Richard Price is near the top of the list of authors whose work I’ll grab with zero hesitation. I’d read his grocery list with breathless anticipation. 2008’s Lush Life is one of the most memorable books I’ve ever read, and because of it (and The Wire, of course), I’ve sought out his work and never been disappointed. Though if you went in with the wrong expectations, Lazarus Man certainly could be a real let-down.
This is not a crime novel, it’s not a thriller, the plot isn’t the central focus. Price quietly and gracefully builds a story about a community brought together by a building’s collapse. While some mysteries are posed and resolved, Price is more interested in the people than the events.
On the jacket, Lazarus Man is called ‘electrifying’ and ‘a compelling work of suspense’. I found it neither electrifying nor suspenseful, though it is compelling.
The book takes place in 2008 Manhattan. A low-rise building in Harlem explodes in the middle of the day. The cause is unclear, and 36 hours after the explosion, a man is found in the rubble. The book uses this as a springboard as a character study for several characters in the area – Mary Roe, a cop with a complicated, deteriorating family life, Royal Davis, a third-generation funeral director whose family business is failing, Felix Pearl, photographer trying to figure out what direction to take his life in, and of course, Anthony Carter, the man found in the rubble.
It’s absolutely compelling stuff – I read this book in a day, and at the end I was sad that there wasn’t more. Price’s characters are rich and realistic. For the first third of the book I was waiting for the crime story to kick into gear, and by the time it was clear there was no real crime story, I didn’t miss it for a second.
But if you’re hoping for another helping of Clockers or The Wire, you’ll be disappointed like the NYT critic was:
[Price] has chosen in this book to eschew not just plot but drama and anything that might be called stakes. The book drifts for 200 pages without much happening, the building collapse notwithstanding.
To me that became a feature: the book isn’t just a study of the central characters, but a study of a community in Harlem at that moment in time. It’s a gentle, meandering story, and while there are some surprises at the end of the book, they’re less memorable than the characters we met along the way.
