Garth Risk HallbergRezensionen

The Second Coming by Garth Risk Hallberg is a recommended family drama that examines the minutiae regarding the broken relationship and lives of a father and his teenage daughter.

In 2011 thirteen-year-old Jolie Aspern drops her phone onto the subway tracks and has a near-miss with a subway train when she jumps down to recover it. The thoughtless act was likely due to her drinking, but she is having other emotional issues. It does bring her estranged father back into her life. Her father, Ethan Aspern is a recovering addict and convicted felon. He believes he can help her navigate her problems and set her straight so he returns home to NYC.

The narrative negotiates between multiple time periods and perspectives including the present and in flashbacks following Ethan's relationship with Jolie's mother, Sarah Kupferberg, relationships with parents, his addiction and more. There are many, many details and emotional insights into the characters. There are many keen insights into the raw emotions of both father and daughter, who share, in part, a bond over anxiety and addiction.

But the novel itself is just too, too much. Too full of elaborate prose, too meandering, too long, too expansive, too detailed, too emotional, too overworked, too slow paced, and, well, you get my point. From the synopsis, this is seemingly a novel I would normally relish. Instead it felt like I slogged through it, starting and stopping while losing interest in the characters or the plot. Tighten it up, refine the focus, pick up the pacing, and make us care about these characters. Thanks to Knopf for providing me with an advance reader's copy via NetGalley. My review is voluntary and expresses my honest opinion.
http://www.shetreadssoftly.com/2024/05/the-second-coming.html

I finally tackled this book, which has been on my Nook since the beginning of the year. It's huge, although I hardly ever find that daunting. I read the entire Outlander series in less than three weeks during a time I was very busy at work and doing a lot of long hours, and each book was of epic length. Same with the Song of Ice and Fire (Game of Thrones) series. The story mainly took place in 1976-1977, mainly in New York City (where I worked) and Long Island (where I lived and had grown up), so much of it was familiar, perhaps even more so because I got married in February 1977 and was just beginning my grown up life. Certainly the blackout of 1977, which I observed from a strange place (our apartment was in Nassau County, so unaffected by Con Ed's failure, but through a quirk of post-WWII building, the houses had been moved to make way for the Cross Island Parkway and our little three-block island of power sat surrounded by darkness that hot July evening in the Summer of Sam. Certainly the decrepitation of New York City -- I worked way downtown on Water Street. Certainly the growing restlessness of the masses in post-Nixon, post-Vietnam America. The gas shortage. The financial crises. Gay activism. The birth of punk and disco, neither of which strummed my soul, although I would later come to be appreciate some punk music. So much of the setting was familiar and well set by Hallberg. But. He seemed to be channeling Tom Wolfe at his most pretentious. I kept thinking of "Bonfire of the Vanities" as I read (which I did like, despite its pretention), feeling as if a lot of this was written with Roget's at Hallberg's elbow to find those big words that could easily have been left simpler. I also felt he was trying to be David Foster Wallace, whose "Infinite Jest" I have started reading three or four times, but seem to give up around the same place. I usually read books in an two or three evenings, and even large ambitious ones like this in three or four days at the most, particularly when I start on a weekend, but it took me seven because I lost patience a few times. I often find the device of switching between past, present, and future jarring, not in a good way. And in having so many characters, I did not find any one of them particularly well developed, although there was a good sense of a few of them (not the female characters, sadly). On the other hand, I did want to learn how the story ended: What would become of of Samantha; Charlie; Billy/William; Regan & Keith and their progeny; the Demon Brother (he was one of the poorly developed characters, in my opinion, but maybe his spectral presence was deliberate); Felicia (almost unknowable). Pulaski (somewhat well drawn). And there are too many neat coincidences and convoluted intersections. To me, the book fell short of the hype, but Hallberg can tell a story and his writing had moments of brilliance -- a well-turned phrase or two or three -- and it was therefore a decent first novel of a writer who I will watch.

This was just way too long. 900 pages??? It was just interesting enough for me to keep going, but it was a death march at the end. This will probably make a great movie if they get some good actors and I picture a Altmanesque treatment of all the conjoined characters/stories. Not terrible and has some wonderful parts but ultimately it was a slog.

I wanted to really love this book. I was waiting in anticipation to read and was jazzed when I started it. Being a native New Yorker (still here), I thought this would be the quintessential book about NYC. A book that captures the essence and energy of NY. Alas, not the case.

There is no way I can review a book of such density and to it justice. Suffice to say, the author can certainly write, no question about that. But the book comes in at 903 pages and could have easily been edited back to 650-700 pages. He goes on and on about things that are truly not relevant to the story in anyway. He also uses language so he can prove to all of us that he knows big words and acronyms for more commonly used words.

I started losing interest around page 300 and by page 435 I was done. I hacked thru the book, but like a bad movie, I kept asking "when is this going to end?" If you are into Jonathan Franzen and David Foster Wallace, then you will LOVE this book. They to go on and on and on and include huge passages that have no bearing on the story. More power to those who love books like that. For me, if the story was more compelling, I would have enjoyed this much, much more.

I've read my share of really long books throughout the years and I often feel somewhat saddened when I've finished them because I know I will miss the characters. Not the case with this book, although it was a powerful story with some really strong characters, this book would have benefited with some major editing.

Byen brænder midt om natten. Det har taget mig for lang tid at læse denne bog. Den er for lang. Der er for mange sidehistorier. De knyttes - irritererende - faktisk - til sidst. Jeg har været for sløv. Jeg har læst andre, tyndere, hurtigt læste bøger undervejs. Men nu, midt om natten, åd jeg mig gennem de sidste sider. Bogen er vildt god, i de bedste passager. Jeg tror ikke jeg kommer til at læse den igen. Ikke fordi den er for lang, for jeg tror fx at andre mursten: Max Mischa og Tet, Moby Dick, Ulysses, nogle af Dostojevskijs, nok skal blive læst igen, selv om de også er nogle tunge bæster, men fordi denne, Byen brænder, ikke holder i længden. Så. Den er god, godt skrevet, overlegen, intellektuel, og alt det der, men - synes jeg - for omstændig og for meget på den fodslæbende facon. Og god.

-thus ends ends the longest police procedural ever
-The real evil person was a punk rocker anarchist
-the hero was a cop who was just about to retire, whose wife about to leave him because of the case.
-You can guess what happened to him.
-way to go Hallberg

At 900 pages, this is not a quick read, but it is worth it if you have the time. Ending was weak and left some questions and loose ends, as often seems to be the case with these longer books. Still, fascinating to read about an NYC that I only briefly experienced in the 90s. Not the same Avenue A and Tompkins Square Park that I lived on in 2005!

En episk berättelse om ett samhälle i förändring. Kärlek, svek, konspirationer och tillslut förlåtelse. Snygg berättat och presenterat på ett utomordentligt sätt i avsnitt som hoppar mellan dåtid och nutid. En fantastisk läsupplevelse. Högsta betyg.

The language is thick and luxurious, and I found myself easily present with the characters in every single chapter. I've never lived in Manhattan, nor in any big city for that matter, but while immersed in City on Fire I felt like a native New Yorker. The author, Garth Risk Hallberg, has a knack for capturing narrative moments like you're a little bit in the character's heads, seeing the world from their POV, and a little bit taking in the micro settings of 1970's NYC. I am unfamiliar with all those experiences and the resulting immersion is quite the accomplishment given this is the author's debut novel.

The last third of the novel proved extra challenging, and I thought this especially true for the last 100 pages. You'll have to let me know if you had a similar experience. The final chapters seemed overly dense with text—bordering up against what I would call stream-of-consciousness writing. The resulting narrative was confusing and seem to leave some of the plot threads unresolved.

I would give this a 3.5. I liked the book - it was well written and the story engrossing in the long run. It started off slow, however, and I was confused at times. Can't think of anyone that I would recommend it to.

Made it a quarter of the way through and gave up. Boring and bland.

Sprawling novel of New York-life circa 1977. Remember the New York that was in trouble and close to bankruptcy? When all you ever heard about was the filth, the drugs and the muggings? This book captures that New York. Punk-rockers, artists, financial brokers, magazine and novel writers, teenagers, dysfunctional families, pyrotechnics, stockbrokers, trust fund heroin addicts--they all meet up and cross paths in this novel that mainly takes place from the bicentennial celebration through the night the lights went out in 1977. The book centers around a shooting in Central Park. I thought Hallberg did an excellent job capturing the feeling of the times and his characters were great.

It was very close to 5 stars--but I knocked it down because of the last bit of the book felt more dizzying as it whipped from character to character and scene to scene.

Take note HBO, AMC, Amazon, Netflix--your next hit series could be contained in this book.

Almost every page is great, but there are *too many damn pages* - seriously, this needed to be cut by at least 300 pages. A great tale of 1970s New York, with shades of Tom Wolfe and Jonathan Franzen, but just too fucking long - overstuffed with characters. Could have been a great novel, instead it was a good novel.

I love falling into huge books that immerse you in their characters and stories, CITY ON FIRE was definitely one of those novels. I will not attempt to really summarize nor will I pretend to have understood all the themes and symbols in the book. To me the overriding theme was of remembering to be in the moment, to not always be fixated on where you are going to go at the expense of enjoying where you are. I loved reading this book and will miss the characters now that I'll be moving on to something new.

fiction--1970s NY/Long Island; interconnected personal dramas. I got to page 327 and would have gladly finished it (eventually) if I didn't have other more interesting things to read, and if there weren't a whole long line of folks waiting to read this library copy when I return it. I didn't mind the writing, but the character development got pretty boring a lot of the time (ok, a lot of their narrative voices sound very similar and much of their stories is pretty mundane and dawdly)--by the time one gets that far into the book, one should be fairly engrossed and eagerly turning pages, rather than waiting impatiently for the plot to move (rather than slowly circling the drain like so much extraneous detritus). I was actually itching to get back to the nonfiction book that I am also reading, so I could feel like I'd actually accomplished/learned something.
So, kind of disappointing, but might still be worth some of the praise and attention this book has been getting, if one has patience to digest in small bites rather than trying to finish in a weekend.

Book Review

A vicious predator waiting for a vulnerability in the under belly of a novel.
See: Fiction, Experimental - Novel - Observations, Literary

Fiction, Experimental

Gabe focuses on his art. His broken family stares at him, encouraging but uncomprehending. Elizabeth tries to be the woman she should have been, would have been, if suburbia and all it's tentacles hadn't clawed their way into her soul. Jackie has a world in her head far better than the world outside the window that stares out at the neat rows of houses. Lacey knows the truth, it has to be the truth. Thomas has a secret. A story has been told in paragraphs, vignettes, photographs. To be read in any order, all of it a circle of civilization in Long Island - A field guide to the North American family.

See Book Reviews - Fiction, Experimental - Hallberg, Garth Risk - Novels - Observations, Literary - Storytelling

Observations, Literary

A story told in a non-traditional method, by what could almost be called diary entries from an unknown observer. There is no defined plot, merely an unfolding of the situation of two next door neighbors who have their own dark secrets and their own coping mechanisms in a world that should be picture perfect but, like all lives, is messy and ugly and disturbing and difficult. This work turns you into a voyeur, is fun to look at, pretty to hold, but ultimately leaves you dissatisfied as the threads do not tie into knots and the heroes become anti-heroes that cannot inspire you.

See also - Book Reviews - Fiction, Experimental - Quirkiness - Short Novella - WTF?

This is an illustrated fiction, which cab seem quite fragmentary. It's a look into the life of two Long Island families, the Harrisons and the Hungate. Chapters are headed by guide words, such as chemistry, grief, infidelity, intimacy, irony, maternal instinct, search for meaning, midlife crisis, nature vs. nurture. Each chapter has text on the left-side page and a photo or picture on the right. Some have a dream-like quality to them.

Pretty compelling, and easy to read, but not all that interesting and a bit grim so far. Feels a bit like one of those highly-regarded American TV dramas. I'm giving it up mostly because it's more of a disquieting murder-mystery than I expected or want. (I'm making a point of marking it as abandoned because I think I might end up finishing it by default otherwise.)

No editorial discipline. Long and tedious. Almost stopped 1/3 of the way in and wish I had.

Hugely ambitious, huge book. It may even be too much book. If he'd cut it by a third he might have found a wider audience. Still, at its best, it feels like a Bonfire of the Vanities for the Twenty Teens from the Nineteen Seventies. Outmoded even before it was published, sprawling and unfocused, this is a work that will be less read than it deserves but relished by most that bother.

When you were young, you had the resources to rebuild after each crater fate blasted in your life. Beyond a certain age, though, you could only wall off the damage and leave it there.


A conceptual art project is described in the final pages of the novel depicting an inscription which requires ten days to complete followed by ten days of effacement. I felt something akin in this climb, this particular reading. Much of what needed to be said was accomplished in the novel's first half. The plateau before the descent didn't yield much satisfaction, nor a fog of uncertainty. It was lukewarm,. Music from another room. I was left, pondering. reflecting on the joy of listening to the Red Garland Trio while carving a watermelon--for other people. I don't care for melon.

This is a busy novel, though, frankly-- it lacks in ideas. It isn't heady. An ensemble of characters delineate NYC in that fecund period of 1976-77. The echoes of the pyrotechnics of the Bicentennial find physical manifestation in the arrival of AIDS. Punks chords of dissent turn blight into renewal. Everyone will be rich, except for the poor.
Fuck the poor.
Charles Bronson.
Bernie Goetz.
Do the Right Thing.

As noted this is more Balzac than even a Franzen. At the core is a crime, much like Bleak House and the clues to such are disparate. Many of them are revealed in the "found" text but City on Fire (a line in punk song) lacks the ominous detachment which make a W.G. Sebald or a Teju Cole so unsettling. I wish I could praise this, call it a punk Naked Singularity---but that comparison is ludicrous. This is a fat novel for the vicarious. It is timid fare. A reference to Marcuse doesn't leave the novel steeped in the Frankfurt School. City on Fire does however make one want to listen to Patti Smith--I do thank the author for that.

First book of the year, finally finished! At over 900 pages, it was a real undertaking, even though it was consistently an interesting and thoughtful novel. It continues the current-seeming style of rotating narrators, which can be a real hit or miss situation. About 75% of the characters who were the focus of the chapters were great and engaging, which is actually a pretty high rate.

There's a lot going on in this book, and though I never shook the feeling that it took on too much narratively, it certainly painted a vivid and graphic portrait of New York in the mid 1970s. I wanted everything to come together just a little more cleanly, but all in all I really enjoyed this book, despite the fact by page 750 I was yearning for the end to come a little quicker.

Whew! What a long book. City on Fire involves a lot of characters in the mid 70s in New York and how their lives intertwine around a young woman's shooting on New Years before and after. I give it 3.5 stars, I liked a lot about this book, the plot is detailed and interesting, but it can be slow moving at times. The writing is well done but way too descriptive, everything gets a metaphor or a simile, it was exhausting. The character's are the best part of the book, they are well developed and complex. I enjoyed the book, but definitely could of been improved.

Well, I finished all 900 pages. I wanted to really like it, but I didn't, for all the reasons Donna, Andrew and Max have listed in their reviews at the top of this page. There is no point rewriting what they have so eloquently written!
So much potential - so in dire need of major editing!