A meaningful life - L. J. Davis

L.J. Davis's 1971 novel, A Meaningful Life, is a blistering black comedy about the
American quest for redemption through real estate and a gritty picture of New York
City in collapse. Just out of college, Lowell Lake, the Western-born hero of Davis's
novel, heads to New York, where he plans to make it big as a writer. Instead he finds
a job as a technical editor, at which he toils away while passion leaks out of his
marriage to a nice Jewish girl. Then Lowell discovers a beautiful crumbling mansion
in a crime-ridden section of Brooklyn, and against all advice, not to mention his
wife's will, sinks his every penny into buying it. He quits his job, moves in, and
spends day and night on demolition and construction. At last he has a mission: he
will dig up the lost history of his house; he will restore it to its past grandeur.
He will make good on everything that's gone wrong with his life, and he will even
murder to do it.