City on Fire
ABOUT
THE BOOK
New York City, 1976. Meet Regan and William Hamilton-Sweeney, estranged heirs to one of the city’s great fortunes; Keith and Mercer, the men who, for better or worse, love them; Charlie and Samantha, two suburban teenagers seduced by downtown’s punk scene; an obsessive magazine reporter and his idealistic neighbor-and the detective trying to figure out what any of them have to do with a shooting in Central Park on New Year’s Eve.
The mystery, as it reverberates through families, friendships, and the corridors of power, will open up even the loneliest-seeming corners of the crowded city. And when the blackout of July 13, 1977, plunges this world into darkness, each of these lives will be changed forever. City on Fire is an unforgettable novel about love and betrayal and forgiveness, about art and truth and rock ‘n’ roll: about what people need from each other in order to live-and about what makes the living worth doing in the first place.
NOMINATING LIBRARY COMMENTS
A great American novel. Poetic, spectacular and well written.
Hallberg’s enormous novel pulls the reader into 1970s New York City. He amasses characters each piercingly individual. With his range of humanity and his gritty and confounding steeing, he encapsulates the messy relatedness of life.