Lazarus Man

I'd forgotten how much I enjoyed the novels of Richard Price, which I've been reading for as long as I've lived in New York.  That's due at least in part to his gifts as a prolific writer for both film (his Oscar-nominated gig as author of The Color of Money screenplay) and television which left less time for publishing books.  No doubt his nitty gritty contributions to both The Wire and The Deuce helped make those HBO productions among my favorite series of all time with their realistic depictions of the way that ordinary people talk and behave.

In Lazarus Man he's back to the south Bronx, his home turf, where a building has collapsed. Price is less interested in what caused the disaster--although he does nod cursorily to the callous corruption that generally accompanies real estate development in New York City--than its impact on people in the neighborhood.  His characters include a biracial recovering addict who survives the collapse and whose journey gives the book its title; a separated cop on the community relations beat who obsesses over a missing person while semi-neglecting her two children; a Black undertaker who fears he may lose his parking area to a community garden; and a young photographer from upstate New York whose work provides an essential clue to Price's theme.  All, including the woman and half a dozen secondary characters, are what Mr. LaGrone, my enriched English teacher in high school, would have described as "well-rounded" and Price orchestrates their interactions with the kind of naturalism familiar to anyone who has walked the borough's mean streets. 

While there are no big revelations or epiphanies in the somewhat meandering Lazarus Man, it is the kind of sympathetic book only a man who has lived a long life could write.  In the larger scheme of things, faith is more important to Price--who survived his own struggles with cocaine-- and can be more life-changing than knowing the truth.

“I’m not one to talk about religion [says Anthony, the recovering addict] but it’s like God buried me under that earth, wiped my slate clean, then brought me back up to be who I never thought I could be before … And all I want, all I want now, is to be worthy of that gift and … and to be…”

If only I could believe that . . .