Garth Risk Hallberg lights up literary world with City on Fire

Garth Risk Hallberg spent nearly a decade writing his fictional tome about gritty 1970s New York — but as the manuscript crept past the 900 page mark, the debut novelist worried that no publisher would bite.

Short version: they did. Critics love City on Fire, and Hallberg has become one of the hottest writers of the moment.

Today he joins guest host Tom Power to explain how a Billy Joel song lit a spark inside him, why he believes big books are thriving in the age of short attention spans, and how long reads help us deepen our general empathy. 

"You have been living inside these people," he says of our relationship with characters in literary epics, and he says that point of view doesn't go away when you close the book.

"The muscle in you that knows how to imagine living inside of other people is somehow strengthened and engaged." 

WEB EXTRA | Watch the book trailer for City on Fire below.