Garth Risk Hallberg’s debut novel about ’70s New York has reaped tons of attention for its scope and ambition, but all the hoopla can’t mask its shortcomings.
City on Fire, the debut novel from Garth Risk Hallberg, is as massive (944 stuffed-to-bursting pages) as the advance that Hallberg reportedly received for it (nearly $2 million, which would be probably unfair to mention in the first sentence of a review if it wasn’t already such a large part...
