In Richard Price's new novel, Lazarus Man, a five-story building collapses, upending the lives of the building's residents. It's about second chances and finding the faith to carry on. Price has written for HBO's The Wire and The Deuce, and co-created HBO's The Night Of and The Outsider. Several of his novels, including Clockers, were adapted into films. He spoke with Terry Gross. Also, Maureen Corrigan shares two books that offer humor and beauty: Billy Collins' collection of poetry Water, Water, and The Dog Who Followed The Moon by James Norbury.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy
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This is Fresh Air. I'm Terry Gross. I always look forward to a new Richard Price novel, and after nearly 10 years of waiting, he has a new one called Lazarus Man. During those 10 years, he co-created and wrote for the HBO series The Night Of and The Outsider, and wrote for the HBO series The Deuce. Before that, he wrote for The Wire, one of the best TV series ever.
Several of his earlier novels were adapted into films, including Clockers, Freedomland, and The Wanderers. He also wrote the screenplay for the film Al Pacino considers his comeback film, Sea of Love.
Price is considered one of the best writers of urban fiction and one of the best writers of dialogue, and I think that's true of his new novel, which is set in Harlem, where Price has lived since 2008, the same year that the novel is set. The story revolves around the collapse of a five-story building whose impact is like a very small-scale 9-11.
It's devastating for the people in the neighborhood, including the survivors and the people grieving for loved ones who've died. The collapse changes the lives of each of the main characters, including a young street photographer, a police community affairs officer, a funeral director who can't keep up with the quota of bodies he needs to stay in business,
and a 42-year-old man who has been feeling like he's lost everything and has little to live for and is found buried in the rubble. It's remarkable that he's still alive, which is why the novel's called Lazarus Man.
Reviewing the novel in the Washington Post, Ron Charles wrote, For a nation riven and terrified, Lazarus Man is the strangest of urban thrillers, a thoughtful, even peaceful story about stumbling into new life. Richard Price, welcome back to Fresh Air. Because I love your writing, I want to start with a reading from the very beginning of the book.
All righty. It was one of those nights for Anthony Carter, 42, two years unemployed, two years separated from his wife and stepdaughter, six months into cocaine sobriety, and recently moved into his late parents' apartment on Frederick Douglass Boulevard. Went to be alone with his thoughts, alone with his losses. was not survivable.
So he did what he always did, hit the streets, meaning hit the bars on Lenox, one after the other, finding this one too ghetto, that one too Scandinavian tourist, this one too loud, that one too quiet, on and on, taking just a few sips of his drink in each one, dropping dollars and heading out for the next establishment, like an 80-proof Goldilocks.
thinking maybe this next place, this next random conversation, would be the trigger for some kind of epiphany that would show him a new way to be. But it was all part of a routine that never led him anywhere but back to the apartment. This he knew. This he had learned over and over. But maybe this time is a drug. You never know is a drug. So out the door he went.
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