" Lush Life " is a novel that gives us a wide , 3-D Imax portrait of a small corner of New York City ( the Lower East Side of a few years ago , at that hinge point in time , when young hipsters were beginning to push out the immigrants and the working poor ) , a novel that captures Manhattan 's magnetic appeal to dreamers and drifters , and its ability to crush the weak and unlucky and turn their dreams into disappointment and rage .