City on Fire: A novel

Garth Risk Hallberg

Oct 2015 · Sold by Vintage

About this ebook

NATIONAL BESTSELLER • A mystery that reverberates through families, friendships, and the corridors of power in New York and "captures the city’s dangerous, magnetic allure" (The New York Times). • Streaming now on Apple TV+

“As close to a great American novel as this century has produced.” —Stephen King

New York City, 1976. Meet Regan and William Hamilton-Sweeney, estranged heirs to one of the city’s great fortunes; Keith and Mercer, the men who, for better or worse, love them; Charlie and Samantha, two suburban teenagers seduced by downtown’s punk scene; an obsessive magazine reporter and his idealistic neighbor—and the detective trying to figure out what any of them have to do with a shooting in Central Park on New Year’s Eve. 

When the blackout of July 13, 1977, plunges this world into darkness, each of these lives will be changed forever. City on Fire is an unforgettable novel about love and betrayal and forgiveness, about art and truth and rock ’n’ roll: about what people need from each other in order to live—and about what makes the living worth doing in the first place.

Ratings and reviews

Liked most things (general story/plot, characters, etc.), but reads like Burgess in his worst flights of verbosity in the HUGE overusage of some REALLY obscure and obfuscatory (I can do it too!) words and phrases. If he really got a $2 mil movie option, he was paid roughly $1 per word. Really good effort, just ignore the thesaurus software suggestions next time.

It irs so addicting to read i couldnt stop reading it 10/10 would recommend

A long read. Appreciated the writing, though a lot to keep track of.

About the author

GARTH RISK HALLBERG lives in New York with his wife and children. This is his first novel.