Lazarus Man: A Novel by Richard Price

The incomparable Richard Price weaves the perspectives of individual characters into the voice of a community shaken by disaster. This is a snapshot of life and death from the author of Freedomland.

In this electrifying novel, Richard Price, the author of Clockers and a writer on The Wire, gives us razor-sharp anatomy of an ever-changing Harlem.

East Harlem, 2008. In an instant, a five-story tenement collapses into a fuming hill of rubble, pancaking the cars parked in front and coating the street with a thick layer of ash. As the city’s rescue services and media outlets respond, the surrounding neighborhood descends into chaos. At day’s end, six bodies are recovered, but many of the other tenants are missing.

In Lazarus Man, Richard Price, one of the greatest chroniclers of life in urban America, creates intertwining portraits of a group of compelling and singular characters whose lives are permanently impacted by the disaster.

Anthony Carter—whose miraculous survival, after being buried for days beneath tons of brick and stone, transforms him into a man with a message and a passionate sense of mission.

Felix Pearl—a young transplant to the city, whose photography and film work that day provokes in this previously unformed soul a sharp sense of personal destiny.

Royal Davis—owner of a failing Harlem funeral home, whose desperate trolling of the scene for potential “customers” triggers a quest to find another path in life.

And Mary Roe—a veteran city detective who, driven in part by her own family’s brutal history, becomes obsessed with finding Christopher Diaz, one of the building’s missing.

Price, the bestselling author of Lush Life and, most recently, The Whites, has created a bravura portrait of a community on the edge of disintegration. Rich with indelible characters and high drama, Lazarus Man is a riveting work of suspense and social vision by one of our major writers.