Lazarus Man Author:Richard Price 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 man... more »y 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 Carterâwhose 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 Pearlâa 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 Davisâowner 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 Roeâa 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.« less