Lush Life; Price, not Strayhorn

Been making my way through Richard Price's engrossing "Lush Life" of late. Interesting sort of non-book review here. "I’ve always been interested in when the hyphen disappears — you know, actor-waiter, cabdriver-writer — and you have to settle for who you are,” Price says. His protagonist Eric Cash is not so much a hero or anti-hero; he lives the 20something-30something hyphenated, floundering existence Price alludes to above. Price evokes in loving and disenchanted detail the vastly changed Lower East Side of New York with investigative obsession. The linked review above asks if any other middle-aged white man can convincingly write in the dialect spoken in the projects - the PJ's as they're referred to here. Price's Wire screenwriting colleague George Pelecanos is the only other one I've come across. If anyone knows of someone else who can, please let me know. In the meantime, check both of these writers out.