Hello,
Many of those that have only a cursory interest in the publishing business knows the story of this book. Although Hallberg is a first time novelist, this book was involved in a bidding war. He was given a $2 million advance for his book. I'm sure someone has snapped up the rights for the movie as well, but I'm not sure I know anyone that wants to sit through a 8 hour movie. With that comes a company, Alfred A Knopf, wanting to earn their money back and more. That leads to a lot of hype as well. Well did the book live up to the hype?
"City On Fire" does not live up to it's hype, but neither did "The Force Awakens". Is it a good book? Yes? Is it a great book? No. Was it helped by the hype, yes and no. It certainly got a lot more attention, but the bar was set very high for the book. Oasis' CD "What's The Story (Morning Glory)" also got a ton of hype. The hype killed that CD. I'm sure it sold a lot of copies, but for entertainment value it was sorely lacking. I prefer the under the radar works of art that sneak up on one and surprise me with how good it is. (Example: John Green's "Paper Towns" and the book of "The Martian"- both movies also happen to be very good.) Who would I recommend this book to? New Yorkers, history buffs, people that like sprawling books. Who would I not recommend this book to? People that don't like unnecessarily long novels, people that don't like multiple retellings of the same event, people that don't like books with an anticlimactic ending.
The book that raises so many questions leaves a lot unanswered. Most importantly did Samantha live or die? We finally found out the shooter of Samantha and it's….. , really? Why did Larry Pulaski invite Sewer Girl to live with him and his wife. For instance, whatever happened to Nicky Chaos? And will some please explain to me how he got any followers? For being so "wise", how did he not see that he was a pawn in a game way out of his league? Even the self-absorbed William saw through him, can you tell I don't like Nicky?
We see what sort of happens to Amory, still up to his old tricks, but what happened to Felicia. Not that I care, I just hope her end was painful. I'm sure she left the Hamilton-Sweeney's behind when the firm imploded. We know Amory got out quickly.
The main part of the book only covers about 7 months of time, but the lack of growth in most of the characters is sad. William kicked his drug habit, but he still remained an adolescent, personality wise.
Next to Richard Groskoph my favorite character was Mercer Goodman. I'm glad he found happiness. In a book full of cretins, he was one of the truly good people. I was watching the very good Jessica Jones and I saw who should play Goodman in the movie. The actor's name is Eka Darville, who plays Jessica's neighbor Malcolm. I saw him and I thought there's Mercer Goodman, for the movie he would have to get a much more conservative haircut though. Also Jerry Jones should play Amory Gould, both are con men that are into themselves and don't do much good for anyone else. Also both destroyed formerly great organizations.
I would give this book a C+ grade. It seemed like every time I got into the book, Hallberg would switch to different characters. Then I would get into their stories and then it's on to new characters. Perhaps the book would have been better if he broke the book into main characters and followed their stories all the way through. Then the next section would be about another character etc., at least 100 pages could have been eliminated without any problem, perhaps Nicky's whole story. He didn't bring anything to the book besides loathing. So before you read this book, try to temper your expectations.
themusicaddict
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