Lush Life is a contemporary social novel

Social novel

Social novels, also known as social problem novels or realist fiction, originated in the 18th century but gained a popular following in the 19th century with the rise of the Victorian Era and in many ways was a reaction to industrialization, social, political and economic issues and movements...

 by Richard Price

Richard Price (writer)

Richard Price is an American novelist and screenwriter, known for the books The Wanderers and Clockers.-Early life:...

. It is Price's eighth novel, and was published in 2008 by Farrar, Straus and Giroux

Farrar, Straus and Giroux

Farrar, Straus and Giroux is an American book publishing company, founded in 1946 by Roger W. Straus, Jr. and John C. Farrar. Known primarily as Farrar, Straus in its first decade of existence, the company was renamed several times, including Farrar, Straus and Young and Farrar, Straus and Cudahy...

.

Plot summary

The book is set in the Lower East Side

Lower East Side

The Lower East Side, LES, is a neighborhood in the southeastern part of the New York City borough of Manhattan. It is roughly bounded by Allen Street, East Houston Street, Essex Street, Canal Street, Eldridge Street, East Broadway, and Grand Street....

 of Manhattan

Manhattan

Manhattan is the oldest and the most densely populated of the five boroughs of New York City. Located primarily on the island of Manhattan at the mouth of the Hudson River, the boundaries of the borough are identical to those of New York County, an original county of the state of New York...

, and begins with a crime that at first seems straightforward, but quickly expands into a thicket of complications. On the way home from a night of drinking, three men—cafe manager Eric Cash, bartender Ike Marcus, and a friend of Marcus'—are accosted by two muggers. Marcus is shot and killed, in a manner echoing the real-life murder of Nicole duFresne

Nicole duFresne

Nicole duFresne was a Minnesota-born playwright and actress. She was murdered on a sidewalk on Manhattan's Lower East Side when seven youths accosted and mugged a group consisting of duFresne, her fiancé Jeffrey Sparks, her close friend Mary Jane Gibson, and Gibson's boyfriend Scott Nath sometime...

. NYPD

New York City Police Department

The New York City Police Department , established in 1845, is currently the largest municipal police force in the United States, with primary responsibilities in law enforcement and investigation within the five boroughs of New York City...

 Detective Matty Clark winds up investigating the crime, and keeping an eye on Ike's distraught father Billy, whose behavior becomes increasingly erratic. Cash is initially arrested for the crime, but later released when the accounts of other witnesses back up his own; his own behavior is affected as he has difficulty coping with the memory of the incident and the stresses of the police interrogation. Interwoven with the main plot are vignettes of the Lower East Side and the waves of immigrants that have come through there and lived in its tenements over the years.

Reception

The novel received mostly rave reviews from a wide variety of media sources. Michiko Kakutani

Michiko Kakutani

is an American Pulitzer Prize-winning critic for The New York Times and is considered by many to be a leading literary critic in the United States.-Life and career:...

 of the New York Times wrote that Lush Life was "a visceral, heart-thumping portrait of New York City" and "no one writes better dialogue than Richard Price—not Elmore Leonard

Elmore Leonard

Elmore John Leonard Jr. , better known as Elmore Leonard, is an American novelist and screenwriter. His earliest published novels in the 1950s were westerns, but Leonard went on to specialize in crime fiction and suspense thrillers, many of which have been adapted into motion pictures.Among his...

, not David Mamet

David Mamet

David Alan Mamet is an American playwright, essayist, screenwriter and film director.Best known as a playwright, Mamet won a Pulitzer Prize and received a Tony nomination for Glengarry Glen Ross . He also received a Tony nomination for Speed-the-Plow . As a screenwriter, he received Oscar...

, not even David Chase

David Chase

David Chase is an American writer, director, and producer of television series. Chase has worked in television for more than 30 years; he has produced and written for shows as The Rockford Files, I'll Fly Away, and Northern Exposure. He has created two original series; the first, Almost Grown,...

." The Hartford Courant

The Hartford Courant

The Hartford Courant is the largest daily newspaper in the U.S. state of Connecticut, and is a morning newspaper for most of the state north of New Haven and east of Waterbury...

praised Price's ability to "embrace irony without ever being ham-handed and to create characters who refuse to be pinned down". Others called it "powerful" and a "damned good book", and said that "every sentence is a pleasure".

Some reviewers were equally positive, but not without some reservations. Salon.com

Salon.com

Salon.com, part of Salon Media Group , often just called Salon, is an online liberal magazine, with content updated each weekday. Salon was founded by David Talbot and launched on November 20, 1995. It was the internet's first online-only commercial publication. The magazine focuses on U.S...

 writer Richard B. Woodward called the book "astonishing", but "more a collection of brilliantly realistic scenes than a book with moral weight or a convincing vision of the way New York functions in the Bloomberg era". The Los Angeles Times

Los Angeles Times

The Los Angeles Times is a daily newspaper published in Los Angeles, California, since 1881. It was the second-largest metropolitan newspaper in circulation in the United States in 2008 and the fourth most widely distributed newspaper in the country....

praised it as "deftly written" and "beautifully expressive", but thought that "Price can't quite bridge the gap between this social novel and the subtleties of real life".

The novel gained further attention when it was revealed that US President Barack Obama would be reading it during his 2009 summer vacation.