Lush Life: A Novel | Richard Price

Lush Life: A Novel | Richard Price | Excellent Reading!

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Lush Life: A Novel

	Lush Life: A Novel Richard Price Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2008 - 464 pages average customer review:based on 161 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

Lush Indeed

This one of the most complete books I've read in some time. All the plots and subplots are introduced, developed, and resolved neatly. Considering the number of characters, this is no mean feat in less than 500 pages. The motivations are exposed, the actions are consistent, and the observations are acute. Very well done.

Excellent Reading!

This was the best book I've read since The Corrections. A rich depiction of the seedy underbelly of urban life. It's been compared to Bonfire of the Vanities, and while it it is not quite that good, it is close.

Gritty, Bleak, and Entertaining

Eric Cash is an aspiring actor and writer who is waiting for his big break. He is just working at a hip restaurant in Manhattan's Lower East Side until his "real" career begins.

Eric is forced to reevaluate his life when he is accused of the shooting death of an acquaintance that occurs during a night of barhopping. Eric admits he was with the victim and they were drunk, but he swears that the shooting was perpetrated by two black or Hispanic men. However, the detectives in the case are put in a quandary when two credible eyewitnesses explain that Eric is lying. They saw Eric shoot the man and then run into a building. There were no muggers involved.

The first section of "Lush Life" is a mystery. How can Eric's account of the homicide be reconciled with the description of two witnesses that have nothing to gain? The remainder of the book is an excellent study of how the death changes the lives of everyone involved from the victim's family and friends, the detectives working the case, and the shooter.

"Lush Life" has a great cast of characters and is very well written. At times it is a very bleak and gritty book. Overall, though, I found "Lush Life" very entertaining.

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Lush but challenging

In Lush Life, Richard Price continues to capture the patios of characters from his locales, this time the Lower East Side of Manhattan that is rapidly recreating itself. A mugging turned murder is the center of the plot and the first 1/3 of the book is a sort of questioning/interrogation. Trouble is, sometimes I need a decoder ring because I'm not hip to all the slang.

Price has the action and locations down perfectly as well as the politically incorrect themes of race, drugs, and religion.

This is a good character study of both people and places.

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Price At His Best and Worst

Richard Price is probably my favorite author (yes, it is a difficult distinction for me to make), because of he, more than any other has the ability to capture the raw dialogue of the street, and encapsulate that into a breathing, living conversation available so readily to his reader. His storytelling ability is indisputable, from his novels-turned-movies directed by self-proclaimed autuers like Spike Lee (Clockers) to his wonderful work on probably the most under-rated television show in TV history (the wire).

In Lush Life, Mr. Price extends himself successfully beyond the gritty, urban landscapes he flexibly navigates in Clockers and The Wanderers. By having the Lower East Side as the backdrop, Mr. Price has to create characters beyond his comfort level of the cop-perp relationship that he normally does a masterful job of handling objectively. As a born and raised Brooklynite, Mr. Price's literature is New York City. His grasp for the city and the region is once again flawless in this novel, and better yet, his grasp for such a bizarre neighborhood of circumstance- the lower-east side- is exemplary.

However, Mr. Price, who is so good at not over-romanticizing in his previous novels, tends to be a little idealistic in this novel. At times, Mr. Price is guilty of over-writing and dragging sequences out long enough to make the reader slightly lose interest, and that seems to be the case several times in this book. The plot itself is interesting enough, but Price at times sways too far from his strengths as a crime writer, trying at times to hard to bring human agency to different matters (which he does when he doesn't try), that makes the story at times seem insincere and I hate to say it but at times pompous.

I would still say buy this novel, especially if your a New Yorker. It's not the quickest read ever, but it's worth it. If you haven't read Price before, you will probably love this novel. But if like me, your are a Price enthusiast, finishing the novel is like your a teacher receiving a B paper from your best student.

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