'The best book we've done on the Book Club this year' - Simon Mayo Radio 2 Book Club 'A novel of head-snapping ambition and heart-stopping power' - Michiko Kakutani, New York Times 'Love The Wire? Then read this' - GQ 'Extraordinary...dazzling... a sprawling, generous, warm-hearted epic of 1970s New York' - Observer 'You're soon zipping through Hallberg's vividly realised New York like a child discovering Hogwarts for the first time' - The Times 'The kind of exuberant, zeitgeisty novel, like The Bonfire of the Vanities or The Goldfinch, that you'll either love, hate or pretend to have read' - Vogue 'The hype is justified- this is the year's must-read book' - Shortlist NEW YORK. 1977. BE THERE WHEN IT EXPLODES. It's New Year's Eve, 1976, and New York is a city on the edge. As midnight approaches, a blizzard sets in - and amidst the fireworks, an unmistakable sound rings out across Central Park. Gunshots. Two of them. The search for the shooter will bring together a rich cast of New Yorkers. From the reluctant heirs to one of the city's greatest fortunes, to a couple of Long Island kids drawn to the punk scene downtown. From the newly arrived and enchanted, to those so sick of the city they want to burn it to the ground. All these lives are connected to one another - and to the life that still clings to that body in the park. Whether they know it or not, they are bound up in the same story - a story where history and revolution, love and art, crime and conspiracy are all packed into a single shell, ready to explode. Then, on July 13th, 1977, the lights go out in New York City.

Author Biography

Garth Risk Hallberg's first novel, City on Fire, was an international bestseller and was named one of the best books of the year by the Daily Telegraph, the Guardian, the Washington Post, the Independent, and Vogue, among others. His illustrated novella, A Field Guide to the North American Family was nominated for a Believer Book Award and his short fiction and essays have been published in the Guardian, and the New York Times Book Review. He is a Granta Best Young American Novelist. He lives in Brooklyn with his wife and children and is at work on a new novel.