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. 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. Rich with indelible
characters and high drama Lazarus Man is a riveting work of suspense and social vision by one
of our major writers.
