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sad. Run, do not walk, away from this book. Dark. relationships unrealistic. The only thing I got out of it was an intro to vulgar, impressively varied and vivid street lingo.
That's the way I would describe this baby. Lush life is about a mood; a New York moment captured; crumbling and cast to the side in a few years for a new kind of the same. If you're into atmospheric novels and don't mind the absence of plot ( Claire Messud fans out there). , then you'll like this. Gritty and smooth at the same time, it is an exercise in abstract crime writing. The equivalent of modern art for me; something you cock your head at and say " I don't think I know what this is really, but I kinda like it."
Maybe this book will get made into a movie and more people will like it. There are authors out there who use this similar type of literary device but are more effective because you understand what is going on even if you are not familar with detective speak or street hustler banter.
I had many problems with this book. I have never before read a book full of such lame, hackneyed characters such that you just do not care what happens to them.
I read this book with high expectation because it was highly recommended by a book critic I respect. I understand that the author was trying to portray "real-life" repartees, but this was completely lost on me due to ineffective utilization of police and street jargon.
The characters were not even of those that you like to hate. I was hoping that the author would linger a bit more on the despair and desperation of wanna-be artists, but this was just barely touched upon.
The book reads more like some sort of a screenplay, which does not work in print media. The description of the hum and din of New York and its inhabitants was well done.
I love the double-entendre in this title. It's a novel about solving a crime from a police detective's point of view. Ike's father is so disoriented by the death of this son that he avoids his family and even tries to solve the murder himself. One reviewer noted that the mystery in the novel is resolved in the first third of the book. More exasperating, though, to Matty, is the lack of cooperation on the part of his supervisors. However, what the reviewer called "mystery" struck me as frustrating, so that I was relieved by its early resolution. "Lush" can be taken to describe the classy restaurants and shops of the Upper East Side of NYC, or it can refer to the alcohol and drug abuse that is rampant. The cop is Matty Clark, and the other main character is Eric Cash, a restaurant manager who flees the scene when Ike, one of the guys he's out partying with, is shot on the street.
The author seemed to be sowing the seeds of doubt for the reader, and I thought it made for a rather beguiling beginning actually. In any case, this is not a mystery novel or a thriller. Matty finally begins to examine his own family issues, as his sons are not exactly model citizens. When it becomes clear that their mistakes have been a major hindrance to the totally botched investigation, Matty has to take the blame and overcome the consequences--persuading an indignant witness to provide more clues.
You don't learn anything particularly interesting about the characters or their motivation, it's just "Oh, case closed. And when the crime is finally wrapped up, it's particularly unsatisfying.
At 100 pages I loved it, at 200 pages I was ready for it to end, at 300 pages I was annoyed, and at 400 pages I felt cheated. The excellent writing (and the great reviews) kept me going, hoping he'd pull it out deeper into the book.
I have to agree with a lot of the other voices here - this book is just too long. Tiny tidbits of character development and exploration, but nothing satisfying.
He doesn't. It's pretty much the same characters doing the same things over and over and over.
No twist, no reveal, not even a moment's worth of tension. The end." I'd love to recommend this book for the quality of the writing, but I can't since investing in the first part means having to sit through the rest to see how it turns out.
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