Richard Price

What attracted me to writer Richard Price is his uncommon ability to charm the critics and still remain highly marketable. Two of his best-selling crime dramas—1992's "Clockers" and 1998's "Freedomland" (1998) have been adapted for the big screen. Spike Lee directed the former and the latter was a vehicle for Samuel L. Jackson. Price wrote both screen plays.

I had seen the movies but had not read the books. When Price's most recent novel was named a N.Y Times Notable Book and Best Book of the Year by both the Boston Globe and Washington Post, I knew I couldn't pass it up. So, when the paperback edition appeared last month, I grabbed a copy. Here's my take:

Lush Life, by Richard Price. Picador/Farrar, Straus and Giroux, $15 (455p) ISBN 978-0-312-42822-8

"Lush" is an appropriate adjective (metaphor?) for Price's depiction of Manhattan's Lower East Side as a predatory urban jungle: a place where moral ambiguity thrives and justice is a moving target. And perhaps most tellingly, Price (Clockers, Freedomland) allows none of his many characters—none, zero, zilch—to be happy. In fact, most are victims of one sort or another. But, I'm getting ahead of myself.

Eric Cash is a 35-year-old aspiring writer working as a restaurant manager on the Lower East Side. Cash, like legions of actors, writers, and assorted artists pouring drinks and waiting tables in the city, struggles mightily with an "unsatisfied yearning for validation."

So, too, do wannabe gang bangers Tristan Acevedo and Little Dip Williams who live in public housing amidst poverty, drugs, and violence.

For Cash, validation is a finished screenplay. For Acevedo and Williams, it's a random mugging. One man's validation is another's nightmare, I always say.

One late night as Cash and two friends—aspiring actor Steven Boulware and writer/bartender Ike Marcus—are staggering home after an evening of bar-hopping, a host of aspirations intersect. In the urban jungle, mugging has a distinct advantage: a .22 pistol.

Boulware faints. Cash hands over his wallet. But Marcus refuses to comply and steps toward Acevedo and Williams. A startled Acevedo shoots him in the chest—the mugging now a homicide.

The case falls to detective Matty Clark, who has his own personal struggles. He's divorced and his two estranged sons—one of them a cop—are dealing drugs.

Clark and his partner zero in on Cash as the shooter and relentlessly grill him for hours before arresting him. By the time Boulware has sobered up enough to confirm Cash's account, the cops have lost twenty-four hours and are behind the curve.

The police brass don't expect an arrest and want to let the case quietly disappear. But Clark refuses and doggedly pursues it—perhaps for his own validation.

To be fair, this is a powerful, addictive tale of the seamy side of urban life. My problem with it is that it's so utterly dark. Surely, there are content, if not happy, souls to be found on the Lower East Side. A few would have added some balance to this otherwise impressive novel.

Quotable

"People say they're one thing or another. Then at some point, they just are what they are."

"This kid ever had an original thought, it would die of loneliness."