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| Lush Life: A Novel | 
 enlarge | Author: Richard Price
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Category: Book
List Price: $26.00
Buy Used: $4.13
You Save: $21.87 (84%)
New (65) Used (54) Collectible (8) from $4.13
Avg. Customer Rating:  161 reviews
Sales Rank: 2228
Media: Hardcover
Edition: 1
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 464
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.5
Dimensions (in): 8.9 x 6.1 x 1.6
ISBN: 0374299250
Dewey Decimal Number: 813.54
EAN: 9780374299255
ASIN: 0374299250
Publication Date: March 4, 2008
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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| Customer Reviews:
 Harder to Get Into than Fort Knox October 26, 2007
12 out of 28 found this review helpful
The opening 10 pages of this book took me 20 minutes to slog through, at which point I gave up. The setting was unclear, the dialogue 'too cool and hip' without being clear who was saying what and to whom they were saying it, and the pacing was quicksand slow. I love crime novels, mysteries, and thrillers. But not this one.
Not recommended.
 FADE TO BLACK December 26, 2007
12 out of 15 found this review helpful
Richard Price has a reputation for possessing the unique ability to capture the pulse of New York City and it's inhabitants. In the case of Lush Life, the pulse is irratic and it appears that the patient will require life support to survive. The dialogue is hard to follow and the story itself is a bit too "realistic" for my taste.
The New York featured here is not the city of Madison Avenue and Broadway plays. This city is dirty and unforgiving, most of the characters, from cops to thugs, tend to be the failures of society who lack any sort of moral compass (but, of course, we are urged to cut them a little slack since their shortcomings are due to unfulfilled dreams and circumstances over which they have no control). Situations are not "lush" and the "life" we observe is little more than just mere existence. This is just a little too "front page news" for me. There is the same lack of accountability for ones actions that we observe on a daily basis as we read our daily newspaper or catch the evening news. The news is depressing.......and so is this novel.
Sorry to put it this way, but it bored me to death November 14, 2007
11 out of 18 found this review helpful
I really do not recall ever having such a hard time trying to get into a novel. This book starts out with so many small portions of the story, so many characters that are not described properly and a complete reliance on dialogue, that it is almost impossible to figure out what the author is trying to achieve. Every day for a couple of weeks I would sit down with this book and try to go a little further, but the result was always the same, utter boredom after a few pages.
I don't think that what turned me off this book was the slow pace, since I have enjoyed many novels with this characteristic. The lack of proper descriptions and the poor construction of the story are much more noticeable problems. I can see the similarities between many of the dialogues in this book and the ones in the TV show "The Wire". The reason why the show was enjoyable for me is that the visual aspects of it provided the information that the author is missing in his writing.
I am extremely disappointed with this effort, since I was looking forward to having a great time and found myself felling as if I was being punished instead.
 Price's Best ? July 10, 2008
11 out of 12 found this review helpful
I picked up Lush Life prepared to like it, because I don't know of a better writer today with an eye for detail and an ear for detail. Those two senses make for a powerful combination when it comes to writing, as long as you have the discipline. And, for all of its 400-plus pages, Price shows he is up to the task. The writing never sags. In flashes, he shows that he could create such a creamy style that you might keel over from too many calories. In most of the book, you get the feeling that Price has set his characters in motion and just watches them act based on their essence. The narrative follows no typical arc for mystery fiction or suspense -- even though the centerpiece is a murder and how the city reacts around the violence. It might help to know New York's lower east side, but that's no requirement; I live out west. This is about humanity bouncing off each other, living with each other, setting standards for behavior as individuals and collectively, in small informal groups and in large organized ones. In the end, one line stays with me, and it surfaces in a brilliant spot: "Do you survive because of what is in you? Or because of what isn't..." Put this up there with Freedomland and Clockers, but don't overlook The Wanderers, Samaritan, and Bloodbrothers.
THE AXIS OF THE WHEEL OF LIFE March 25, 2008
10 out of 10 found this review helpful
(The title for this review is from "Lush Life," by Billy Strayhorn.)
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. 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..."
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