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Lazarus Man: A Novel
In this electrifying novel, Richard Price, the author of Clockers and a writer on The Wire, gives us razor-sharp anatomy of an ever-changing Harlem.
East Harlem, 2008. In an instant, a five-story tenement collapses into a fuming hill of rubble, pancaking the cars parked in front and coating the street with a thick layer of ash. As the city’s rescue services and media outlets respond, the surrounding neighborhood descends into chaos. At day’s end, six bodies are recovered, but many of the other tenants are missing.
In Lazarus Man, Richard Price, one of the greatest chroniclers of life in urban America, creates intertwining portraits of a group of compelling and singular characters whose lives are permanently impacted by the disaster.
Anthony Carter—whose miraculous survival, after being buried for days beneath tons of brick and stone, transforms him into a man with a message and a passionate sense of mission.
Felix Pearl—a young transplant to the city, whose photography and film work that day provokes in this previously unformed soul a sharp sense of personal destiny.
Royal Davis—owner of a failing Harlem funeral home, whose desperate trolling of the scene for potential “customers� triggers a quest to find another path in life.
And Mary Roe—a veteran city detective who, driven in part by her own family’s brutal history, becomes obsessed with finding Christopher Diaz, one of the building’s missing.
Price, the bestselling author of Lush Life and, most recently, The Whites, has created a bravura portrait of a community on the edge of disintegration. Rich with indelible characters and high drama, Lazarus Man is a riveting work of suspense and social vision by one of our major writers.
East Harlem, 2008. In an instant, a five-story tenement collapses into a fuming hill of rubble, pancaking the cars parked in front and coating the street with a thick layer of ash. As the city’s rescue services and media outlets respond, the surrounding neighborhood descends into chaos. At day’s end, six bodies are recovered, but many of the other tenants are missing.
In Lazarus Man, Richard Price, one of the greatest chroniclers of life in urban America, creates intertwining portraits of a group of compelling and singular characters whose lives are permanently impacted by the disaster.
Anthony Carter—whose miraculous survival, after being buried for days beneath tons of brick and stone, transforms him into a man with a message and a passionate sense of mission.
Felix Pearl—a young transplant to the city, whose photography and film work that day provokes in this previously unformed soul a sharp sense of personal destiny.
Royal Davis—owner of a failing Harlem funeral home, whose desperate trolling of the scene for potential “customers� triggers a quest to find another path in life.
And Mary Roe—a veteran city detective who, driven in part by her own family’s brutal history, becomes obsessed with finding Christopher Diaz, one of the building’s missing.
Price, the bestselling author of Lush Life and, most recently, The Whites, has created a bravura portrait of a community on the edge of disintegration. Rich with indelible characters and high drama, Lazarus Man is a riveting work of suspense and social vision by one of our major writers.
352 pages, Kindle Edition
First published November 12, 2024
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About the author
Richard Price
74books914followersLibrarian Note: There is more than one author in the GoodReads database with this name.
Also writes under the pen name Harry Brandt
A self-described "middle class Jewish kid," Price grew up in a housing project in the northeast Bronx. Today, he lives in New York City with his family.
Price graduated from the Bronx High School of Science in 1967 and obtained a BA from Cornell University and an MFA from Columbia. He also did graduate work at Stanford. He has taught writing at Columbia, Yale, and New York University. He was one of the first people interviewed on the NPR show Fresh Air when it began airing nationally in 1987. In 1999, he received the American Academy of Arts and Letters Award in Literature.
Price's novels explore late 20th century urban America in a gritty, realistic manner that has brought him considerable literary acclaim. Several of his novels are set in a fictional northern New Jersey city called Dempsy. In his review of Lush Life (2008), Walter Kirn compared Price to Raymond Chandler and Saul Bellow.
Price's first novel was The Wanderers (1974), a coming-of-age story set in the Bronx in 1962, written when Price was 24 years old. It was adapted into a movie in 1979, with a screenplay by Rose and Philip Kaufman and directed by the latter.
Clockers (1992) was nominated for the National Book Critics Circle Award. It has been praised for its humor, suspense, dialogue, and characterizations. In 1995, it was made into a movie directed by Spike Lee; Price and Lee shared writing credits for the screenplay.
Price has written numerous screenplays, of which the best known are The Color of Money (1986), for which he was nominated for an Oscar, Life Lessons (the Martin Scorsese segment of New York Stories) (1989), Sea of Love (1989), Mad Dog and Glory (1992), Ransom (1996), and Shaft (2000). He also wrote for the HBO series The Wire. Price was nominated for the Writers Guild of America Award award for Best Dramatic Series at the February 2009 ceremony for his work on the fifth season of The Wire. He is often cast in cameo roles in the films he writes.
Price also wrote and conceptualized the 15 minute film surrounding Michael Jackson's "Bad" video.
Additionally, he has published articles in the The New York Times, Esquire Magazine, The New Yorker, Village Voice, Rolling Stone, and others.
Also writes under the pen name Harry Brandt
A self-described "middle class Jewish kid," Price grew up in a housing project in the northeast Bronx. Today, he lives in New York City with his family.
Price graduated from the Bronx High School of Science in 1967 and obtained a BA from Cornell University and an MFA from Columbia. He also did graduate work at Stanford. He has taught writing at Columbia, Yale, and New York University. He was one of the first people interviewed on the NPR show Fresh Air when it began airing nationally in 1987. In 1999, he received the American Academy of Arts and Letters Award in Literature.
Price's novels explore late 20th century urban America in a gritty, realistic manner that has brought him considerable literary acclaim. Several of his novels are set in a fictional northern New Jersey city called Dempsy. In his review of Lush Life (2008), Walter Kirn compared Price to Raymond Chandler and Saul Bellow.
Price's first novel was The Wanderers (1974), a coming-of-age story set in the Bronx in 1962, written when Price was 24 years old. It was adapted into a movie in 1979, with a screenplay by Rose and Philip Kaufman and directed by the latter.
Clockers (1992) was nominated for the National Book Critics Circle Award. It has been praised for its humor, suspense, dialogue, and characterizations. In 1995, it was made into a movie directed by Spike Lee; Price and Lee shared writing credits for the screenplay.
Price has written numerous screenplays, of which the best known are The Color of Money (1986), for which he was nominated for an Oscar, Life Lessons (the Martin Scorsese segment of New York Stories) (1989), Sea of Love (1989), Mad Dog and Glory (1992), Ransom (1996), and Shaft (2000). He also wrote for the HBO series The Wire. Price was nominated for the Writers Guild of America Award award for Best Dramatic Series at the February 2009 ceremony for his work on the fifth season of The Wire. He is often cast in cameo roles in the films he writes.
Price also wrote and conceptualized the 15 minute film surrounding Michael Jackson's "Bad" video.
Additionally, he has published articles in the The New York Times, Esquire Magazine, The New Yorker, Village Voice, Rolling Stone, and others.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 303 reviews
November 7, 2024
Near the start of Richard Price’s new novel, “Lazarus Man,� a five-story apartment building in East Harlem explodes and collapses with “a primordial volcanic roar.� As the wailing alarms of ambulances slice the morning air, a cloud of necrotic dust blots out the sun.
First responders climb over a pancaked line of cars to reach the fresh rubble field. They can only guess at the carnage beneath: tenants, children, grandparents, boyfriends and girlfriends, squatters and undocumented immigrants and folks who just happened to be walking by at the wrong moment.
The building must have been blown up by a careless addict cooking meth near a leaky gas line. Or perhaps crooked city inspectors ignored structural flaws in the foundation. Or maybe some gang member was covering up a murder by razing the whole tenement house.
Before the air clears over this mass grave, the engine of retribution will surely roar to life.
Except, nope.
In “Lazarus Man� � the first novel published under his own name since “Lush Life� (2008) � Price isn’t interested in felonies or blame. Half a century after launching an astonishing career that includes some of the best crime writing for books and screens, Price has let the mercy in his stories rise to the surface. On the margins, bullets still fly and drugs still flow, but the deadly alleys of “Clockers� and “The Wire� give way here to a community just trying to account for its dead and find a way forward. Even the thread of mystery strung through this plot eventually curls up like a dog beside the hearth. For a nation riven and terrified, “Lazarus Man� is the strangest of urban thrillers: a thoughtful, even peaceful story about stumbling into new life.
To read the rest of this review, go to The Washington Post:
First responders climb over a pancaked line of cars to reach the fresh rubble field. They can only guess at the carnage beneath: tenants, children, grandparents, boyfriends and girlfriends, squatters and undocumented immigrants and folks who just happened to be walking by at the wrong moment.
The building must have been blown up by a careless addict cooking meth near a leaky gas line. Or perhaps crooked city inspectors ignored structural flaws in the foundation. Or maybe some gang member was covering up a murder by razing the whole tenement house.
Before the air clears over this mass grave, the engine of retribution will surely roar to life.
Except, nope.
In “Lazarus Man� � the first novel published under his own name since “Lush Life� (2008) � Price isn’t interested in felonies or blame. Half a century after launching an astonishing career that includes some of the best crime writing for books and screens, Price has let the mercy in his stories rise to the surface. On the margins, bullets still fly and drugs still flow, but the deadly alleys of “Clockers� and “The Wire� give way here to a community just trying to account for its dead and find a way forward. Even the thread of mystery strung through this plot eventually curls up like a dog beside the hearth. For a nation riven and terrified, “Lazarus Man� is the strangest of urban thrillers: a thoughtful, even peaceful story about stumbling into new life.
To read the rest of this review, go to The Washington Post:
January 21, 2025
Harlem, 2008: a small apartment building collapses and after 36 hours under the rubble, Anthony Carter is pulled out alive: Lazarus Man. He's the fulcrum around which Richard Price spins a study of a half-dozen or so very engaging characters and perhaps that many subplots. But make no mistake, while one of those characters is a detective trying to find someone who's disappeared and doesn't seem to have been amidst the debris, this isn't a cop drama. Instead, it's an exploration of how we can try and (almost literally) reinvent ourselves after the tragedies that life throws at us -- failed marriages, estrangement from the ones we love, mental illness -- but that doesn't make it easier most days to put one foot in front of the other. And for a book that begins with a building collapse, Price gives us a lot of reasons to smile in this novel that rarely failed to surprise me.
January 8, 2025
First things first: the ads describing this book as a "thriller" are not being truthful. (I know: a less-than-truthful ad? Sacre bleu! Can such things be?) It ain't "electrifying" either, but publishers do what they must to sell even very good books.
I had not read anything by Price before, though I was curious because of all the praise his books have gotten. So I went in expecting grit and mean streets. Nope, not that either. Let me amend that: the grit and meanness are there (there are multiple references to gangs, for example, and the need for police presence at gang funerals, and how one must always be careful not to act or speak in a way that might be taken as disrespectful) but they're not in the foreground.
A Harlem building collapses. People die, cars in the street are crushed. It's a terrible tragedy. But then, after three days, when all hope has been lost, a man is pulled from the debris. Somehow he has survived the disaster. A miracle?
The novel follows small group of individuals in the wake of the collapse. Anthony Walker: the survivor, called Lazarus Man by the NYC media, wondering whether he's been given a special mission from God to help others. Mary Roe: an unflappable cop assigned to Community Relations because of her extraordinary people skills. Royal Lyons: a Harlem funeral director whose business is failing because Covid is over, but the collapse of that nearby building presents a glimmer of hope. Young Felix Pearl: a biracial freelance photographer trying hard to capture the aftermath of the event and the reactions of the people involved, trying to figure things out.
There are other characters, of course, but these are the main ones. What really brings "Lazarus Man" to life (I suppose I should apologize for this, huh?) is the tenderness with which Price handles his characters. The sensitivity to their very human weaknesses, dreams, and uncertainty about what life is for, what they're meant to be. Over all, they're really doing the best they can -- to one another, to life. They come alive on the page. The street comes alive -- with all its problems and challenges, the people trying so hard to improve their community, the minor characters who walk on and off the stage.
Most off all -- for me -- it's the humor. "Lazarus Man" has so many laugh out loud moments! The cop Mary Roe, for example. Her marriage has fallen apart, she's got a strange shared custody arrangement with her ex, she's trying to find a missing person, and to sort out what the Lazarus Man's story really is: he wasn't listed as a resident of the building, so what was he doing there? She's having an affair with another cop, a married man. A guy who always brings to their hotel rooms a UV flashlight and a bottle of Luminol to "highlight any traces of blood or other body fluids not visible to the naked eye." (Mary thinks his efforts to please her has "all the finesse of a pool vacuum.") About herself: "For most of her younger life she felt miserable about her lack of curves. But these days, as long as there were no horns coming out of her forehead or a forked tail coming out of her ass, she was good with herself."
And Royal the funeral director, who sends his son out into the street after the collapse in an oversized suit to hand out business cards. (When we first meet him he is laid out in a coffin, about to reanimate as a zombie in a student movie -- he needs the extra money.) The son will later retaliate by bringing friends in to see the corpses ("Ervin Moore, forty-two, aka Uncle Permafrost") and charging them for the experience. Royal will hire photographer Felix Pearl to make a promotional video: UN flags flying in the wind, D-Day footage of soldiers on Omaha Beach, RFK's funeral train, Nelson Mandela resting school children. Royal's wife wonders whether they should have their son seen by a psychologist because he seems depressed. Royal reminds her that the kid's growing up in a funeral home.
I hate having to leave out so much -- of the humor. The takedowns of pretense: Of his father, Felix thinks, "Despite marrying a Black woman and having mixed-race kids, there was no such thing as an 'honorary' brother, no matter how many times you raised your fist in solidarity... or got up in some cop's face. Not just the humor, though, because Price so obviously cares for the people he's writing about, who are so eager for love and recognition. And the bit characters, like the woman called "the Priestess" who claims to see wings on the Lazarus Man's back; or the woman who says she is Prince's mother.
It's an extraordinary achievement "Lazarus Man," a brilliant balance of realism and humor, with more than a bit of serious spiritual inquiry and social commentary added.
My thanks to FSG and Edelweis for providing a digital ARC in return for an honest review.
I had not read anything by Price before, though I was curious because of all the praise his books have gotten. So I went in expecting grit and mean streets. Nope, not that either. Let me amend that: the grit and meanness are there (there are multiple references to gangs, for example, and the need for police presence at gang funerals, and how one must always be careful not to act or speak in a way that might be taken as disrespectful) but they're not in the foreground.
A Harlem building collapses. People die, cars in the street are crushed. It's a terrible tragedy. But then, after three days, when all hope has been lost, a man is pulled from the debris. Somehow he has survived the disaster. A miracle?
The novel follows small group of individuals in the wake of the collapse. Anthony Walker: the survivor, called Lazarus Man by the NYC media, wondering whether he's been given a special mission from God to help others. Mary Roe: an unflappable cop assigned to Community Relations because of her extraordinary people skills. Royal Lyons: a Harlem funeral director whose business is failing because Covid is over, but the collapse of that nearby building presents a glimmer of hope. Young Felix Pearl: a biracial freelance photographer trying hard to capture the aftermath of the event and the reactions of the people involved, trying to figure things out.
There are other characters, of course, but these are the main ones. What really brings "Lazarus Man" to life (I suppose I should apologize for this, huh?) is the tenderness with which Price handles his characters. The sensitivity to their very human weaknesses, dreams, and uncertainty about what life is for, what they're meant to be. Over all, they're really doing the best they can -- to one another, to life. They come alive on the page. The street comes alive -- with all its problems and challenges, the people trying so hard to improve their community, the minor characters who walk on and off the stage.
Most off all -- for me -- it's the humor. "Lazarus Man" has so many laugh out loud moments! The cop Mary Roe, for example. Her marriage has fallen apart, she's got a strange shared custody arrangement with her ex, she's trying to find a missing person, and to sort out what the Lazarus Man's story really is: he wasn't listed as a resident of the building, so what was he doing there? She's having an affair with another cop, a married man. A guy who always brings to their hotel rooms a UV flashlight and a bottle of Luminol to "highlight any traces of blood or other body fluids not visible to the naked eye." (Mary thinks his efforts to please her has "all the finesse of a pool vacuum.") About herself: "For most of her younger life she felt miserable about her lack of curves. But these days, as long as there were no horns coming out of her forehead or a forked tail coming out of her ass, she was good with herself."
And Royal the funeral director, who sends his son out into the street after the collapse in an oversized suit to hand out business cards. (When we first meet him he is laid out in a coffin, about to reanimate as a zombie in a student movie -- he needs the extra money.) The son will later retaliate by bringing friends in to see the corpses ("Ervin Moore, forty-two, aka Uncle Permafrost") and charging them for the experience. Royal will hire photographer Felix Pearl to make a promotional video: UN flags flying in the wind, D-Day footage of soldiers on Omaha Beach, RFK's funeral train, Nelson Mandela resting school children. Royal's wife wonders whether they should have their son seen by a psychologist because he seems depressed. Royal reminds her that the kid's growing up in a funeral home.
I hate having to leave out so much -- of the humor. The takedowns of pretense: Of his father, Felix thinks, "Despite marrying a Black woman and having mixed-race kids, there was no such thing as an 'honorary' brother, no matter how many times you raised your fist in solidarity... or got up in some cop's face. Not just the humor, though, because Price so obviously cares for the people he's writing about, who are so eager for love and recognition. And the bit characters, like the woman called "the Priestess" who claims to see wings on the Lazarus Man's back; or the woman who says she is Prince's mother.
It's an extraordinary achievement "Lazarus Man," a brilliant balance of realism and humor, with more than a bit of serious spiritual inquiry and social commentary added.
My thanks to FSG and Edelweis for providing a digital ARC in return for an honest review.
December 13, 2024
Set in Harlem, New York in 2008, to me, this novel picks up where earlier Price novels I’d read left off. I’d read Clockers, Samaritan, and Lush Life quite a few years back, and I recall how the dialogue really grabbed me and hauled me through the stories. I can’t recall plots or characters � the last time I picked up one of his books was well over ten years ago � but the impact of his writing still lingers. Here, he introduces us to a group of characters from the neighbourhood, all struggling to some extent but each intent on getting on with their lives, with continuing the fight in the hope of finding something better. A little way in, we meet the Lazarus Man himself, a man dragged out of the remains of a fallen building thirty-six hours after its sudden collapse.
Mary Roe is a Community Outreach cop. She’s good with people, probing but calm. But she’s struggling with a disintegrated marriage and the need to re-arrange her disordered home life. She’s quickly on the scene after the collapse of the building and is given a list of people to account for, people who may or may not have been in the building at the time. She swiftly ticks them off, but one man remains unaccounted for � he’s to become an obsession for her, she won’t rest until she identifies whether he died in the rubble or remains alive and active.
Royal Lyons is an undertaker, struggling to make ends meet. He comes from a family of funeral homeowners going back generations. But he’s on his uppers, his own facility falling to pieces around him. He’s grabbing pick-up jobs where he can � often in the middle of the night � but he knows he can’t survive this way much longer.
Felix Pearl is a young man hoping to make his way as a photographer. On the night of the building collapse he’s on the street capturing scenes as the chaos of the moment plays out. He’s to be a more peripheral figure in this story, but he’ll play a significant role nonetheless.
Then there’s the Lazarus Man himself, Anthony Walker. A lost soul who happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. But perhaps this moment, this disaster and his miraculous survival is to be a turning point. It seems he now has a message to give, a message of hope. And it appears that people want to hear it.
The narrative switches regularly, following the progress of one character to then focus on another. Sometimes, we get a single paragraph. Other times we’re granted a little more. It’s somewhat disconcerting, mildly confusing. But soon, the pattern begins to make sense, as each separate path makes its way toward a point where their interactions will begin.
The tone of the novel is generally melancholy, but there’s humour here too and drama, lots of drama. There’s a good deal of sadness, but there’s also renewal and hope. When I read a Richard Price novel, I always seem to come away with learning. It pushes me to introspection that is sometimes painful but which I ultimately find to be rewarding. He shows his readers a slice of life that may be very different from their own but from which parallels can be drawn, perhaps conclusions extracted and always enjoyment and satisfaction gained. I loved this tale, and I believe many others will, too.
My thanks to Farrar, Straus and Giroux for supplying a copy of this book via NetGalley in return for an honest review.
Mary Roe is a Community Outreach cop. She’s good with people, probing but calm. But she’s struggling with a disintegrated marriage and the need to re-arrange her disordered home life. She’s quickly on the scene after the collapse of the building and is given a list of people to account for, people who may or may not have been in the building at the time. She swiftly ticks them off, but one man remains unaccounted for � he’s to become an obsession for her, she won’t rest until she identifies whether he died in the rubble or remains alive and active.
Royal Lyons is an undertaker, struggling to make ends meet. He comes from a family of funeral homeowners going back generations. But he’s on his uppers, his own facility falling to pieces around him. He’s grabbing pick-up jobs where he can � often in the middle of the night � but he knows he can’t survive this way much longer.
Felix Pearl is a young man hoping to make his way as a photographer. On the night of the building collapse he’s on the street capturing scenes as the chaos of the moment plays out. He’s to be a more peripheral figure in this story, but he’ll play a significant role nonetheless.
Then there’s the Lazarus Man himself, Anthony Walker. A lost soul who happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. But perhaps this moment, this disaster and his miraculous survival is to be a turning point. It seems he now has a message to give, a message of hope. And it appears that people want to hear it.
The narrative switches regularly, following the progress of one character to then focus on another. Sometimes, we get a single paragraph. Other times we’re granted a little more. It’s somewhat disconcerting, mildly confusing. But soon, the pattern begins to make sense, as each separate path makes its way toward a point where their interactions will begin.
The tone of the novel is generally melancholy, but there’s humour here too and drama, lots of drama. There’s a good deal of sadness, but there’s also renewal and hope. When I read a Richard Price novel, I always seem to come away with learning. It pushes me to introspection that is sometimes painful but which I ultimately find to be rewarding. He shows his readers a slice of life that may be very different from their own but from which parallels can be drawn, perhaps conclusions extracted and always enjoyment and satisfaction gained. I loved this tale, and I believe many others will, too.
My thanks to Farrar, Straus and Giroux for supplying a copy of this book via NetGalley in return for an honest review.
October 29, 2024
Richard Price writes of the City he knows. In Lush Life, it was the lower East Side, where he lived at the time. Far as I know, he now lives in Harlem. As with other authors, he sets his story pre-2016 which avoids the changes wrought in that year.
The Lazarus Man is Anthony Walker, who is extricated from the rubble of a building that leveled itself 36 hours previously. The miracle of his being found alive sets off a media frenzy, and he finds another version of himself "blessed" (it is complicated) with the ability to inspire hope in those who listen to him. I did not for one minute forget that his words were forged by Price. What makes Price such a compelling writer is his ability to create characters that jump off the page and stand in front of you. With a few phrases, he creates an entire history and the personality that has been molded by it. The entire community is here, even the victims of the building's collapse as their stories are encapsulated in a memorial, similar to the New York Times's feature on the 911 victims, "The Lives They Led."
Another area in which Price's talent reigns is dialogue. Years ago I had the privilege of being present at a lunch with him when he recounted the first table read of his first screenplay, in which his dialogue was informed by his experience as a novelist. After reading for what seemed an eternity, Robert deNiro looked up and asked "Am I still talkin' here?" It changed how Price's approach, and his novels and screenplays reflect his snappy, cinematic repartee.
Need I say, highly highly recommended.
The Lazarus Man is Anthony Walker, who is extricated from the rubble of a building that leveled itself 36 hours previously. The miracle of his being found alive sets off a media frenzy, and he finds another version of himself "blessed" (it is complicated) with the ability to inspire hope in those who listen to him. I did not for one minute forget that his words were forged by Price. What makes Price such a compelling writer is his ability to create characters that jump off the page and stand in front of you. With a few phrases, he creates an entire history and the personality that has been molded by it. The entire community is here, even the victims of the building's collapse as their stories are encapsulated in a memorial, similar to the New York Times's feature on the 911 victims, "The Lives They Led."
Another area in which Price's talent reigns is dialogue. Years ago I had the privilege of being present at a lunch with him when he recounted the first table read of his first screenplay, in which his dialogue was informed by his experience as a novelist. After reading for what seemed an eternity, Robert deNiro looked up and asked "Am I still talkin' here?" It changed how Price's approach, and his novels and screenplays reflect his snappy, cinematic repartee.
Need I say, highly highly recommended.
November 27, 2024
Very little plot or tension here, but I didn't even care for most of the novel because I could hang out with Richard Price characters nonstop, Royal Davis the undertaker being the standout. I think the lack of tension does rob the ending of some of its punch, though. I wasn't super invested in the is-he-a-grifter debate because it seemed a little too clear that Anthony's heart was in the right place, and there was no indication that Mary might be onto something until the very end of the novel.
December 6, 2024
Apart from the explosion at the beginning, not a lot happens in Lazarus Man but I was still very much invested. In my opinion it is not really a thriller, more a character driven novel about live in a big city (New York) and it’s a great one. Price writes characters so well with all their flaws, imperfections, reasonings and doubts. This was very good!
Thank you Farrar, Straus and Giroux and Edelweiss for the ARC.
Thank you Farrar, Straus and Giroux and Edelweiss for the ARC.
November 13, 2024
Disappointing!
I’ve been a big fan of Richard Price having read and loved the following of his books over the years� Clockers, Freedomland, Samaritan and Lush Life.
Similar to these books, Lazarus Man succeeds in: (1) being filled with extremely well-developed, complex, real-world characters, and (2) masterfully captures the sounds, sights and smells of their respective NYC neighborhoods in such a way that you feel you are right there alongside the book’s characters.
Unlike these books, however, Lazarus didn’t succeed very much for me because it lacked a strong, cohesive plot that maintained my interest from start to finish. Instead, rather than the types of dramatic plots i enjoyed in Price’s other books, in Lazarus Man Price chose to tell his story by using a series of intertwining portraits of how the collapse of a five-story tenement in East Harlem, New York in 2018 permanently impacts the lives of a number of its characters. For me, this approach was a disappointment and seriously kept me from wanting to read it at a fast pace to find out what happens next.
2 1/2 Stars rounded up to 3 Stars.
#Lazarus Man. #Net Galley
I’ve been a big fan of Richard Price having read and loved the following of his books over the years� Clockers, Freedomland, Samaritan and Lush Life.
Similar to these books, Lazarus Man succeeds in: (1) being filled with extremely well-developed, complex, real-world characters, and (2) masterfully captures the sounds, sights and smells of their respective NYC neighborhoods in such a way that you feel you are right there alongside the book’s characters.
Unlike these books, however, Lazarus didn’t succeed very much for me because it lacked a strong, cohesive plot that maintained my interest from start to finish. Instead, rather than the types of dramatic plots i enjoyed in Price’s other books, in Lazarus Man Price chose to tell his story by using a series of intertwining portraits of how the collapse of a five-story tenement in East Harlem, New York in 2018 permanently impacts the lives of a number of its characters. For me, this approach was a disappointment and seriously kept me from wanting to read it at a fast pace to find out what happens next.
2 1/2 Stars rounded up to 3 Stars.
#Lazarus Man. #Net Galley
May 19, 2024
Maybe this is like Thornton Wilder's The Bridge of San Luis Rey with less religion. Or perhaps Joseph Conrad's The Secret Agent or Graham Greene's It's a Battlefield with less politics. In any case, it's the sort of novel I like, that is, a novel where the consequences of an unexpected violent event ripple outward, causing unexpected drama and surprising changes in the lives of characters who find themselves tangled up in the wreckage, both metaphorical and literal.
The novel also does something that I feel, in this day and age, is very daring, which is
Price is one of those writers who have one foot in the crime genre and the other in something more serious. He has come out every few years with an interesting-sounding novel that gets good reviews (like Clockers), but life is too full of books. I never got around to reading him until now, because I am still, today, so enthusiastic about the long-gone TV series “The Wire� (to which Price contributed) that, if I saw that the third key grip on episode five of season two had written a novel, I would add it to my endless “to-read� shelf.
I had this novel on my Kindle while living through one very long and aggravating day of air travel. My endorsement adds the following context: I also had a Pulitzer-Prize winning novel that I was supposed to read for the book club, and a very serious non-fiction book about why the place I live now is a miserable hellscape. I neglected those worthy books to read this one, simply because this book does what a good novel should: it held me with compelling characters, good writing, and believable plotting all the way through to a satisfying conclusion. I welcomed all of these because they held my attention through too-crowded airports, too-small economy class seats, overpriced airport food, and finally lost luggage.
I also think it evoked its setting (2008 Harlem) very well, was fun to read, and kept the pages turning all the way to the end. What more can you ask of a writer?
I received a free advance electronic copy of this book from via .
The novel also does something that I feel, in this day and age, is very daring, which is
Price is one of those writers who have one foot in the crime genre and the other in something more serious. He has come out every few years with an interesting-sounding novel that gets good reviews (like Clockers), but life is too full of books. I never got around to reading him until now, because I am still, today, so enthusiastic about the long-gone TV series “The Wire� (to which Price contributed) that, if I saw that the third key grip on episode five of season two had written a novel, I would add it to my endless “to-read� shelf.
I had this novel on my Kindle while living through one very long and aggravating day of air travel. My endorsement adds the following context: I also had a Pulitzer-Prize winning novel that I was supposed to read for the book club, and a very serious non-fiction book about why the place I live now is a miserable hellscape. I neglected those worthy books to read this one, simply because this book does what a good novel should: it held me with compelling characters, good writing, and believable plotting all the way through to a satisfying conclusion. I welcomed all of these because they held my attention through too-crowded airports, too-small economy class seats, overpriced airport food, and finally lost luggage.
I also think it evoked its setting (2008 Harlem) very well, was fun to read, and kept the pages turning all the way to the end. What more can you ask of a writer?
I received a free advance electronic copy of this book from via .
January 27, 2025
This was my third try with this author, and I’m not going to try again. I guess he is just not my cup of tea. I keep getting lured in by the fact that the author was a writer for The Wire - an amazing TV series. The dialog in this book was good, but the “plot� was chaotic. 2.5 stars
I received a free copy of this book from the publisher.
I received a free copy of this book from the publisher.
January 12, 2025
I love the work of Richard Price and this novel does not disappoint. It’s much more of a character driven drama than a mystery or suspense novel though, which took a bit of time to process, but it was well worth the investment.
January 5, 2025
3.5 ⭐️⭐️⭐️💫
Man this book was a slog to get through. It was overall a good story but the pacing was incredibly slow and I kept losing interest in the characters. For a while, I was confused about Anthony “Lazarus Man� Carter and how he ended up in the rubble. This question was ultimately resolved in the end, but the question itself was so distracting, it felt like a hole in the plot that took me out of the story. So many characters felt superfluous, and there were indeed characters who only appeared once in the story, were entirely unnecessary to the plot, yet Price spent time giving them FULL NAMES and backstories. It was confusing and exhausting going through those paragraphs when I knew I would not need to remember any of that information. I think this book could have been cut down by at least 50-100 pages and still been a fine read. This author is a good writer but unfortunately because this was my first book of his, I won’t be picking up any more of his work.
Man this book was a slog to get through. It was overall a good story but the pacing was incredibly slow and I kept losing interest in the characters. For a while, I was confused about Anthony “Lazarus Man� Carter and how he ended up in the rubble. This question was ultimately resolved in the end, but the question itself was so distracting, it felt like a hole in the plot that took me out of the story. So many characters felt superfluous, and there were indeed characters who only appeared once in the story, were entirely unnecessary to the plot, yet Price spent time giving them FULL NAMES and backstories. It was confusing and exhausting going through those paragraphs when I knew I would not need to remember any of that information. I think this book could have been cut down by at least 50-100 pages and still been a fine read. This author is a good writer but unfortunately because this was my first book of his, I won’t be picking up any more of his work.
November 1, 2024
I really like this type of books, where there's a BIG EVENT, and that's just a jumping off point to meet the characters and explore the world they're in. I've never been to New York but I loved how it felt like I was walking around the neighborhood with someone who had lived there his whole life.
February 15, 2025
Set in Harlem, 1998, Lazarus Man centres on the story of a community coming together following the collapse of a tenement building and the loss of life.
Written very much like a screenplay (it is written by one of the writers of the Wire after all), we follow four main characters and their reactions/perspectives of the event over the course of a week.
Concentration is key when reading this book. It’s easy to lose what character the story is now focusing on given the style of writing and the rapid shifting of character perspectives and storylines as you progress through the pages. There are no chapters per character and the story shifts without warning from one character to the next� almost like a scene change in a tv show.
There’s also a lot of interesting peripheral characters that contribute to the development of the story� and the character development of the main characters as they seek change and hope in the face of tragedy.
Lots of themes in this one: Community Resilience, Community relationships with law enforcement, Equality and Diversity, Gang violence, Rehabilitation, Grief, Loss, Guilt� and Hope!
Written very much like a screenplay (it is written by one of the writers of the Wire after all), we follow four main characters and their reactions/perspectives of the event over the course of a week.
Concentration is key when reading this book. It’s easy to lose what character the story is now focusing on given the style of writing and the rapid shifting of character perspectives and storylines as you progress through the pages. There are no chapters per character and the story shifts without warning from one character to the next� almost like a scene change in a tv show.
There’s also a lot of interesting peripheral characters that contribute to the development of the story� and the character development of the main characters as they seek change and hope in the face of tragedy.
Lots of themes in this one: Community Resilience, Community relationships with law enforcement, Equality and Diversity, Gang violence, Rehabilitation, Grief, Loss, Guilt� and Hope!
January 29, 2025
I'm not really sure what the point of this book is. It was so boring, I actually thought it was a nonfiction till I started looking up all the other books this author has written. I honestly thought it was an expose about a real group of people. Literally nothing happens in the whole book. The only character I found delightful was the funeral home director. Now I want to read a cozy book about a funeral home.
December 24, 2024
East Harlem, 2008. In an instant, a five-story tenement collapses into a fuming hill of rubble, pancaking the cars parked in front and coating the street with a thick layer of ash. As the city's rescue services and media outlets respond, the surrounding neighborhood descends into chaos. At day's end, six bodies are recovered, but many of the other tenants are missing.
Anthony Carter--whose miraculous survival, after being buried for days beneath tons of brick and stone, transforms him into a man with a message and a passionate sense of mission.
Firstly, this is a well written book although it is full of slang, much of which I don’t understand but can guess with the context. But it’s very choppy and has so many characters, many of whom are totally unnecessary. It’s my first book by this author and although he seems well reviewed I don’t think I’ll be rushing to find others. I just found it a hard read.
Anthony Carter--whose miraculous survival, after being buried for days beneath tons of brick and stone, transforms him into a man with a message and a passionate sense of mission.
Firstly, this is a well written book although it is full of slang, much of which I don’t understand but can guess with the context. But it’s very choppy and has so many characters, many of whom are totally unnecessary. It’s my first book by this author and although he seems well reviewed I don’t think I’ll be rushing to find others. I just found it a hard read.
December 23, 2024
Ehhh. Just didn’t move me. I didn’t find the story to be all that suspenseful. I stuck with it primarily because I found the characters interesting.
November 21, 2024
If I could I would � return and get my money back. This was a drag to read.
Read
November 26, 2024DNF at 10%
February 1, 2025
“It’s not about the misfortune, it’s about how we handle the misfortune. Because misfortune, like the common cold, is a perpetual fact of life. But when it comes again, and be you man, woman, rich, poor, white, Black, brown, Asian, it will come again, recall to yourself—I have been here before and somehow, I’m still standing.�
The collapse of a five story tenement in east Harlem gives us a view of a struggling community in a series of intertwining portraits of the residents dealing with the tragedy. Some of the characters are interesting and engaging (Felix and his camera and Royal are my favorites), but for me the plot lacked cohesiveness and the story dragged at times.
This novel is neither thriller or suspense, outside of the initial building collapse and the "miracle" survivor, this is a character driven story with brilliant dialogue, and if you are a fan of Richard Price then you know those are his gifts to the reader, not my favorite but still a good read.
The collapse of a five story tenement in east Harlem gives us a view of a struggling community in a series of intertwining portraits of the residents dealing with the tragedy. Some of the characters are interesting and engaging (Felix and his camera and Royal are my favorites), but for me the plot lacked cohesiveness and the story dragged at times.
This novel is neither thriller or suspense, outside of the initial building collapse and the "miracle" survivor, this is a character driven story with brilliant dialogue, and if you are a fan of Richard Price then you know those are his gifts to the reader, not my favorite but still a good read.
December 30, 2024
Not a whole lot happens here (besides the central event of the building collapse)…it’s really all about the interactions between some interesting and deeply sympathetic characters, each one flawed and/or burdened down with a whole lot of baggage/regrets/mistakes—which, of course, is what makes them interesting and appealing in the first place. It’s both a funny and poignant novel, and ultimately heartwarming without being sappy or sentimental. It’s not really a mystery or a thriller, but it is very good nonetheless.
January 9, 2025
This was a different book. There were parts I liked and parts I didn’t get. There were also too many characters and 4 or 5 different story lines. Not a fan.
November 2, 2024
4.5 stars rounded up.
When a five-story building collapses in New York city's East Harlem neighborhood in 2008, the blast intertwines the stories of a cast of very diverse individuals: Felix Pearl, a young amateur photographer who recently moved to the city; Mary Roe, a local police officer whose home life is in shambles; Royal Lyons, the begrudging owner of a failing funeral parlor; and Lazarus Man himself, Anthony Carter, pulled from the building's ashes and rubble thirty-six hours after its collapse. The shared tragedy that brings them together also fills all of them individually with a new sense of purpose.
Richard Price's books succeed at capturing vivid snapshots of the respective neighborhoods they take place in, and "Lazarus Man" is no exception. It is an electrifying and deeply human portrait of the local community as a whole, yet in a testament to the author's immense talent, he also manages to keep the reader invested in the personal stories of the novel's main characters, for whom the building collapse brings the chance of renewal, reinvention, or even redemption. "Lazarus Man" is a poignantly written tale of beauty from ashes, and above all a testament to the strength and perseverance of the human spirit.
I loved the story, its beautiful dialogue, and its well-developed characters.
I will say that, having listened to the audiobook version, I found it very hard to determine when the story moved between the different characters, as it does so (and often) without starting a new chapter or any kind of announcement, and I regularly found myself still very much immersed in a previous scene and unaware for a while that the story had moved on to another protagonist. At times it reminded me of a TV show presented as an audiobook, moving very quickly back and forth between different scenes, except the setting changes would have been discernible on TV. Other than that, the audiobook production, narrated impeccably by a stellar Robb Moreira, was flawless.
Thank you to NetGalley and Macmillan Audio for the ARC in exchange for my honest review.
"Lazarus Man" is slated to be released on November 12, 2024.
When a five-story building collapses in New York city's East Harlem neighborhood in 2008, the blast intertwines the stories of a cast of very diverse individuals: Felix Pearl, a young amateur photographer who recently moved to the city; Mary Roe, a local police officer whose home life is in shambles; Royal Lyons, the begrudging owner of a failing funeral parlor; and Lazarus Man himself, Anthony Carter, pulled from the building's ashes and rubble thirty-six hours after its collapse. The shared tragedy that brings them together also fills all of them individually with a new sense of purpose.
Richard Price's books succeed at capturing vivid snapshots of the respective neighborhoods they take place in, and "Lazarus Man" is no exception. It is an electrifying and deeply human portrait of the local community as a whole, yet in a testament to the author's immense talent, he also manages to keep the reader invested in the personal stories of the novel's main characters, for whom the building collapse brings the chance of renewal, reinvention, or even redemption. "Lazarus Man" is a poignantly written tale of beauty from ashes, and above all a testament to the strength and perseverance of the human spirit.
I loved the story, its beautiful dialogue, and its well-developed characters.
I will say that, having listened to the audiobook version, I found it very hard to determine when the story moved between the different characters, as it does so (and often) without starting a new chapter or any kind of announcement, and I regularly found myself still very much immersed in a previous scene and unaware for a while that the story had moved on to another protagonist. At times it reminded me of a TV show presented as an audiobook, moving very quickly back and forth between different scenes, except the setting changes would have been discernible on TV. Other than that, the audiobook production, narrated impeccably by a stellar Robb Moreira, was flawless.
Thank you to NetGalley and Macmillan Audio for the ARC in exchange for my honest review.
"Lazarus Man" is slated to be released on November 12, 2024.
February 23, 2025
2.5 Stars. This book was only 336 pages, but it took me almost two months to finish, and, honestly, I thought it was never going to end. Normally, I would have given up, but I had such high hopes that something was going to happen to catapult the story forward, but it never really did. Although it focused on four main characters, several others (with similar names) were introduced throughout the novel which made it somewhat confusing at times. I found myself going back to look up characters and passages to be sure I was on the right track. I enjoyed the NYC aspects of the story, which were gritty and honest, but overall “Lazarus Man� moved at a snail’s pace and left me feeling disappointed.
January 1, 2025
When a building collapses in east Harlem and one man, Anthony, survives after being found under the debris, a amateur photographer Felix who happened to be there, a police officer Mary answering to the scene looking for survivors, and a a dude with a delivery business of death bodies Royal, we get the vignettes of their personal lifes and their exterior ones attached to the tragedy. Price has an incredibly agile prose and he's one of the best with dialogue and making you believe you're in a big breathing city. The characters when they're together or separated never feel detached or that one is preceding the others. It's a story about how coincidences and overcoming hardship can steer your life in the right direction. It makes sense that he wrote it during covid.
Suddenly she had a glimmer of understanding why all those bitter couples turned their nesting apartments into battle zones; the galling frustration of not knowing how to soothe their outraged hearts other than through petty gestures of annihilation.
Suddenly she had a glimmer of understanding why all those bitter couples turned their nesting apartments into battle zones; the galling frustration of not knowing how to soothe their outraged hearts other than through petty gestures of annihilation.
April 25, 2024
Lazarus Man is Richard Price's tenth novel. Like his others, it is set in New York City. The novel follows the lives of several people impacted by the tragedy of a building collapse in East Harlem. Price's novels have a good sense of drama and scene (which makes sense as he also writes for television). In this novel, the scenes move so quickly it seems like the writing is better suited to television. And, like a good Seinfeld episode, most of the characters are utterly human and often unlikeable. And most are keeping secrets - some more than others. The reveal is a good, slow burn. I struggle with Price always centering his stories around black and brown folks though and it's distracting.
Thank you to NetGally and the publishers for the ARC.
Thank you to NetGally and the publishers for the ARC.
January 18, 2025
This novel is described as a “compelling work of suspense� which it isn’t. It is, however, character driven and their unique stories kept me turning the pages. “Pain is the chisel with which we sculpt our own character. Pain is not the enemy. It is the soul’s classroom.� (pg. 318)
November 13, 2024
I really wanted to love this book. I got it from Barnes and Noble and paid full price. I threw out the receipt. Richard Price is a very skilled write. I just couldn't deal with the characters.
February 3, 2025
this was fine, lot of moving parts
February 10, 2025
Slick dialogue, aimless character sketches. Reads like a plotless TV script. Or maybe it was just my mood.
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