Lush Life: A Novel | 
 enlarge | Author: Richard Price
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Category: Book
List Price: $26.00
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Rating:  163 reviews
Sales Rank: 554
Media: Hardcover
Edition: 1
Pages: 464
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.5
Dimensions (in): 8.9 x 6.1 x 1.6
ISBN: 0374299250
Dewey Decimal Number: 813.54
EAN: 9780374299255
ASIN: 0374299250
Publication Date: March 4, 2008
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Amazon.com Review
Amazon Significant Seven, March 2008: No one has a better ear and eye for the American city than Richard Price, and in iLush Life/i, his first novel in five years, he leaves the fictional environs of Dempsy, New Jersey, where iClockers/i, iFreedomland/i, and iSamaritan/i were set, for a few crowded blocks of Manhattan's Lower East Side. There's a crime at the heart of the story, but you don't read Price for plot. Instead, you listen as he peels apart layers of class and history through the way his characters talk to each other: hipster bartenders who tell people they're really writers, homeboys from housing projects named after the Jewish immigrants who have long left the neighborhood, and cops, cops, cops, circling the streets looking for a collar, disappearing into their cases as their own lives go to ruin. i--Tom Nissley/i
Product Description
DIVSo, what do you do?#8221; Whenever people asked him, Eric Cash used to have a dozen answers. Artist, actor, screenwriter . . . But now he#8217;s thirty-five years old and he#8217;s still living on the Lower East Side, still in the restaurant business, still serving the people he wanted to be. What does Eric do? He manages. Not like Ike Marcus. Ike was young, good-looking, people liked him. Ask him what he did, he wouldn#8217;t say tending bar. He was going places#8212;until two street kids stepped up to him and Eric one night and pulled a gun. At least, that#8217;s Eric#8217;s version.BRBRIn ILush Life, /IRichard Price tears the shiny veneer off the #8220;new#8221; New York to show us the hidden cracks, the underground networks of control and violence beneath the glamour. ILush Life /Iis an Xray of the street in the age of no broken windows and #8220;quality of life#8221; squads, from a writer whose #8220;tough, gritty brand of social realism . . . reads like a movie in prose#8221; (Michiko Kakutani, IThe New York Times/I).BRBR/DIV
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| Customer Reviews: Read 158 more reviews...
 Another keeper! November 30, 2008
Mr. Mark S. Freeburg (Chicago IL)
Yes, this is a crime novel and the principal murder is shattering but it's also just one ingredient in a tragic stew of cops, thugs, and other walking wounded. The chief investigators find themselves hopelessly entangled in the lives of the victimized. A theme this author likes to explore. Price colors his characters with rich detail and creates dialogue that sings like urban poetry. This is like a literary version of the great HBO series "The Wire". He is one of the best novelists working today and I highly recommended it!
Worthwhile Read Despite Loss of Story/Plot Momentum November 20, 2008
M. T. Vancampen (Houston, TX)
I have always been impressed with Richard Price's novels and his ability to wow both literary critics and fans of crime fiction. _Lush Life_ starts out as strong as anything I have ever read by Price. As in the past, Price demonstrates himself as a master of dialogue and detail that have made him such a respected author in a often neglected genre. He had me hooked up until the middle of the book, all of which I read in one sitting way past when I should have gone to sleep. However, once a certain conflict is resolved (anyone who reads the book will know what I am talking about), the story seems to lose speed rapidly and devolve into a mere recitation of events rather than a well told tale. br / br /Even though the plot seems to slow down midway through, Price is still able to use the characters and their actions as an examination of the people and history that make up life in a modern American city--or in this case a small area of a city. So, despite this not being Price's best novel, I still found it thoroughly enjoyable and would recommend it to anyone interested in reading an intelligent crime novel that is more than just a well paced page-turner.
 Hard to get into October 28, 2008
S. Rowell (New York, USA)
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
I'm having a really hard time trying to figure out where he's going with the plot. There are too many characters to keep up with and it drags on and on and on.
 cool talk, not that much to say October 4, 2008
T. Burket (Potomac, MD United States)
As a first-time reader of Richard Price, his rippling dialog was certainly the highlight. His story is a vehicle for talk, not for mystery and plot twists. Some scenes are so crisp and brisk, done almost entirely through dialog. br / br /We know who committed the crime early, and the incident isn't much of one on which to hang a story. Instead, we go behind the scenes for police process and for character development of the main detective, the parents of the victim, and assorted others. From a safe perch in suburbia, contemplation of street life in turbulent city neighborhoods can be quite entertaining in the hands of a guy like Mr. Price. br / br /With no real mystery or surprises of any magnitude, the story eventually loses momentum, given that the characters are not that interesting and some relatively superfluous subplots sap some energy. Billy Marcus and Boulware were rather tedious and caused me to skim some sections. br / br /Tristan was a freshly drawn character and perhaps could have been developed further. br /
TOUCHING THE LOST SOULS September 24, 2008
Cher P. Cox (Chicago)
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
I knew that Richard Price was a writer of note, but I had not been enticed enough in the past to read his work. Well, once Lush Life arrived, I couldn't put it down. Every chance I got, I'd grab another 5-7 pages. One Saturday, I read Lush Life for 3 hours straight and loved it. You are just sucked into this story. br /Price is a master at getting into the 'nitty gritty' of his characters. They're all truly lost souls, but we learn such compassion for them and garner a sense of what makes them tick. Price really writes so well - you can almost smell the air in the room and the adrenaline pumping through the characters' bodies...It's comtemporary; it's heart-wrenching; it's too true. Loved it!
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