First published 2008
Eric Cash stands at thirty-five with a handful of abandoned dreams. Artist, actor, screenwriter. He once had many answers when people asked what he did. Now he manages a restaurant on the Lower East Side, serving the very people he wanted to become. His coworker Ike Marcus was different. Young, attractive, popular. Ike tended bar but never called it that. He had places to go. Then two street kids approached them on Eldridge Street one night. They pulled a gun. At least that's how Eric tells it. The shooting changes everything, pulling Eric into a world where the gleaming surface of gentrified New York cracks open. Police investigations reveal the networks of power and violence that run beneath the city's polished exterior. Eric must navigate between his version of events and the truth that emerges from the streets. Price exposes how the new New York operates, where quality of life policies and broken windows theory meet the reality of who lives and dies on these corners.
Genres: literary-fiction, american-fiction, mystery, crime, 21st-century, urban
Vibes: atmospheric, dark, emotional, fast-paced, thought-provoking
Tropes: deception, unreliable-narrator
Setting: Eldridge Street, Lower East Side, New York
Period: 21st Century
12 pages · Audio CD · Macmillan Audio
Content warnings: violence