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 would like to thank NetGalley and Farrar, Straus, and Giroux for providing me with an advance e-galley of this book in exchange for an honest review. Look for it now in your local and online bookstores and libraries.

The Lazarus Man by Richard Price is a interesting multi-layered tale that weaves together the lives of four distinct characters in the aftermath of a building collapse. Mary Roe, a dedicated Community Outreach cop, becomes obsessed with finding a missing man, while undertaker Royal Lyons struggles to keep his family business afloat. Felix Pearl, an aspiring photographer, captures the chaos, and Anthony Walker, the Lazarus Man, emerges as a symbol of hope after his miraculous survival. Price’s narrative shifts between characters, creating a mosaic of melancholy, humor, and drama that ultimately converges into a story of renewal and introspection.
Definitely worth a read

Most people’s lives are mostly unmemorable. So, if a writer takes a short block of time and details what took place to several people during that time, the results are likely to be unremarkable. That’s true even if something memorable occurs during that time and even if the writer is very skilled. That’s the problem author Richard Price faces in his latest book, “Lazarus Man.” The author examines the lives of his four primary characters following a local catastrophe in their neighborhood. Readers will be treated to some excellent prose and get a good feel for the street life in the neighborhood. However, they will probably finish the book by asking themselves, “Is that all there is?”

“Lazarus Man” takes place in East Harlem in 2008. One morning, an apartment building collapses, killing several residents and making enough noise to be heard for blocks. (Author Richard Price, who lives in that neighborhood, based the book on an actual building collapse he witnessed, fortunately, not first-hand.) When rescue crews comb the wreckage, they find one resident, Anthony Carter, still alive inside. He’s an unemployed ex-teacher, ex-salesman, ex-addict who inherited his apartment from his parents. He soon becomes a minor celebrity and tries to use the exposure to turn his life around.

The other three main characters spent a lot of time in the neighborhood, but were not as close to the disaster as Anthony. Mary Roe is a neighborhood cop on the verge of a divorce, who splits custody of her children with her soon-to-be-ex-husband. She also splits the time living in the apartment with him, each spending several nights a week there on custodial nights. Her current love life is an affair with a married fellow cop that’s exclusively a series of short-term motel room encounters. Mary’s latest assignment is to find one unaccounted-for building resident who can’t be found within or without the wreckage.

Felix Pearl is a young man from out of town who fell in love with the neighborhood and moved there. He scrapes by as an amateur videographer, filming private events for little money and street scenes for no money. (The book predates the smartphone boom that will soon make Felix’s vocation obsolete.) After the building collapsed, he documented what happened afterward, including the various memorials and rallies held nearby.

The fourth main character in “Lazarus Man” has a direct pecuniary interest in the tragedy. Royal Davis owns a neighborhood funeral parlor that’s in poor financial shape. Since few people come to him for funerals these days, and fewer still have the funds to pay for an expensive funeral, he has to hustle up money any way he can. That includes being on call to pick up and transport bodies from senior living centers or the city morgue. It also includes renting out his parlor to a film crew that was making a low-budget zombie movie (and playing a zombie).

The characters are interesting, especially Royal, who I would have liked to have followed through a wider variety of offbeat business propositions for an entire novel. However, by the end of the book, none of them seem to have experienced the sort of memorable cathartic moment readers typically expect from books like “Lazarus Man.” I didn’t feel depressed by any of their fates (that would have been an emotional resolution), but I was disappointed to have followed them for over 300 pages, only to wind up with little to show for it. I didn’t feel the tragedy seriously affected their lives (except for Anthony).

Although I was disappointed by the ending of “Lazarus Man,” I didn’t feel I had completely wasted my time. The author provides a rich, realistic view of life on the streets in that neighborhood. The book contains many entertaining anecdotes, including an incident in which Mary apprehended a suspect in a bank robbery. He left a note in the bank, walked out, and patiently stood across the street, awaiting the police’s arrival. As Mary pointed out to her perplexed partner, the would-be robber was homeless and the accommodations in jail would be better than what he would face otherwise. Mary noted she “felt more like a homeless outreach worker for the DHS than a cop.”

“Lazarus Man” contains many examples of the author’s ability to capture the essence of day-to-day street life with his language. He describes a playground basketball game for fifteen-year-olds: “[T]he two teams ran up and down the full court, the ball handlers flashy and smooth until they found themselves in traffic under the boards and were unable to finish, a kid on the other team grabbing the rebound then showboating his way down to the other hoop before last-minute losing the ball under the same circumstances.”

“Lazarus Man” is a book that’s better savored for its minor pleasures than as a whole. Unlike some of the author’s previous works, such as “The Wanderers” and “Clockers,” this material is not cinematic unless screenwriters make significant revisions. And readers who are expecting a cinematic experience will be disappointed. However, I’m glad I had a chance to enjoy the book for the pleasures it provided rather than regret not getting a big payoff at the end.

NOTE: The publisher graciously provided me with a copy of this book through NetGalley. However, the decision to review the book and the contents of this review are entirely my own.

Published by ‎ Farrar, Straus and Giroux on November 12, 2024

Richard Price brings a unique and compelling voice to crime fiction. Lazarus Man doesn’t fit neatly into that genre, but crime is always in the background. Price chronicles Harlem life with the keen eye and vivid prose of Colson Whitehead even if he hasn’t yet won a Pulitzer. Lazarus Man is Richard Price in strong form.

The story takes place in Harlem, where residents are inured to violence. Calvin Ray, an ex-con, is now a community activist, having dedicated himself to teaching young men to find a nonviolent path. He organizes teaching events at sites of shootings.

The violence is never graphic but its presence is a constant undercurrent, leaving parents in fear for their children — including Anne Collins, a postal carrier whose son was shot (probably by accident) in the calf. Anne confronts the shooter because she knows that going to the police would invite retribution.

The incident that sparks the plot in Lazarus Man is violent but not a crime. A collapsed building in Harlem is not caused by a terrorist attack but by subway construction gone awry. The building falls on Anthony Carter, a mixed-race unemployed teacher and recovering addict whose wife left him, taking their daughter with her. Anthony is buried for a couple of days before being rescued.

In the days that follow, Anthony is pressed to give inspirational speeches — for Calvin and others — that amount to “whatever doesn’t kill you makes your stronger,” a message that he later refines. Some people who listen to him know better. Sometimes, the things that don’t kill you leave you in a world of pain and poverty. Lazarus Man isn’t a pollyannish novel, but Anthony genuinely believes that something in his message is true.

Anthony is the glue that holds the plot together, but the story has an ensemble cast. Mary Roe is a Harlem police detective who spends much of the novel trying to track down a missing man whose wife died in the building collapse. Her investigation leads to a poignant explanation of the man’s disappearance.

Royal Davis owns a funeral home that isn’t paying its bills. Felix Pearl is a 24-year-old with a video camera who aspires to be a filmmaker but earns money by filming playgrounds for the Parks Department, much to the chagrin of the parents of children he films and of cops who respond to their complaints.

Every character seems embroiled in a domestic drama. Anthony is separated from his wife Clare and his 13-year-old stepdaughter, with whom he is “increasingly reluctant to seriously engage.” He knows the time will come when Clare will ask for a divorce but he hopes to repair the rift with his stepdaughter. In the meantime, after making “sneaky eyes” at Anne Collins during one of Calvin’s events, Anthony dances around the possibility of dating her. They have difficult but honest conversations that middle-aged people should probably have more often before they decide to date. Mary's domestic drama includes a separation (she switches residences with her husband every three days so their children will have a stable residence) and an occasional unfulfilling motel shag with another detective.

Price’s character development is exceptional. Characters recall but do not dwell upon the events that shaped their lives, allowing the reader to understand the origin and development of their personality without bogging down the story. The characters have experienced varying kinds of pain. How people deal with pain is one of the novel’s themes.

Some characters change, as people sometimes do; one character’s transformation is stunning. Another concludes: “All I know for sure is that I have to make a life that I can live with.” One of the novel’s lessons is that “people are so much more” than we understand them to be.

Readers who dislike departures from genre formulas might complain that Lazarus Man doesn’t have much of a plot. How the lives of a half dozen characters in Harlem intersect for a few days is the plot. It isn’t clear that any one storyline is more important than the others — the characters all struggle to do their best — so maybe the point is that every life is important.

Still, the plot gains clarity as the novel nears its end. A fact the reader will assume to be true is proven false by something Felix captured on his camera. The revelation links back to an earlier scene that takes on new meaning, inviting the reader to view a central character in a different light. I imagine readers will have different reactions to the revelation, which might make Lazarus Man a good choice for book clubs.

In any event, the plot twist brings a message about the importance of hope. The ability to give hope to others, or at least to lift spirits, is a gift that merits appreciation. As does Price’s gift for storytelling.

RECOMMENDED

When a building in Harlem collapses, many lives are effected by the ripple effect of this disaster. But when a man is pulled alive from the rubble days later, the expertise of this author comes into being. I was especially impressed by the dialogue and the skills of this new-to-me author (and I will definitely be looking for his other works). Excellent and recommended reading.

Big fan of Price's The Whites. Unfortunately, this one did not pull me in. I know it was more of a slow burn; however, the pacing didn't feel right and I couldn't connect to the characters. Some may really like this one, but it just wasn't for me. Thank you to NetGalley for the change to read and review this book.

Lazarus Man follows a group of people before and after a Harlem apartment building collapses. I felt the characters weren’t engaging and I wish the story moved at a faster pace.

I am a big fan of Richard Price and was delighted to receive an e-arc of this novel. While I enjoyed his characterizations and dialogue, the book lack an absorbing plot. While I enjoyed the book while reading it, I did nor feel the compulsion to to pick it up between readings. I did finish it and ultimately did enjoy it.

Richard Price is an all-time great crime writer, and this novel Submits a story of surviving calamity through self-discovery and ultimately through acceptance, I did find the narrative slogged a bit at times but I still highly recommend.

Wonderful writing; unique, clever story.
Surprising ending ! I didn’t see the ending coming.
The writer has created a varied kaleidoscope of unique characters in this novel about a building on the Upper West Side in NYC that collapses, killing some, trapping some.
I enjoyed the setting ( being familiar with the areas around Harlem & Columbia University ) and the story moves along nicely.
Highly recommend.
Thank you NetGalley and ( publisher ) Farrar, Strauss & Giroux for the ARC.

Richard Price has been writing about New York for years. His first book, the Wanderers was published fifty years. But he has also found success as a screenwriter with credits including an adaptation of one of his best known books Clockers, and TV shows including The Wire and The Night Of. So it is not surprising that it is nine years since his last novel (The Whites written under the pen name Harry Brandt). Lazarus Man is a street level tale, an examination of a group of characters as they go about their lives following an unexplainable tragedy. There are some mysteries to be resolved but, overall that is not what Price is here for.
Lazarus Man opens in 2008 by introducing readers to a range of characters – Anthony does not know where his life is going and is looking for meaning; Annie is just trying to look out for her teenage son who is in danger of being drawn into the local gangs; Mary is a local policewoman who works in community liaison; Royal runs a local funeral parlour and is finding it hard to keep the business afloat; and Felix spends his days with a camera photographing life on the street. Their worlds are shaken and brought together by a tragedy – the unexplained collapse of an apartment building that brings back echoes on 9/11. The lazarus of the title is Anthony, who is found still alive in the rubble three days later, finds that his survival has given some direction to his life and becomes a minor celebrity.
Price is not interested in the why of the building collapse but the lives of his characters following this event, and in particular the role of Calvin, a reformed community worker who is campaigning against gun violence. All of them are dealing with their own survival and wellbeing - financial issues, relationship issues and family issues. Price’s authorial eye roves over this cast, dropping in and out of their lives and thoughts, finding moments of resonance between them, moving them all towards a revelation, or a decision point, and then beyond.
There is very little action or plot per se in Lazarus Man, and as already noted while there is a mystery (Mary spends most of the book trying to track down a man whose wife died in the collapse but has since gone missing) it is not a deep one and serves more to highlight some of the themes that Price has been playing with around relationships and fidelity. This type of neighbourhood can be, and has been, portrayed violent and conflict ridden, fuelled by poverty and drugs. But Price is more interested in digging beneath that stereotype. And in Lazarus Man he delivers a nuanced picture of the neighbourhood and its inhabitants with compassion and empathy.

I was pleasantly surprised by this book. I really appreciated how Price used the big event (failure of an apartment building in Harlem) to tell the stories of the various characters. He does an exceptional job creating character and place in this book.

Wow! Price's book exceeds all of my expectations. He brilliantly brings to life the people, the scenes, sounds and mores of 21st Century NYC. You feel that you are in NYC on the block of the destruction of the building. By the book's surprise twist I felt I knew and cared about Anthony, Felix, Mary and Royal. Needless to say I will recommend the book to all.

Delighted to include this title in the November edition of Novel Encounters, my column highlighting the month’s most anticipated fiction for the Books section of Zoomer, Canada’s national lifestyle and culture magazine. (see column and mini-review at link)

Too many character, too many points of view.

Harlem 2008, a building collapses, dead, missing, bereaved.

We follow the life of Anthony - washed up and how his life interacts sometimes one person out with a a young photographer, a missing resident, a funeral parlour director, a community police offer and a regular police officer.

Some moments I loved the narrative, but for me overall this was inaccessible and I didn’t love the lack of conclusion for the key players.

Thanks to NetGalley, the author and the publisher Farrar, Strauss and Giroux for the ARC in exchange for an honest review

Richard Price has wriiten another amazing book about New York City. This one is about a building that explodes in Harlem and all that remains is rubble and people trying to find out what happened and who survives. The main characters in the story are a cop named mary who tries to find out what happened, Felix a photographer who captures the aftermath but who has issues of his on. There is also an undertaker names Royal who going broke and has family issues. The last main character is Anthony who is was my favorite character. The novel just brims with everyday life with sentences that just make you wonder how Mr. Price does it. I never have read a Richard Price novel I didn't like. It's like from page one you enter a world where the characters come to life and you actually feel them living off the pages. This is a perfect story for our times. It's a world where when we let things get to a state of disarray that it will always catch up with us. The building was neglected but the lives inside the building were full of hope or sadness but it was their life to live. Then the explosion happnened and their life was either lost or forever changed. What responsibilty does society have for things like this? It's a novel that will stay with you long after you read it. It will certainly be in my best of the year list. Thank you to FSG and Netgalley for the read.

Richard Price’s newest novel, Lazarus Man, is not as compelling a read as some of his other work, but that doesn’t make it any less enjoyable than those other novels, just enjoyable in a different way. Or somewhat different, since the reader still fortunately gets Price’s wonderful ear for dialogue, strong characterization, and sense of immersion in place and time.

The precipitating event for the novel’s occurrences (“action” is probably too strong a word) is the sudden collapse of a tenement building in Harlem that kills several people. All the characters we follow spring from that event. They include:

• Felix: A young photographer who lives across nearby and was struck down by the shock wave

• Mary, a police detective (who mostly works in community relations) tasked with finding out if a missing resident (Christopher Diaz) of the building was inside or not

• Royal: A down-on-his luck funeral director who needs the business

• Anthony: the titular “Lazarus Man” who was pulled from the rubble three days after the collapse and finds he has a talent for inspirational speaking

For various reasons, the characters weave in and out of encounters with one another, with the reader tagging along from one scene to next. If it all feels at times a little random and more than a little mundane, it also feels like nothing else but real life. More than most of Price’s work, I’d say responses will vary greatly dependent upon individual taste.

Sure, you have Mary searching for an MIA, which is kinda sorta police-procedural like. And yes, you’ve got what could loosely be called “family drama” as Royal is under pressure to sell the business out to his brothers. But it’s all pretty mild and gentle and slow-moving, a meandering quilt that lets you follow along, traces the lines and patches until you’ve outline one square than moving onto the next, which might be above, below, off to the right, over to the left.

Personally, I loved the novel. I felt utterly immersed in it: in its speech, in its details of setting and activity, in its warmly human characters just trying to get by day to day, week to week. It’s nearly impossible not to empathize with, sympathize with, and root for these characters. It’s not a propulsive novel by any stretch, less a car driving straight down an interstate toward a predestined destination and more a slow train across the Midwest making a gazillion stops over several days where you get to stretch your legs, chat up your neighbors, listen to their murmured conversations when the lights dim, and just nestle into all that humanity. Highly recommended.

The author has done a remarkable job of bringing imaginary characters into reality. He’s breathed life into the city and its inhabitants in a way that allows the reader to share in his amazing insight.

Lazarus Man is a beautifully written literary fiction novel by Richard Price which follows the lives of several characters after a building in East Harlem collapses. Anthony Carter is an unemployed teacher with an addiction problem. He is trapped under the rubble of the building for 36 hours before being finally dug out. After his miraculous survival, he finds himself something of a celebrity with requests to speak publicly about his experience. Mary Roe is a police officer trying to balance her homelife with locating the missing. Felix Pearl is a freelance journalist who sets out to document the disaster. Royal Davis is the owner of a failing funeral parlour. For each of these people, the disaster will have a profound and transformative effect.

The story rotates among these four characters as well as others, all well-drawn and fully realized as they each cope with and overcome the effects of the disaster. This is a quiet tale, beautifully told, with characters whose stories draw the reader in and who it is easy to care about, the kind of tale that will stay with you long after finishing it. I read this book while listening to the audiobook version narrated by Rob Mereira who does an impeccable of giving a clear and distinct voice to each of the characters.

Thanks to Netgalley, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, and Macmillan Audio for the opportunity to read and listen to this book. All opinions are my own.