Lush Life | Richard Price

episode SUMMARY:

In this episode of the Books for Men podcast, host Douglas Vigliotti discusses the novel Lush Life by Richard Price. Vigliotti describes it as a police procedural set in the lower East side of Manhattan but also emphasizes that it is more than just a crime novel. He praises the writing style of Price, noting that it moves at a rapid pace. Vigliotti also highlights the book's multi-perspective approach, which provides a comprehensive view of the murder and the socio-economic issues of inner-city life. He believes that this novel is one of the best he has ever read and encourages listeners to read it as well. He also delves into the importance of reading a variety of books, not just the latest and most popular ones. The episode concludes with a reminder to share the podcast with others and visit the website for more information.

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Welcome back to Books for Men, a podcast to inspire more men to read and bring together men who do. So we are moving right along here, and I wanted to, first and foremost thank everybody who has supported the show and supported the initiative. It is one that is important to me and also very important to society. And so I can't thank you enough for getting behind that. I hope that you will continue to do so and share it with family and friends. Now, with that being said, let's jump right into today's episode, which is another one of my favorite novels. And I think this is probably one of my favorite things about doing some of these early episodes, is that I'm going to get to share with you some of my favorite work because it's the stuff that's most readily top of mind for me.

(01:00)

As you know, I don't want to say landmark, but as pillars of great books for me and ones that I really, really enjoy. And so today's novel is Lush Life by Richard Price, which at its core is basically a police procedural set on the Lower East Side of Manhattan. But like many of these books that I will share with you, it is much, much more than that. And so different than the first work of fiction that I shared with you in episode one. It is not a pure literary novel, and by that I mean it has more plot than say what I would consider a pure literary novel to have. And so in that way, it blends genre and literary. And so they would, or in my mind, I would classify this as upmarket, but I should say that if this book was written today because it was published back in 2008, it might be considered purely literary just based on the amount of change that has occurred within novels in that 14 year time period.

(02:14)

And in that way, I think labels can be kind of silly and stupid, as I've already alluded to. It is a good way to categorize and organize the books. And I think that as we continue to do this podcast together, and I continue to share books with you on a weekly basis, some of this stuff will become more intuitive of how I categorize or how I think about novels and books as a whole. And ultimately, it doesn't really have much importance to the book, aside from just the categorization of it. I think the important thing to understand is that because it's not purely literary and it does have a large, large plot aspect to it, even if it's got a whole breadth of thematical value to it, which I will talk about in a moment, it just reads much, much differently. And to that, here is where this book really, really stands far and above most books that I've read in the crime genre, in the literary genre, in any genre, I don't care what genre it is, I don't care how you categorize it.

(03:23)

Every book that I've ever read, literally every single one, every novel I've picked up, every non-fiction book I've picked up, when you pick it up, it takes a good chapter or two to get into the writing and the style of writing of the writer. Now, I don't know if this is going to speak more to me or it speaks to my preferences, or it speaks to the writing as a whole from Richard Price, the author of the novel. But this book, when I read it, I was 150 pages into it before I could even blink an eye, it took me zero time to get into the style of the writing, and it was almost as if the book just, I closed my eyes and I was 150 pages in. And it was, to me, that was just amazing. I was like, oh my gosh, this book is amazing.

(04:17)

I need to keep reading it. And so there's a couple of things that now looking back on it in hindsight, really, really attribute to that, at least in my eyes. And that is how the author cuts the book together. And so the book is a kaleidoscope novel, meaning it will give you a multi-perspective. Look at this murder that happens on the Lower East Side, a tragic murder really, and it takes you from the hood to the police, to the patrons, to the workers of restaurants and local neighborhood businesses. And it's really, really super well done in that regard. But how all of these perspectives are cut together and the scenes are cut together, the novel just moves at rapid, rapid speed. And this is something that is really, really hard to do as a storyteller and as a creator. It's just something that's not easy to do, and it makes a lot of sense when you look at Richard Price's other credits, life credits, right?

(05:27)

I mean, he was, aside from just being a novelist, he is a screenwriter, and a TV writer. You know, probably don't recognize the name, but he was one of the co-writers greatest TV shows of all time, The Wire, one of my favorite TV shows of all time, The Deuce, which came out only a couple of years ago, and also the great movie, The Color of Money with Paul Newman. And so why am I telling you this? Well, I'm telling you this because not only is this book put together in a way that will have it fly at a rapid pace in how it's cut together, but he also combines that with unbelievable writing. The writing is lyrical, it's gritty, it's just spectacular. The dialogue there perhaps is no other person who writes better dialogue than Richard Price. And I'm talking about, you can look at legends, the Elmore Leonards of the world, the David Mamets, the people who write great dialogue, even Aaron Sorkin, who I adore and love in all his work.

(06:36)

Richard Price stands toe to toe with all of those guys, especially in this novel. And so when you combine all of that together, and you add in the fact that this book is basically a study in socioeconomics and the problems of inner-city life, which when zoomed in on and looked at from a kaleidoscope perspective in everybody's shoes, as I had already mentioned, you really, really learn a lot about the world that we're living in. And it helps you get outside of the little bubble that you're perhaps living in. And to me that I like I've already alluded to on many of these episodes, and since the trailer is that the whole point is to get outside of yourself and to live in other people's shoes. And there's perhaps not a better book that documents this than this one. Again, I may be making some pretty bold statements here, but that's only because I really, really believe this novel is one of the better novels that I've ever read that perhaps I will ever read.

(07:49)

It's going to be a very tall mountain to climb if another book is going to outdo it because of the combining factors that I feel this book has above pretty much all of the others. And again, that might have something to do with some of my sensibilities as well. In general, I often think that when people give recommendations on books or movies or anything of that matter, it's an attempt to say something more about themselves than it is to say something about the work, and that they do that intuitively it or they do it instinctively. It's not like a thought-about process, but this is what resonates with me and it says something. And so I want to share it with you because of that. And so enough about all that, and I wanted to share with you one final thing about this novel in general, or Richard Price in general.

(08:43)

And I once heard him say, “There are only about 12 novelists out there that don't need a second job, and I'm not one of them.” And so what he was alluding to there was basically the idea that he doesn't write novels at the speed necessary to be a novelist without being able to do other things and have another job and to make money in other ways. And why that's important and why I even bother bringing that up is because I think, like I pointed out in episode one, one of the key things to expanding your reading and to be, to read really good books is not always reading the most popular or the most trendy books, or the ones that are in that make the news headlines. And by the way, that's not to say that this book wasn't a popular widely acclaimed book when it first came out because it was, but at the end of the day, if you're only reading the things that are in the headlines today and the popular artist and novelists today at the moment, then you're potentially missing a whole breadth of literature, a whole breadth of art that exists, that could move you, that can expand your perspective, that could really just entertain you and do things to you that you otherwise just wouldn't know about.

(10:09)

And so I think it's always a really, really bad idea to focus your reading on the latest and greatest and not pay any attention to books that have come before it, whether it's 10 years ago, 20 years ago, 40 years ago, 50, 60, 70 years ago. And it's why you'll continue to hear me insist on variation and feature variation as a cornerstone for Books for Men. And just to wrap this book up, I want to remind you that there are very, very few books. It's very, very rare to have a book that combines the traits that this book has. And on that note, I definitely think that you should read it. I also hope that you've enjoyed this episode. If you have, I want to encourage you to share it with friends, family members, and especially men who read, because there's nothing more important than the initiative of this show, which is to inspire more men to read and bring together men who do. And lastly, don't forget, you can visit BooksforMen.org for more information or to sign up for the newsletter, which is a monthly roundup of all the books and authors that are featured on the podcast.