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willemite

willemite

Currently reading

Hieroglyph: Stories and Blueprints for a Better Future
Neal Stephenson
Ukraine: Zbig's Grand Chessboard & How the West Was Checkmated
Natylie Baldwin, Kermit D. Larson
The Girl on the Train: A Novel
Paula Hawkins
Our Souls at Night: A novel
Kent Haruf
Above the Waterfall
Ron Rash
On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft
Stephen King
Designs on Film: A Century of Hollywood Art Direction
Cathy Whitlock
The Homicide Report: Understanding Murder in America
Jill Leovy
Dead Wake: The Last Crossing of the Lusitania
Erik Larson
The Gods of Mars
Edgar Rice Burroughs
Lush Life: A Novel - Richard Price Set in Manhattan’s Lower East Side, Lush Life shows a place that is rich in all sorts of humanity. The crime is a meaningless street homicide, but Price uses the event as a McGuffin for painting a portrait of a piece of New York, a vision of a neighborhood in transition, complete with city projects and gentrifying real estate, cops, robbers and residents, the way things are politically. There is a lot going on here. Price is a veteran of The Wire and if this work seems like the sort of ensemble work he did in showing the seemier underside of Baltimore it should come as no surprise. The strength here is language. Price is a master of dialogue and dialect. He speaks with many diverse voices, all convincing. I loved this book for its craft and its feel for place and sound of people. What held me back from loving the book was that I never really felt very attached to any of the characters. I did not really care what happened to them. But maybe I am just a callous New Yawker. Lush Life is a lush read, in the Edenic and not in the alcoholic sense.