Lazarus Man by Richard Price

Published by ‎ Farrar, Straus and Giroux on November 12, 2024

Richard Price brings a unique and compelling voice to crime fiction. Lazarus Man doesn’t fit neatly into that genre, but crime is always in the background. Price chronicles Harlem life with the keen eye and vivid prose of Colson Whitehead even if he hasn’t yet won a Pulitzer. Lazarus Man is Richard Price in strong form.

The story takes place in Harlem, where residents are inured to violence. Calvin Ray, an ex-con, is now a community activist, having dedicated himself to teaching young men to find a nonviolent path. He organizes teaching events at sites of shootings.

The violence is never graphic but its presence is a constant undercurrent, leaving parents in fear for their children — including Anne Collins, a postal carrier whose son was shot (probably by accident) in the calf. Anne confronts the shooter because she knows that going to the police would invite retribution.

The incident that sparks the plot in Lazarus Man is violent but not a crime. A collapsed building in Harlem is not caused by a terrorist attack but by subway construction gone awry. The building falls on Anthony Carter, a mixed-race unemployed teacher and recovering addict whose wife left him, taking their daughter with her. Anthony is buried for a couple of days before being rescued.

In the days that follow, Anthony is pressed to give inspirational speeches — for Calvin and others — that amount to “whatever doesn’t kill you makes your stronger,” a message that he later refines. Some people who listen to him know better. Sometimes, the things that don’t kill you leave you in a world of pain and poverty. Lazarus Man isn’t a pollyannish novel, but Anthony genuinely believes that something in his message is true.

Anthony is the glue that holds the plot together, but the story has an ensemble cast. Mary Roe is a Harlem police detective who spends much of the novel trying to track down a missing man whose wife died in the building collapse. Her investigation leads to a poignant explanation of the man’s disappearance.

Royal Davis owns a funeral home that isn’t paying its bills. Felix Pearl is a 24-year-old with a video camera who aspires to be a filmmaker but earns money by filming playgrounds for the Parks Department, much to the chagrin of the parents of children he films and of cops who respond to their complaints.

Every character seems embroiled in a domestic drama. Anthony is separated from his wife Clare and his 13-year-old stepdaughter, with whom he is “increasingly reluctant to seriously engage.” He knows the time will come when Clare will ask for a divorce but he hopes to repair the rift with his stepdaughter. In the meantime, after making “sneaky eyes” at Anne Collins during one of Calvin’s events, Anthony dances around the possibility of dating her. They have difficult but honest conversations that middle-aged people should probably have more often before they decide to date. Mary's domestic drama includes a separation (she switches residences with her husband every three days so their children will have a stable residence) and an occasional unfulfilling motel shag with another detective.

Price’s character development is exceptional. Characters recall but do not dwell upon the events that shaped their lives, allowing the reader to understand the origin and development of their personality without bogging down the story. The characters have experienced varying kinds of pain. How people deal with pain is one of the novel’s themes.

Some characters change, as people sometimes do; one character’s transformation is stunning. Another concludes: “All I know for sure is that I have to make a life that I can live with.” One of the novel’s lessons is that “people are so much more” than we understand them to be.

Readers who dislike departures from genre formulas might complain that Lazarus Man doesn’t have much of a plot. How the lives of a half dozen characters in Harlem intersect for a few days is the plot. It isn’t clear that any one storyline is more important than the others — the characters all struggle to do their best — so maybe the point is that every life is important.

Still, the plot gains clarity as the novel nears its end. A fact the reader will assume to be true is proven false by something Felix captured on his camera. The revelation links back to an earlier scene that takes on new meaning, inviting the reader to view a central character in a different light. I imagine readers will have different reactions to the revelation, which might make Lazarus Man a good choice for book clubs.

In any event, the plot twist brings a message about the importance of hope. The ability to give hope to others, or at least to lift spirits, is a gift that merits appreciation. As does Price’s gift for storytelling.

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