Lush Life

I had Richard Price's Lush Life (2009) since I enjoyed Clockers  it was another recommendation from Nick Hornby, but it moved up my list when it was referenced as a quintessential contemporary New York novel on Slate'S Cultural Gabfest podcast. There's no doubt that Price can write some great dialogue, but what I liked best was how he captured Bloomberg New York in the midst of gentrification: Arabs running convenience stores, strolling Orthodox Jewish rabbis rubbing shoulders with second generation Chinese watching white yuppies buy up real estate and bemoaning the lingering projects on the outskirts of the neighborhood. Price tells three concurrent stories: that of a failed artist bar manager, Eric Cash and initial suspect and witness to a murder-robbery,  the divorced middle aged homicide Detective Matty Rich, and the robber-murderer, child abuse victim and teenager from the projects, Tristan. That being said I felt some of the characters felt contrived to me like the drunk/actor witness Steve and the victim's father Billy. I felt like indulging in a New York-themed novel and this novel provided that window into the daily life of the Big Apple.