Reading the new Richard Price novel, Lush Life.  It's not a whodunit, or even a whydunit -- there's a murder, and you know pretty quickly who did it, and then watch it ripple through a NYC neighborhood.  I like it -- his best since Clockers, I think, maybe better than that. 


            "What am I supposed to tell myself," Billy hissed in his ear, "it was his time? He was summoned? It was for 
            his own good? He's better off now? He's romping in some, some cloud meadow? He was sacrificed to prevent 
            some great evil from happening?

            "OK, look -- " Matty began.

            "And my son isn't watching over me. He doesn't live on in my heart. He doesn't talk to me. I talk to me and 
             what I say to myself -- "

            "OK, hang on, stop."

            "Cherish your memories . . . My memories feel like knives and I would gladly burn them out of -- "

            "Just stop." 


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