Get Lit Preview: 'Lazarus Man' by Richard Price

Summary

All Of It: Get Lit Preview – 'Lazarus Man' by Richard Price

Podcast Title: All Of It
Host: Alison Stewart
Episode Title: Get Lit Preview: 'Lazarus Man' by Richard Price
Release Date: January 3, 2025
Host Station: WNYC
Description: ALL OF IT is a show about culture and its consumers, aiming to engage thinkers, doers, makers, and creators in discussions about the "what" and "why" of their work.

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Introduction to 'Lazarus Man'

In this episode of All Of It, host Alison Stewart delves into the highly anticipated novel 'Lazarus Man' by acclaimed novelist and screenwriter Richard Price. Stewart sets the stage by highlighting Price's notable work on influential TV series such as The Wire and The Night Of for HBO. The novel is situated in East Harlem in 2008 and revolves around the catastrophic collapse of a tenement building, exploring the lives of four individuals profoundly impacted by the tragedy.

Alison Stewart introduces the episode with enthusiasm:

"[...] its new novel is set in East Harlem in 2008. It tells the story of the aftermath of a tenement building collapse that leaves many dead, injured, and missing." [00:17]

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Inspiration and Genesis of 'Lazarus Man'

Richard Price shares the genesis of his novel, attributing the initial spark to his relocation to Harlem in 2008. Having recently completed Lush Life, a panoramic exploration of the Lower East Side, Price sought to create a similar comprehensive portrayal of his new environment in Harlem.

"The first seed was moving to Harlem in 2008. I had just finished a book on the Lower East Side, Lush Life. And once I moved to Harlem, I wanted to write a similar panorama of this world that I found myself in." [01:23]

Price recounts witnessing a real-life building collapse, which profoundly influenced his storytelling:

"2014, there was a building collapse about 14 blocks south of me in East Harlem. ... I didn't realize this was going to be the center of my book for another two years." [01:56]

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A Glimpse into 'Lazarus Man'

To provide listeners with a taste of the novel, Price reads an excerpt from 'Lazarus Man', offering insight into the character Felix, a young photographer living near the collapse site. The passage vividly captures Felix's immediate and visceral reaction to the disaster, blending personal experience with the unfolding chaos.

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Character Deep Dive

The conversation transitions to an in-depth discussion of the novel's central characters:

1. Anthony:

   • Background: In his early 40s, Anthony's life has been a series of setbacks. From being an undergraduate at Columbia expelled for dealing drugs to struggling with cocaine addiction, his trajectory is marked by personal loss and professional instability.
   • Current Struggle: On the verge of securing a job at a men's shop, Anthony hopes for a semblance of normalcy.

   "He's about to feel like his life is about to become normal yet again." [05:33]

2. Mary:

   • Role: A dedicated local police officer determined to find a missing person from the collapse.
   • Motivation: Mary is driven by a personal connection; the missing individual resembles someone her father once assaulted fatally. This resemblance fuels her obsession to resolve the case personally.

   "Cops do things, pick cases, pick up sessions for reasons that are very tied into their biographies." [06:48]

3. Royal Davis:

   • Occupation: Owner of a struggling funeral home.
   • Reaction to Collapse: Sees the tragedy as a potential lifeline for his business, even involving his young son in distributing business cards at the site.

   "His business is crumbling. You need like five, six bodies a month just to make it to meet your nut as a funeral proprietor." [08:07]

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Crafting Rich Characters

Price emphasizes his pride in the novel's character development, particularly highlighting Mary Rose:

"Mary Rose trajectory, she's a 40-year-old community affairs cop... She's very good at calming people down. She's in a dissolving marriage that keeps congealing and dissolving. She has kids she doesn't know how to relate to." [09:03]

He touches upon the nuanced motivations that drive each character, reflecting their personal histories and internal struggles. This depth ensures that readers can connect with and understand the multifaceted nature of each individual's response to the tragedy.

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Upcoming Event: Get Lit with Richard Price

The episode concludes with details about an upcoming event featuring Richard Price:

"Our get lit with all of it book Club event. We will see you on the 28th." [09:58]

Alison Stewart invites listeners to attend the Get Lit with All Of It book club event on Tuesday, January 28th at 6 PM, where Price will discuss his work in more detail. Tickets are available for free at wnyc.org/getlit, with an encouragement to secure them promptly due to high demand.

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Conclusion

This episode of All Of It offers a comprehensive preview of Richard Price's 'Lazarus Man', blending author insights with character analysis to paint a vivid picture of the novel's themes and narratives. Through engaging dialogue and poignant excerpts, listeners gain a deep understanding of the book's exploration of tragedy, resilience, and the intricate web of personal motivations that shape human responses to calamity.

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Note: This summary excludes promotional segments unrelated to the main content, focusing solely on the substantive discussions between Alison Stewart and Richard Price regarding 'Lazarus Man'.

Transcript

[Richard Price]

Listener support. WNYC Studios.

[Alison Stewart]

You are listening to all of it on wnyc. I'm Alison Stewart. Get lit is back. We are kicking things off in 2025 with a really exciting January selection, Lazarus man by Richard Price. Richard is a celebrated novelist and screenwriter. You know his work on the Wire and the night of on HBO. His new novel is set in East Harlem in 2008. It tells the story of the aftermath of a tenement building collapse that leaves many dead, injured, and missing. Central to the novel are four characters whose lives were affected by this tragedy, including one man, Anthony, who survives in the rubble for more than 24 hours before being rescued. Thanks to our partners at the New York Public Library, there are unlimited e copies of the novel available to borrow to wnyc.org getlit to find out more. You can also get your free tickets to our January 28th event with Richard Price, who joins me now for a Get lit preview. Richard, welcome to all of it.

[Richard Price]

Oh, thanks for having me.

[Alison Stewart]

We're so excited about this novel. It's great, by the way. But what was the first seed of the idea of Lazarus Man?

[Richard Price]

The first seed was moving to Harlem in 2008. I had just finished a book on the Lower east side, Lush Life. And it was kind of panoramic. And once I moved to Harlem, I know I didn't know anything, but at some point, I wanted to know enough to be able to. To write a similar panorama, you know, of this world that I found myself in.

[Alison Stewart]

Richard.

[Richard Price]

Yeah, Yeah.

[Alison Stewart]

I was gonna ask you to read, you know. Yeah, you go, you go.

[Richard Price]

There you go. Sorry, sorry. 2014, there was a building collapse about 14 blocks south of me in East Harlem. And I just not only heard it in my house, but it just shook my bones. And I went down there and tenement had completely. It was a continent explosion, and the tenement was completely gone. There were six fatalities, I think, or eight. And I just spent all day down there just watching what happened and reactions of people. But even then, I didn't know what I didn't realize. This is going to be the center of my book for another two years. I was still, like, learning, learning my world.

[Unknown]

I'm going to ask you to read a little selection from the book. This is a perspective of Felix, who lives across the street of the moment when the building collapses.

[Richard Price]

Right. Okay. Felix is a young photographer who literally lives like 50ft across the street. So he gets home and it's late. It's the wee hours. They finally falls asleep at 6 and. Okay, here goes and so at 8 in the morning, as he was finally drifting off and heard the abrupt harsh clatter and buckshot pop of shattered glass suddenly raining down on the street, he was just too tired to get up, go to the window and check it out. Oddly enough, what jerked him fully awake a minute later, what felt to him like the striking of some ancient chord in his gut, was the absolute silence that followed. It lasted no more than a few swollen seconds, just enough to establish itself as silence before giving way to dozens of car alarms going off from one end of the block to the other, seemingly without cause, as if in the grip of a mass timer malfunction. Then, out of the corner of his eye, he thought he saw one of his walls start to flutter. He thought he was still asleep. He thought he was dreaming, had to be, until a tremendous concussion of sound and invisible everywhere precaution threw him out of bed and rolled him across the narrow floor until he came up face first against the opposite wall, the impact bloodying his nose. When he finally sat up, staring stupidly at the sky through his window, all that he could see of the outside world was a night for day roiling black cloud, which by the time he was able to get to his feet, had turned a filthy white, but no less dense. It had to be what he always imagined would happen one day, the Metro north train rounding that killer curve up there too fast, flying off the tracks like an arrow and burying itself into the side of a building. Mastering the wobbles, he got himself into sweatpants and a pair of flip flops and bolted for the building stairway to scope out the damage on the street. He was already two flights down, the smutty contents of that apocalyptic cloud already seeking out his lungs, when he stopped, wheeled, and headed back up to the apartment in order to grab his Nikon.

[Unknown]

That is Richard Price reading from Lazarus Mann. Okay, we have Felix, the photographer. We have Anthony. When we first meet Anthony, where is he in his life?

[Richard Price]

Nowhere. I mean, he's. He's in his early 40s. He do a series of. And his whole life has been a slippery slope. He started out as. As a undergraduate at Columbia, kicked out for. For dealing drugs in the dorms, and it just kept going down. He wound up in lesser and lesser schools, wound up being an English teacher. Was almost brained by. By a kid in a class in the Bronx who had an arm cast on sue the Board of Ed. Started becoming a, you know, a salesman on the floor of men's shops. Slipped into cocaine usage, which was something he had thought he had left behind, lost his wife and his stepdaughter. They just said we can't take it. And right now he's about to get at this point in his life, he's got, he's got an interview for a job at a men's shop and he's about to feel like his life is about to become normal yet again.

[Alison Stewart]

Mary is a local cop. She becomes determined to find someone missing in the collapse. Why is she so determined to find this missing person herself rather than pass it along?

[Richard Price]

Well, because her father, who had been, who had been a welterweight, almost killed someone in the ring. In fact, the person had died from a beating a couple from that beating a couple years later. And the picture of this missing guy, he looked just like the guy her father killed. You know, slow motion killed. And it, something got tangled up in her and she said I don't know if he's dead or alive, but you know, I'm gonna find him. And you know, you know, cops do things, pick cases, pick up sessions for reasons that are very tied into their biographies. What, what they look people, victims trigger something in some cops while the same victims trigger nothing in other cops. But those other cops, they have their own obsessions. Everybody's obsession is sort of not understood by everybody else. Everybody has a biography and it comes out and try to save that victim or justify, you know, just get justice for that victim.

[Alison Stewart]

And finally, Royal Davis is the owner of struggling Funeral home. What would you describe as his first.

[Unknown]

Reaction at the building collapse?

[Richard Price]

Money. Handicapped. He gets us, he gets his 12 year old kid to the, to the collapse site and has the kid pass out, you know, business cards for the Royal Davis Funeral Home. When the kid says to him, dad, why can't you do it? And you know, the father said well it wouldn't look right. You know, he, you know, he's just, his, his business is crumbling. You know, you got, you need like five, six bodies a month just to make it to, to meet your nut as a funeral proprietor. And he's down to two or three and he's kind of desperate, he's try, he's holding on by his fingernails.

[Unknown]

We always ask our authors if there's.

[Alison Stewart]

One thing you would like our readers.

[Unknown]

To pay special attention to when they're reading any Easter eggs or any details.

[Richard Price]

That you're particularly proud of, you know, their characters. I mean Mary Rose trajectory, she's a 40 year old community affairs cop. She, you know, she has this phobia about crossing state lines. So the only place they could put her was in community affairs, which is something happens on the street. Your job is to go out there and prevent people from getting hotter than they are. She's very good at calming people down. She's in a dissolving marriage that keeps congealing and dissolving. She has kids she doesn't know how to relate to. I love her, but I like everybody. You could also pay attention to everything I wrote since kindergarten, but I would settle if you only just started with my first book, the Wanderers in 1974. Kidding.

[Unknown]

Well, people have time. They'll whip through this one and they can start with your overuse. You can do the whole thing. Richard Price, we are so excited to have you be our get lit with all of it book Club event. We will see you on the 28th.

[Richard Price]

Oh, can't wait. Can't hardly wait.

[Unknown]

Our get lit with all of it event with Richard Price is on Tuesday, January 28th at 6pm Tickets are free. You can get your nose get them now and find out how to check out the book by heading to the wnyc. You might want to get those, they tend to go fast.

[Ira Plato]

I'm Ira Plato, host of Science Friday. For over 30 years our team has been reporting high quality news about science, technology and medicine. News you won't get anywhere else. And now that political news is 24 7, our audience is turning to us to know about the the really important stuff in their lives. Cancer, Climate change, Genetic engineering, Childhood diseases. Our sponsors know the value of science and health news. For more sponsorship information visit sponsorship wnyc. Org.