Product Description

'So, what do you do?' Whenever people asked him, Eric Cash used to have a dozen answers. Artist, actor, screenwriter But now he's thirty-five years old and he'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't say tending bar. He was going places - until two street kids stepped up to him and Eric one night and pulled a gun. At least, that's Eric's version. In Lush Life, Richard Price tears the shiny veneer off the 'new' New York to show us the hidden cracks, the underground networks of control and violence beneath the glamour. Lush Life is an X-ray of the street from a writer whose "tough, gritty brand of social realism ...reads like a movie in prose' Michiko Kakutani, The New York Times

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #24098 in Books
• Published on: 2009-07-06
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 464 pages

Review
'Richard Price is the greatest writer of dialogue, living or dead, this country has ever produced. Wry, profane, hilarious and tragic, sometimes in a single line, Lush Life is his masterwork. I doubt anyone will write a novel this good for a long, long time' Dennis Lehane 'A gritty tale from a writer I really admire' James Patterson 'A visceral, heart-thumping portrait of New York City' New York Times 'Lush Life peels off the shiny top layer of New York to reveal the raw beating heart of the city post 9/11' Daily Mail

Sunday Telegraph
`With an ear for the street like no other writer, Price writes dialogue that's pacy, authentic and funny ... Lush Life is a great read - entertaining, textured, animated and often deeply true'

Daily Telegraph
`master chronicler of gritty urban street life ... Dickensian ... the book's main character - richly drawn, full or ironies and haunted by the past - is the Lower East Side'

Customer Reviews

More appealing to the head than the heart
Let me start by saying that I'm a huge Richard Price fan. His earlier books--Bloodbrothers and The Breaks in particular--were epiphanies to me. For my money, Clockers is a contender for the Great American Novel. Technically, Lush Life is just as adroit--the snappy pacing, the spot-on descriptions, the breathtaking attention to detail, the surefire characterisations, all of which are Price specialities, are there, honed to stiletto sharpness. But while the plot would appear to offer plenty of opportunities for emotion--a 20-something man is murdered during an aborted hold-up, and in the course of the investigation we meet his mad-with-grief father--the overall effect is clinical rather than empathetic. That may be because none of the characters are really sympathetic; even the murdered man comes across as someone you'd avoid speaking to at a party for more than a few minutes. The result is a gripping read that keeps you flipping the pages so that you can absorb Price's dazzling word wizardry and learn the outcome of the investigation. Yet once you finish the book, the story and the characters, unlike those of Price's best books, are unlikely to remain with you.

Marvellous
A great book: Superb dialogue,riveting plot,well drawn characters and all within a run-down area of New York. The description of the contrast between the poor residents and the increasing number of white wannabes is particularly effective
The main characters,Matty Wright and Yolanda Bello, can join the pantheon of great detectives with John Rebus and Steve Carella.
This the first book by Richard Price which I have read and my enjoyment was not impaired by seeing "The Wire". I look forward to reading more.

Great read! But main theme defies credibility.
Well, there are two companions with the man who is shot dead by someone unknown. NYPD interview one; don't accept his story, and within hours, charge him with the crime and lock him up. Then, AND ONLY THEN, do they think to interview the second companion, who unhesitatingly confirms the other's recollection of events and he is immediately released from prison, severely traumatised, with grovelling apologies for false arrest. So, if you can overlook this unbelievable basis for the next 400 or so pages, with NYPD now trying to find the real killer, you should enjoy this book, as I did. But of course, with this perpetual niggle concerning plausability.