27 Eldridge Street, site of the murder in LUSH LIFE. (No actual gallery there.)
3 days ago
Showing posts with label richard price. Show all posts
Showing posts with label richard price. Show all posts
13 July 2010
Where Ike Marcus was murdered
This weekend I couldn't get properly going on the LUSH LIFE show due to a combination of inexplicably closed galleries and a cold. However, if I expire in 19th-century-heroine fashion this week (the handkerchief! check the handkerchief!) at least I made it to this stop:
27 Eldridge Street, site of the murder in LUSH LIFE. (No actual gallery there.)
27 Eldridge Street, site of the murder in LUSH LIFE. (No actual gallery there.)
10 July 2010
NYC: To do : LUSH LIFE show on the Lower East Side
The only not-awesome thing about this multi-gallery show based on the Richard Price novel is that there is no way for one person to hit all 9 stops in order on a weekend. Gallery summer hours are for the birds. As for the logistics of hitting most of them in some order, stay tuned.
26 June 2009
Too timely and incredible not to post: Richard Price, author of LUSH LIFE and a writer on "The Wire," wrote the screenplay for the full 18-minute version of Michael Jackson's "Bad" video. (Via @PicadorUSA on Twitter, and well done for ferreting that out.)
21 February 2009
Lush Life
Don't let its bulk deter you.* This book is really good!
One night in the Lower East Side, a white waiter is shot outside a deli. He's with two people, a friend who is so drunk he has no recollection of the night and a coworker who tells police they were held up by two African-American males. But two witnesses only placed 3 people at the scene, and despite the coworker's sworn statement that he called 911, his phone shows no record that he called. Who's really responsible? And is the case getting the attention that the dead man's father, the cop assigned to the case or the waiter's boss, a local business owner, think it deserves?
I was impressed by how much information Price managed to pack into the book without using classical modes of exposition. Apparently he spent a lot of time with cops in the neighborhood in order to write about local procedure, and the novel opens with a routine patrol night -- so routine you expect it to segue right into the crime, and it doesn't. (You should pay attention, though.)
It's that kind of frustration of expectations that made me enjoy this book so much. Occasionally I didn't like that frustration -- there's a revealing moment that happens very early in the book (by design) so the reader knows what happened that night before the police do, which I would have nudged back a few chapters -- but overall I thought it was really effective. I'm definitely looking forward to reading CLOCKERS, which my friend Henry recommended in lieu of LUSH LIFE.
*Paperback comes out March 3 if you're feeling spend-y.
One night in the Lower East Side, a white waiter is shot outside a deli. He's with two people, a friend who is so drunk he has no recollection of the night and a coworker who tells police they were held up by two African-American males. But two witnesses only placed 3 people at the scene, and despite the coworker's sworn statement that he called 911, his phone shows no record that he called. Who's really responsible? And is the case getting the attention that the dead man's father, the cop assigned to the case or the waiter's boss, a local business owner, think it deserves?
I was impressed by how much information Price managed to pack into the book without using classical modes of exposition. Apparently he spent a lot of time with cops in the neighborhood in order to write about local procedure, and the novel opens with a routine patrol night -- so routine you expect it to segue right into the crime, and it doesn't. (You should pay attention, though.)
It's that kind of frustration of expectations that made me enjoy this book so much. Occasionally I didn't like that frustration -- there's a revealing moment that happens very early in the book (by design) so the reader knows what happened that night before the police do, which I would have nudged back a few chapters -- but overall I thought it was really effective. I'm definitely looking forward to reading CLOCKERS, which my friend Henry recommended in lieu of LUSH LIFE.
*Paperback comes out March 3 if you're feeling spend-y.
09 February 2009
Doesn't fit into my (lush) life
So I'm finally reading Richard Price's LUSH LIFE, sort of. Finally, because this is the third time I have checked this member of the New York Books canon out of the library, and I don't know what I was thinking the first two, because it's really good. Sort of, because I was away all weekend and didn't bring it with me -- something that torpedoed at least my first attempt at reading Price's much acclaimed novel.
There are those who say the hardcover must be sacrificed to save the book industry; there are others who insist it must remain as the ne plus ultra of the printed word. To this latter group I say: Anyone want to carry my books for me? I'm really into LUSH LIFE so far, and yet I made no progress on it this weekend despite having ample reading time, because have you seen this book? It is a beast! I would say it's about the size and weight of 12 iPods, one of which I was also taking with me, but at least you can divide iPods among your various pieces of hand luggage. I probably would have finished it on my trip, too.
I know LUSH LIFE reaped the benefit of its hardcover presentation in one specific way: By getting a lot of positive notices from critics, which definitely contributed to my finding my (circuitous) way to the book. Some narrow-minded outlets won't even look at paperback originals; for this book, given its criminal plot, a paperback printing may have stuck it into mystery or true crime instead of getting it the attention of mainstream critics. But what I want to know is, should the hardcover be saved?
There are those who say the hardcover must be sacrificed to save the book industry; there are others who insist it must remain as the ne plus ultra of the printed word. To this latter group I say: Anyone want to carry my books for me? I'm really into LUSH LIFE so far, and yet I made no progress on it this weekend despite having ample reading time, because have you seen this book? It is a beast! I would say it's about the size and weight of 12 iPods, one of which I was also taking with me, but at least you can divide iPods among your various pieces of hand luggage. I probably would have finished it on my trip, too.
I know LUSH LIFE reaped the benefit of its hardcover presentation in one specific way: By getting a lot of positive notices from critics, which definitely contributed to my finding my (circuitous) way to the book. Some narrow-minded outlets won't even look at paperback originals; for this book, given its criminal plot, a paperback printing may have stuck it into mystery or true crime instead of getting it the attention of mainstream critics. But what I want to know is, should the hardcover be saved?
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
