cole) Swan Peak: A Dave Robicheaux Novel Chasing Harry Winston: A Novel The Kite Runner life The Secret The Last Lecture The 4-Hour Workweek: Escape 9-5, Live Anywhere, and Join the New Rich The Story of Edgar Sawtelle: A Novel Biology with MasteringBiology™ (8th Edition) (MasteringBiology ... search for books life, lush, novel      toavi.com    web randomly chosen baby: Boppy Luxe Noggin Nest Head Support - Black Minky