City On Fire: A Novel

"Some people look at a giant novel with dread. Then there are those of us who approach it with reverence, even glee. If you’re the latter, you’re probably aware of Garth Risk Hallberg’s debut doorstop, City on Fire, because of the hype that surrounded its publication. Is the book worth the nearly $2 million Knopf paid for it? That’s for you to decide, but I can assure you that it is certainly worth reading all 944 pages. Hallberg is incapable of writing a boring sentence, and the story, set in 1977 New York City, has multiple narrators and myriad threads — but each piece fits together so tightly, you’ll actually want to read to the end to see how the whole picture develops."