The panoramic new novel by the writer proclaimed by the New Yorker as "savvy," People as "hilarious," and the Los Angeles Times as "almost irresponsibly intoxicating."

City restaurant is the hottest spot in Manhattan, the place where power meets ambition in an atmosphere rich with libidinous promise. Actors, agents, politicians, athletes, and Wall Street honchos jam the restaurant nightly, dealing, being seen, and, often, making their way into the next day's headlines.

At the center of it all is City's most dedicated patron, Kyle Clayton. Kyle once wrote a novel that defined a generation, then parlayed that success into a decade of well-reported debauchery. Now he has shocked the literary world by falling in love with a Muslim woman and, more shocking still, converting to Islam. The idea of Kyle abstaining from any pleasure is a solar-plexus blow to New York nightlife.

But abstention and New York are words that were never meant to be in the same sentence. Before Gotham Tragic is over, Clayton's new marriage unravels; the super-rich owner of City rides his success to a higher plane of hubris and faces the risk of incarceration; a waitress who graced one of Kyle's wilder nights returns to haunt his days; a Muslim doorman contemplates carrying out a fatwa against Kyle, who has betrayed his new faith in an irreverent short story; and everyone comes together at the New Year's Eve party of the century-at City, of course-in a frenzy of criminal indictments, misplaced emotions, lechery, squandered wealth, and recognition that sometimes love is worth sacrifice.

Buoyantly comic and brilliantly plotted, Gotham Tragic is a story of couplehood, of the collision between East and West, and of the high price of arrogance. It is a pitch-perfect send-up of the money and celebrity culture, not a black comedy so much as a red, white, and blue one, and the next step forward for a writer whose gifts are as impressive as the Manhattan skyline.