Richard Price's Lush Life: A Novel takes an uncompromising look at a supposedly revitalized New York City, exposing the junkie beneath the expensively tailored suit that Rudy Giuliani likes to claim he single-handedly rehabilitated during his two controversial terms as Mayor.  Price is too good a writer to opt for the easy polemic, though, instead presenting a morally ambigious cast of characters as compelling as the City itself, their personal dramas playing out against the backdrop of the investigation of a murder on the Lower East Side, and the so-called "Quality of Life" initiatives that arguably created a police state for all but the most privileged, enabling the quickest path to gentrification of impoverished but trendy neighborhoods.

Lush Life is part love letter to, part indictment of New York City, written with a journalist's eye for detail and an activist's sense of passion, and Price's rapid-fire precision style, full of fabulous run-on sentences and quick-cut transitions that perfectly evoke the breathless energy of life in New York, makes it tempting to read straight through in one long sitting, but even better to savor over the course of a week, on the subway, at a coffee shop, finishing up in a comfortable chair at home where the various endings will resonate the strongest.

A stellar effort that's more than worthy of the advance praise it's received, and as good an example of New York City literature as I've read in ages.

Guy LeCharles Gonzalez (Publisher and Editor-in-Chief) is a Mets fan from the Bronx, and has a beautiful wife and two amazing kids. He won some poetry slams, founded a reading series, co-authored a book of poetry, and still writes when the mood hits him and he has the time. He prefers Pumpkin and India Pale Ales or Skyy Vodka with cranberry, still reads comic books, and hasn't completely let go of his plans for world domination.

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