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dlgoldie's review against another edition
5.0
Perfect well crafted contemporary crime. Do you like "The Wire"? Read this.
cnjackson87's review against another edition
4.0
I really enjoyed this book. It's a cop drama and a page turner. Definitely recommend!
meli65's review against another edition
3.0
Not what I was expecting -- it wound up reminding me of a loooong episode of Law and Order. Nevertheless, I did like it and I enjoyed the fact that, despite its length, the structure was kind of like a short story with a definite beginning, middle, and end.
petermcdade's review against another edition
3.0
Fell into a conversation about _The Wire_ recently (again), and decided it was time to read some Price fiction. And yeah, it's all there: the dialogue is fantastic, and we weave through multiple points of view, somehow enjoying all of the time with each character, even though (because?) there are all so screwed up. I wore down in the second half, and wound up wishing the whole thing was 100 pages and one subplot shorter.
rdebner's review against another edition
2.0
Read on the heels of [book:Clockers]. In comparison to the former, it seemed a little lackluster somehow. Some of the parts/players didn't seem to gel as well (it seemed like they could have been edited out without affecting the book that much).
matthew_p's review against another edition
3.0
I can't get over how this book strikes me as both straight-forward and complex at the same time. It reads like a straight-ahead beach read, and yet it lingered in my thoughts every time I had to put it down. Even now that I'm finished I'm not done with it.
clayton_moser's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
dark
mysterious
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
richardwells's review against another edition
4.0
Don't pick up a copy of Richard Price's "Lush Life," unless you're ready to give up your weekend. It's compulsively readable, and it's that good. It's also pretty depressing, but depressing in that, "Oh, God, that's life," way.
"Lush Life," is a police procedural that takes place over a little more than a week in the gentrified Inferno of NYC's lower east side. We meet the gentry, the old-timers, the cops, and, of course, the criminals. Nobody's clean, everybody's skimming, everybody's on the make for one thing or another, one guy gets shot in a mugging gone bad, and hell breaks loose in hell.
"Lush Life," has a lot going for it. The characters seem right, and true; the mileu is nailed; most of the pieces seem to be absolutely right-on, though I had a problem with a New Orleans style memorial service that tipped over the top; and the dialogue is so good it could have been written by Satan himself. (It's not the way real people talk, it's the way these people talk. Price's way with dialogue is comparable to Mamet's in that both writers create ways of speaking, rather than transcribing how people speak.) One character seems to be the moral hinge of the novel - the father of the young man killed in the mugging. He's both pathetic, and a wraith, and he falls apart and comes back together more than once as he reaches for meaning and redemption.
Is there meaning, is there redemption? Check out the last stanza of Billy Strayhorn's incredible lyrics to the Duke Ellington tune, Lush Life:
"Romance is mush/stifling those who strive/so I'll live a lush life in some small dive/And there I'll be/While I rot with the rest/of those whose lives are lonely too..."
"Lush Life," is a police procedural that takes place over a little more than a week in the gentrified Inferno of NYC's lower east side. We meet the gentry, the old-timers, the cops, and, of course, the criminals. Nobody's clean, everybody's skimming, everybody's on the make for one thing or another, one guy gets shot in a mugging gone bad, and hell breaks loose in hell.
"Lush Life," has a lot going for it. The characters seem right, and true; the mileu is nailed; most of the pieces seem to be absolutely right-on, though I had a problem with a New Orleans style memorial service that tipped over the top; and the dialogue is so good it could have been written by Satan himself. (It's not the way real people talk, it's the way these people talk. Price's way with dialogue is comparable to Mamet's in that both writers create ways of speaking, rather than transcribing how people speak.) One character seems to be the moral hinge of the novel - the father of the young man killed in the mugging. He's both pathetic, and a wraith, and he falls apart and comes back together more than once as he reaches for meaning and redemption.
Is there meaning, is there redemption? Check out the last stanza of Billy Strayhorn's incredible lyrics to the Duke Ellington tune, Lush Life:
"Romance is mush/stifling those who strive/so I'll live a lush life in some small dive/And there I'll be/While I rot with the rest/of those whose lives are lonely too..."