City on Fire; Garth Risk Hallberg
Knopf - October 2015
(Description)
An immersive, exuberant, boundary-vaulting novel
New York City, 1976. Meet Regan and William Hamilton-Sweeney, estranged heirs to one of the city’s great fortunes; Keith and Mercer, the men who, for better or worse, love them; Charlie and Samantha, two suburban teenagers seduced by downtown’s punk scene; an obsessive magazine reporter and his idealistic neighbor—and the detective trying to figure out what any of them have to do with a shooting in Central Park on New Year’s Eve.
The mystery, as it reverberates through families, friendships, and the corridors of power, will open up even the loneliest-seeming corners of the crowded city. And when the blackout of July 13, 1977, plunges this world into darkness, each of these lives will be changed forever.
City on Fire is an unforgettable novel about love and betrayal and forgiveness, about art and truth and rock ’n’ roll: about what people need from each other in order to live . . . and about what makes the living worth doing in the first place.
New York City, 1976. Meet Regan and William Hamilton-Sweeney, estranged heirs to one of the city’s great fortunes; Keith and Mercer, the men who, for better or worse, love them; Charlie and Samantha, two suburban teenagers seduced by downtown’s punk scene; an obsessive magazine reporter and his idealistic neighbor—and the detective trying to figure out what any of them have to do with a shooting in Central Park on New Year’s Eve.
The mystery, as it reverberates through families, friendships, and the corridors of power, will open up even the loneliest-seeming corners of the crowded city. And when the blackout of July 13, 1977, plunges this world into darkness, each of these lives will be changed forever.
City on Fire is an unforgettable novel about love and betrayal and forgiveness, about art and truth and rock ’n’ roll: about what people need from each other in order to live . . . and about what makes the living worth doing in the first place.
I really want to read this book, but 900 pages is daunting! Maybe in FL this winter... maybe a read/listen combo...
ReplyDeleteI have the eGalley as well, so I think the combination will help to speed the reading process.
ReplyDeleteI had not heard of this one, but the intro sounds interesting. 900 pages is a lot!
ReplyDeleteThis sounds really good.
ReplyDeleteThe plot description is making me fell old. I remember the 1976 blackout. I was nine years old. I lived in a superb. We had power but I remember watching some of the ensuing looting on television.
Oh, I remember the 1977 Blackout in NY! I wasn't there, but the news was full of it.
ReplyDeleteThe book sounds great...900 pages is time-consuming, though. Funny how I thought nothing of reading GWTW three times back in the day, and it has over 1000 pages...LOL.
Thanks for sharing.
I'm about 150 pages in right now...and the writing is brilliant at times, but also totally pretentious and overwritten at times. I've had to look up SO many words.
ReplyDeleteThat not-a-short-story sounds pretty good!
ReplyDeleteSounds like an interesting plot. 900 pages does not deter me when the writer is a genius like Trollope but I don't know this author, so will research him.
ReplyDeleteThis sounds promising, Diane!
ReplyDeleteThis looks interesting. Reading and listening might be the way to go for me as well! I understand about too much hype. Too much of that has deterred me from reading a few books this year.
ReplyDelete