City on Fire by Garth Risk Hallberg will be featured on the Radio 2 Book Club on Monday 19 October.
The book was selected with the help of a panel made up of Reading Agency and library staff from across the UK.
We have an exclusive extract available for you to read as well as some discussion questions for your reading group.
City on Fire
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.
Selection panel review
Our reading panel of staff from The Reading Agency and public library staff really enjoyed City on Fire – here are some of their comments:
“I was daunted by the length of this novel, and wasn’t sure if I could finish it. However, I got to 100 pages and found that I wanted to keep reading…and reading and reading. It’s the size of three normal novels and reading it is a bit like watching a box set – Breaking Bad or The Wire – characters are given time to develop and you feel as if you’re really immersed in a particular time and place. It’s set in 1970s New York – a depressed and unstable city, where crime rates are high and punk music is just taking off – and you feel like you really get to know its streets and all their sights and sounds. It also has a strong plot centred around a shooting that happens early on and the investigation into who was responsible, which ends up showing how all the various characters from different walks of life are connected. It reminded me a bit of Dickens – massive, sprawling and ambitious, but very entertaining with some slightly larger than life characters and a great plot.”
“It’s an epic and engrossing book that I’m going to be talking about and recommending to friends and family.”
“As soon as I saw this book and read the premise I was in love. From the start I was drawn in to this world, as it cleverly weaved the story around the disparate characters from all across the city. And New York City itself is the greatest character of all – you’ll feel like you were there, and you’ll be bereft when it’s over!”
About the author
Garth Risk Hallberg’s stories and essays have appeared in the New York Times Magazine, New York Times Book Review, New York magazine, Slate, Los Angeles Times, and Best New American Voices 2008. His illustrated novella, A Field Guide to the North American Family, was nominated for the Believer Book Award. He is 36 years old, and lives in Brooklyn with his wife and children.
A word from Garth
“I was thrilled to learn that City on Fire had been chosen for the Radio 2 Book Club. And it was a special honour to know that librarians were some of the readers making the choice. One of the mysteries I hoped to explore, in drawing together characters from such far-flung parts of the metropolis, is how ordinary people might participate in something larger than themselves. How we might make contact with lives other than our own. And what are libraries – what are book clubs – if not an inspiring kind of answer? Reading, as a series of encounters with different kinds of people, has changed my life, and is changing it still. I can’t wait to hear what kinds of encounters readers who take part in the Club will have with this story.”
Get involved
Tune in to Simon Mayo’s Drivetime show on Monday 19 October to hear a live interview with Garth Risk Hallberg talking about his book.
Win 10 copies of the epic City on Fire for your reading group – just check out our Noticeboard
Have you read City on Fire? You can share your thoughts with us on Twitter, or post a review.
Want to find out more? Take a look at the Radio 2 Book Club Twitter feed or find out more on the Radio 2 Book Club website
