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In this electrifying novel, Richard Price, the author of Clockers and a writer on The Wire, gives us razor-sharp anatomy of an ever-changing Harlem.
East Harlem, 2008. In an instant, a five-story tenement collapses into a fuming hill of rubble, pancaking the cars parked in front and coating the street with a thick layer of ash. As the city's rescue services and media outlets respond, the surrounding neighborhood descends into chaos. At day's end, six bodies are recovered, but many of the other tenants are missing.
In Lazarus Man, Richard Price, one of the greatest chroniclers of life in urban America, creates intertwining portraits of a group of compelling and singular characters whose lives are permanently impacted by the disaster.
Anthony Carter―whose miraculous survival, after being buried for days beneath tons of brick and stone, transforms him into a man with a message and a passionate sense of mission.
Felix Pearl―a young transplant to the city, whose photography and film work that day provokes in this previously unformed soul a sharp sense of personal destiny.
Royal Davis―owner of a failing Harlem funeral home, whose desperate trolling of the scene for potential "customers" triggers a quest to find another path in life.
And Mary Roe―a veteran city detective who, driven in part by her own family's brutal history, becomes obsessed with finding Christopher Diaz, one of the building's missing.
Price, the bestselling author of Lush Life and, most recently, The Whites, has created a bravura portrait of a community on the edge of disintegration. Rich with indelible characters and high drama, Lazarus Man is a riveting work of suspense and social vision by one of our major writers.
What are you reading this week? (11/14/2024)
I am reading Lazarus Man by Richard Price. It was a tough start as so many characters. I am enjoying it now.
-Cheryl_Winter
"Price delivers a remarkable excavation of urban angst in this story of a five-story East Harlem tenement building that collapses ... As [Price's] vivid characters cross paths following the tragedy, they compose a searing snapshot of contemporary Harlem annotated with the author's precise observations ... Price once again proves he's the bard of New York City street life." ―Publishers Weekly (starred review)
"[T]he author is mostly in a kinder and gentler mode, affectingly capturing the complicated domestic lives that help people cope in difficult times. For all the darkness in the novel with its 9/11 overtones, there's a sense of transcendence in the Harlem community's shared experience and survivors' spirit. An affecting novel by a literary urbanologist in top form." —Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
"Richard Price has long been lauded as an expert observer of urban life in the United States. Lazarus Man, a streetwise story of a small group of New Yorkers brought together unexpectedly by tragedy and the quest for redemption, will only enhance that reputation ... With his keen eye, efficiently constructed scenes, and, above all, crisp dialogue ... [Price] follows the lives of these world-weary characters over the course of roughly 10 days, while artfully revealing the elements of their pasts that have brought them to this singular moment." ―Shelf Awareness
"Richard Price is our peerless dramatizer of the contemporary urban underbelly, reminding us that the beating heart of a city lies within the collective hearts of the denizens shuffling through their demanding lives ... " ―Booklist
"Price paints a tableau full of activity, compassion, and complexity that expertly demonstrates how messy and difficult life can be." —Library Journal
"Gritty and compassionate ... [Price] has an ear for streetwise dialogue and an eye for description ... A chorus of voices enlivens every page in a kind of urban opera." ―The Los Angeles Times
This information about Lazarus Man was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Photo: Ralph Gibson (2002)
Richard Price, born in the Bronx, graduated from the Bronx High School of Science in 1967 and obtained a BA from Cornell University and an MFA from Columbia. He also did graduate work at Stanford. He has taught writing at Columbia, Yale, and New York University.
Price is the author of nine novels, most recently The Whites, originally published under the pseudonym Harry Brandt. His other novels include Clockers, Freedomland, and Samaritan. In 1999 he received an Award in Literature from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and in 2007 he won an Edgar Award for his writing on the HBO series The Wire. His miniseries The Night Of was premiered on HBO in July 2016.
His fiction, articles and essays have appeared in Best American Essays 2002, The New York Times, The New York Times Book...
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