Last fall, the publisher bought this book for $2 million, big bucks indeed for a first novel even if Scott Rudin had already optioned the films rights. But respected book critic Hallberg writes likes a dream, and the plot should yank in anyone who loved Don DeLillo's Underworld, Tom Wolfe's Bonfire of the Vanities, and other big-picture works. In 1970s New York, with the July 13, 1977, blackout fast approaching, a shooting in Central Park crisscrosses the lives of rich but disaffected Regan and William Hamilton-Sweeney; Keith and Mercer, the men who love them; punk-obsessed suburban teens Charlie and Samantha; and more. With sale rights to 15 countries and a big national tour; one of the fall's biggest books.

This epic, well-written, and highly entertaining first novel is set in New York City from around Christmas 1976 to the blackout of July 1977. Years earlier, wealthy widower William Hamilton-Sweeney had become engaged to a woman whose wheeler-dealer brother takes over the family's business empire and pushes aside William's children, Regan and William III. By late 1976, Regan is separated from her husband, while her brother has emerged from the Sixties with a heroin habit and is alienated from the entire family. He's also pursuing a relationship with Mercer Goodman, an intelligent young black man from Georgia. Meanwhile, remnants of the band William once belonged to have holed up on Manhattan's Lower East Side and are plotting some kind of a revolution, possibly violent. Lost souls attracted to the band include Charlie Weisbarger and Samantha Cicciaro, both of whom are central to several of the plot threads interwoven within these many pages. It all comes together or unravels on the wild, riotous night of the blackout, probably one of the low points in recent New York City history and vividly depicted in a suitable denouement for this anticipated blockbuster of a novel. VERDICT Throughout, Hallberg expertly handles the multiple shifts in perspective, vibrantly portraying a specific time and place and creating memorable characters—especially Charlie and Regan, a complicated mess of a poor little rich girl who manages to be heroic in her own way—all wandering the vast, ongoing American dreamscape that is New York City. [See Prepub Alert, 4/13/15.]—James Coan, SUNY at Oneonta Lib.