'The Wanderers' by Richard Price

I bought The Wanderers maybe a couple of years ago, yet when a time came for me to choose a book to read, I always managed to overlook it. So I'm glad that I finally gave Richard Price a whirl. Really glad, in fact, as this book is incredible.

Price's profile has risen in recent years given the success of The Wire -- the superb HBO drama for which he wrote five episodes -- and his most recent book, Lush Life, was published to much acclaim in March of last year. This is his first novel, written back in 1974 when Price was just 24. It tells the story of the Wanderers, a teenage gang in the Bronx in the early 1960s, who fight a daily battle against violent fathers and vicious rival gangs, as well as their own raging hormones. It's a true coming-of-age tale, as each member of the gang, bar one, gradually finds a way out of his predicament and the strictures of the hard and dangerous neighbourhood he has grown up in.

Price's writing is exciting, sharp and full of life, and frequently hilarious. His obvious forté is dialogue, and his ear for the intricacies and inventive colloquialisms of teenage conversation is striking. His characters are beautifully assembled and well-rounded, and he paints a vivid, if harrowing, picture of 1960s New York life. Having put off reading this book for far too long, I'm eager now to work my way through his bibliography and trace the evolution of a clearly exceptional writer.