It's Your Time Journal: A Guide to Activating Your Faith, Achieving Your Dreams, and Increasing in God's Favor

Price's LUSH LIFE starts with a miracle: the Virgin Mary has appeared in the frost of a convenience store's glass freezer door. A line of penitent believers gathers, paying money for a chance to pray for a miracle of their own. The line is several blocks long, and it obstructs the entrance to a cafe where 34 year-old Eric Cash works. Out of fealty to his boss (an old friend), Eric and a coworker, Ike, join the line and make the Mary disappear by opening the freezer door.Price's writing style is all about reality, all about authenticity. Not only is he a master of the click and flow of dialogue, but he also sets scenes with an inexplicable deftness, like someone simply flipping a switch that lights up a stage. Price's light is warm, encompassing, but not particularly sympathetic. It's no coincidence that his story starts with a miracle debunked, or that on the way to the miracle, Eric and Ike pass a church that has -- apparantly of its own accord -- collapsed into itself. Icons, metaphors, grand idealistic totems -- Price's novel doesn't have much respect for them. Even grander themes, larger purposes, these are all shrugged off in favor of more interesting minutia. It's hard not to be impressed by how eloquently Price illuminates every speck of grit, whether it's on the streets of the city or in the hearts of its citizens.The story is "about" a mugging-turned-murder, but this is really just a jumping off point. Price uses this moment of accidental violence to spur a story that stretches its tentacles into all areas of the Lower East Side of Manhattan, from the bureaucratic busy-bodies that hamper justice more than they aid it, to the hood rats and gangster-wannabes who are trying to find a way to prove that their life isn't just another pointless miracle, another ruined temple. Much like  The Wire  (which Price has also contributed to), LUSH LIFE tries to be diplomatic with its details. No one is judged, not really, and nothing is left out.This ends up resulting in what some might call "overkill." So anxious to provide an unadulterated slice of life, Price goes a little overboard with the details, with the facets, with the broad view. I'd use the old "forest for the trees" analogy here, except the trees in this case are so beautifully described. Still, the luxuriant attention to every speck and spot makes this slice of life novel read more like an entire pie of life. For those with big appetites, it comes highly recommended.

"Lush Life" appears on many lists as a must-read novel, praised for its vibrant dialog and gutsy, no-holds-barred punch. I appreciated it for that earthy quality. Author Price (who also co-wrote the HBO mini-series "The Wire," is incredibly good at getting the cadence of dialogue right. He's like David Mamet in understanding the back and forth, ebb and flow of "huhs" and shrugs, profanity and "dunnos" --all things that minor novelists just can't translate to the page. It's not like Elmore Leonard, who is brighter with the patter. This is deeper material, hinting at a thought process that the reader must delve into.The plot is serviceable enough. It involves a bunch of losers going nowhere (including the cops) and one bright guy, Ike Marcus, who is definitely on his way up and out of New York's Lower East Side. However, a bungled robbery intrudes. A gun goes off, and it's Ike who dies. The rest of the book involves the agonizingly slow attempts to close the case when no one wants to talk, the police top brass show themselves to be idiots, the grieving parents are leeches, and the two other survivors really don't know what they saw.Had Price sustained the suspense for just long enough and wrapped the book up at a satisfying point, I'd give this book five stars. Instead, he begins to meander through the psyches of all the characters. Believe me, there's not that much in their heads to view. All of them are hopeless and a protracted look at their hopelessness is not only depressing, it makes boring reading. When Price finally wraps up the case, he insists on delving into an unnecessary denouement to tie up loose ends, giving the the end a rootless, floating feeling.This is a masterwork for anyone working on dialog. There is some brilliant stuff here. But it is far and away from the masterpiece that I was led to expect.

GOOD BOOK, VERY INFORMATIVE AND EDUCATIVE TOO. a GREAT HELP FOR EVERYDAY LIFE AND AN ENCOURAGEMENT TO HANG ON TO FAITH