Did you know that there were more murders on the three Law & Order shows last year than there were in the actual borough of Manhattan? I read that interesting factoid last night in a Sunday Globe review of Lush Life by Richard Price, which is coincidentally the book that I am reading. I wish I had it with me--the book, that is, not the review--so I could quote you some passages from it, because Mr Price has quite the way with both dialogue and characterization. (Which, seeing as he writes (er, wrote) for The Wire, I guess I really should have expected.)
There's a scene in which Matty, the middle-aged cop who's one of the protagonists, is picked up by a young bartender at a private detail he works, and is slam fucking her in an alley or hallway, upon which she breaks into sobs. So he immediately backs off on the vigor. Which causes her to instantaneously lose her arousal and demand he go back to what he was doing. And there's a line there, which like I said I would quote if only I had it available, but the gist of it is, "then she started sobbing again so he knew she was happy." I read that and I was like, oh, yeah, I know that woman.
The whole book is full of little things like that, tiny bits of description and dialogue that are almost throw-away but that are so real. I'm about 3/4 of the way done, and while there's a bit of dragginess in one of the subplots, on the whole I would highly recommend the book. It's a nice piece of writing.
xoxo
No comments:
Post a Comment