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Title: Freedomland by Richard Price ISBN: 0-440-22644-9 Publisher: Dell Pub. Date: 11 May, 1999 Format: Mass Market Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $7.99 |
Average Customer Rating: 3.36 (64 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: Amazing
Comment: 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: 2
Summary: Disappointing & lengthy work from usually talented novelist
Comment: 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: 5
Summary: A slow spiral into the Abyss
Comment: 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.
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Title: Clockers by Richard Price ISBN: 0060934980 Publisher: Perennial Pub. Date: 03 July, 2001 List Price(USD): $14.95 |
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Title: Blood Brothers by Richard Price ISBN: 0395977738 Publisher: Mariner Books Pub. Date: 15 April, 1999 List Price(USD): $12.00 |
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Title: Samaritan by Richard Price ISBN: 0375411151 Publisher: Knopf Pub. Date: 07 January, 2003 List Price(USD): $25.00 |
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Title: The Wanderers by Richard Price ISBN: 0395977746 Publisher: Mariner Books Pub. Date: 15 April, 1999 List Price(USD): $13.00 |
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Title: Ladies' Man by Richard Price ISBN: 039597772X Publisher: Mariner Books Pub. Date: July, 1999 List Price(USD): $12.00 |
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