Freedomland

Rating:
Summary: Calling Scott Rudin, my screenplay's, er, novel is done.
Review: A lot's wrong with this overpraised book. It's too long, the story's conventional and slow-moving, it's predictable, the prose is awkward and reads too often like a screenplay, except when it tries to go inside the characters, and then it reads like a parody of every cliche police-story ever written: the hard-nosed female reporter without a social life, the black detective torn between his job and his community, the hot-headed white cop... the book's conflict, as concretized by the black detective Lorenzo, rests in questions of cultural, racial, and economic truth and honesty. Not unworthy subjects, but there's no blazing insights here, and the plot's so shopworn that the story provides no real tangential pleasures either. "Freedomland" is ultimately condescending and manipulative for no good reason. Its first hundred pages paint a compelling picture of Dempsey, and a few of the plot twists will play well in the movie. Producer Scott Rudin will undoubtedly make this a better movie than it is a book.

Rating:
Summary: Amazing
Review: Hmmmm....with all due respect, I think some of the other reviewers here are missing the point. You don't pick up a 700+ page novel and not gear up for a long read, and if you know Price at all, you know he's not your standard thriller writer (which is a good thing, believe me). I'm a little mystified by the Price fan that didn't like it though--seems like we were reading two different books. And why see the titles of soul music songs in the book as a tired racial comment rather than the product of a character's completely deranged mind? At any rate, I found Freedomland to be an astounding achievement, with beautifully drawn fully human characters, pitch-perfect dialogue, plenty of action and tension, and a bone-deep sadness beneath it that's miles away from the prickly optimism of Clockers. Unlike Price's recent excellent Samaritan, it's not emotionally claustrophic either--Freedomland is in fact a modern urban epic, rich in character, depth, and texture. This is a book I continually recommend to people who believe that commercial fiction can't stir the soul. I will grant that reading Freedomland can ultimately be an emotionally exhausting experience, but that is what I look for in books--to paraphrase Kafka (at least I think it was Kafka), a book should be the axe that breaks the frozen lake inside us. And Freedomland is a great big axe.

Rating:
Summary: Amazing
Review: Hmmmm....with all due respect, I think some of the other reviewers here are missing the point. You don't pick up a 700+ page novel and not gear up for a long read, and if you know Price at all, you know he's not your standard thriller writer (which is a good thing, believe me). I'm a little mystified by the Price fan that didn't like it though--seems like we were reading two different books. And why see the titles of soul music songs in the book as a tired racial comment rather than the product of a character's completely deranged mind? At any rate, I found Freedomland to be an astounding achievement, with beautifully drawn fully human characters, pitch-perfect dialogue, plenty of action and tension, and a bone-deep sadness beneath it that's miles away from the prickly optimism of Clockers. Unlike Price's recent excellent Samaritan, it's not emotionally claustrophic either--Freedomland is in fact a modern urban epic, rich in character, depth, and texture. This is a book I continually recommend to people who believe that commercial fiction can't stir the soul. I will grant that reading Freedomland can ultimately be an emotionally exhausting experience, but that is what I look for in books--to paraphrase Kafka (at least I think it was Kafka), a book should be the axe that breaks the frozen lake inside us. And Freedomland is a great big axe.

Rating:
Summary: An Emotionally Exhausting Trip!
Review: I bought the mass market PB version of this novel. You know, the one with the excerpted reviews on the cover: "GRIPPING!" or, as the NYT book reviewer wrote: it has many "unforseeable turnarounds". I was intrigued by these raves and love crime genre that moves quickly along.

Well, about 100 pages into this 721 page novel, I decided to re-read the reviews. I was enjoying the novel, and it WAS actually quite compelling, but the book seems to be selling itself as a thriller, when it is a much more serious look at this all too familiar racial divide we are forever trying to bridge. Once I knew how to take it, I enjoyed it all that much more. It does drag a bit in the middle, but I was always eager to turn the page, even when I realized that there was no mystery in Brenda Martin. But, I kept hoping, I suppose.

Most of all, the characters are stunningly human, some strangly creepy, like the Kenters, Ben, and Billy.

As far as the comparisons to "Bonfire of the Vanities", Price avoids cartoon-characterization and gives a truly tragic story an all-too human face. Great Job!

Rating:
Summary: Disappointing & lengthy work from usually talented novelist
Review: I consider myself a Richard Price fan and have read all his novels, but this one was shockingly disappointing. Overlong by at least a fourth, with a plot that moves as quickly as the wait in a Driver's Licene office, it is also filled with blandly drawn or downright annoying characters, with the worst offenders unfortunately found in the two main protagonists, the Susan Smith-like Brenda Martin and detective Lorenzo Council. And while Price can effectively weave in pop culture references into his work, having Brenda incessantly name-check '60s & '70s soul artists and songs feels like a smarmy history lesson from a smug professor. In his best work ("The Wanderers," "The Ladies' Man," "Clockers") Price has given us unforgettable characters who face unpredictable and exciting situations that literally force us to turn the page. In "Freedomland," he takes the skeletal narrative outline of a real-life crime, but fails to put any meat on its bones. A sad downturn for a talented scribe. Let's hope the next book is far better.

Rating:
Summary: Too much and not enough
Review: I have read both Freedomland and Clockers and I love both books, but Freedomland has a harshness/realism in its message that has stayed with me ever since I read it a year ago. Yes, some scenes are drawn out (When the Dempsy and Armstrong cops are scouting the area where Debra claimed she was carjacked did not have to be thirty some pages, and the search for the boy in the woods was too long). But even during scenes like that it still remained interesting and thought-provoking. One of the great things about Richard Price's writing is that he is able to mix mystery, suspense, urban decay, dialogue so searing and real it encaptures you, and plots and subplots that are climaxed beautifully. But what Richard Price does best is make a story using characters that we normally wouldn't feel any sympathy or respect for, least of all able to send a meaningful message, and do just that. Even after Debra tells the truth about what happened to her Cody, I couldn't help but have sympathy for her. And Jesse and Lorenzo were such tragic characters yet by the end you see them for what they really are, two well meaning people caught up in not only a game, but a life that makes them stern and burnt out and hardened.

Rating:
Summary: A slow spiral into the Abyss
Review: Once I read the back of the book, I figured that it had to be interesting, which it was. I believe, however, that it could still have been good if it was shorter than 721 pages. There was some unnecessary information here and there that would have been better left out. All in all, its a pretty good read if you dont mind a long book.

Rating:
Summary: A slow spiral into the Abyss
Review: This is one of the most brilliant books I have ever read. Exhausting, draining, exhilarating, infuriating, it touches every emotion in the human psyche. Richard Price is obviously interested in characters, what motivates them, what can make a broken-down woman tell a calculated lie and send an entire city spinning into an inferno. Devastating moral lessons, compelling interactions between chracters of all racial biases and hidden agendas, and an intense, creeping momentum that sends you to the edge and beyond. Price is an exceptional storyteller, a Pat Conroy of the urban slumscape, with images that will stay with me long after the final chapter is read.

Rating:
Summary: Dull Book by a Good Writer
Review: This was a slog, which I avoided by skimming after the first hundred pages. Too bad, because the writing is sound, and the characters almost came to life. Why do so many books have to be about dead kids, missing kids, abused kids? Obviously it's a powerful device to get most readers hooked, but I'm wearing out on the formula. Something fresh please.