Close to the Bone: A Novel [Hardcover]

Jake Lamar (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 19, 1999

In the tradition of Bebe Moore Campbell, Terry McMillan, and E. Lynn Harris, author Jake Lamar has created a riveting novel of three young couples whose lives intersect in curious ways. And the question that torments all of them: What is a black man?

Hal Hardaway is a young black executive, struggling to get along with Corky Winterset, his white girlfriend, who holds him in "constant suspicion of machismo."

Walker DuPree, Hal's former roommate, is wrestling with his mixed racial heritage while trying to avoid marriage to his persistent black girlfriend, Sadie Broom.

Dr. Emmett Mercy, self-help guru and author of Blactualization: Everyday Strategies for Reconnecting with Your Authentic African-American Self, is obsessed with gaining fame and fortune--at any cost. Meanwhile, his wife LaTonya shares a secret, sordid history with Hal.

The story moves from New York to Paris, from Amsterdam to Craven, Delaware, finally culminating on the eve of one of the defining events of our time: the verdict in O.J. Simpson's criminal trial. Using the public spectacle of the celebrated murder case in counterpoint to the private lives of his characters, Jake Lamar--one of America's most original writers--paints
a stunning portrait of a society grappling with fundamental problems of race and sex, identity and justice.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

As in his first novel, The Last Integrationist, Lamar concerns himself with African American identity and interracial romance?here, in a convoluted tale involving several mixed couples and graduates of the same school, Craven University in Delaware. As the O.J. Simpson murder case plays out in the media, Hal Hardaway, a young black executive, is struggling to get along with his white girlfriend, Corky Winterset, who once briefly dated Hal's former college roommate, Walker DuPree. DuPree is of mixed racial heritage, a fact that torments him. Hal introduces the racially confused Walker to a good friend, Sadie Broom; just as Sadie believes she is about to march to the altar with Walker, he becomes suddenly wealthy, a result of his long-lost, white father's inheritance. Walker takes off for Amsterdam to smoke pot and find himself as an artist. There he meets, Eva, a Scandinavian coffee-shop waitress with whom he falls in love; she, however, is interested in Jean-Luc, a Frenchman. Ensuing events bring some couples together and keep others apart. Though it begins with the probing question asked by self-help leader Dr. Emmett Mercy, "What is a black man?" Lamar's novel remains mired in the superficial shuttling from New York to Europe of his stereotypical characters. Corky is a spoiled white woman who loves black men; Hal works for a family-owned media and hair product empire that sounds like Ebony magazine. Moreover, Lamar's unexceptional prose does not pull the reader along, and, like much else about the novel, the significance of the Simpson trial never sounds a deeper, more profound note. Author tour.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

Lamar's second novel (after The Last Integrationist, Crown, 1996) is a sensitive and romantic look at race and relationships in the 1990s. With the O.J. Simpson trial as backdrop, three young African American men search for love and justice in a world still separated by color. Hal is a hot-shot executive in love with a white woman who is burdened with her own attitudes about race and men. Walker, an artist of mixed race, runs away to Europe to escape responsibility and a girlfriend who is determined to marry him. Emmett is an ambitious pop psychologist who is using his wife's talent to achieve fame and fortune while she fights hidden memories of incest and rape. All of Lamar's characters have depth and warmth as they try to transcend culture, gender, and color and forge their own identities. Suggest this to Terry McMillan fans for the male point of view. Highly recommended.?Ellen Flexman, Indianapolis-Marion Cty. P.L.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 343 pages
• Publisher: Crown; 1st edition (January 19, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0517704072
• ISBN-13: 978-0517704073
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (14 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,593,164 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars I wasn't impressed, November 8, 1999

By 

D. Bernardez (Gilbert, AZ USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Close to the Bone: A Novel (Hardcover)

When I read in the summary of the book about how the characters were involved in the OJ Simpson trial I shouldn't have even bothered. The constant references to the trial and how these character looked up to and admired OJ wasn't needed. It didn't add anything to the book if he took it out it wouldn't be missed. The characters weren't at all interesting, actually I found most of them rather annoying. I didn't like any of them. Unfortunately this book didn't hold my attention at all. I appauld the man's efforts but I wasn't impressed with this work. I wish him luck on future novels.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars entertaining story about relationships..., August 15, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Close to the Bone: A Novel (Hardcover)

I enjoyed this book, however it did leave something to be desired. I agree with the reader who said Lamar didn't seem to know how to end the story...at the book's conclusion I felt the story wasn't "finished". Some parts of the plot were too drawn out. All in all, I think it is a realistic look at relationships in general (not just "black relationships"). I would definitley read another book by this author.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Why The Fuss?, March 30, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Close to the Bone: A Novel (Hardcover)

After reading Lamar's book, then reading other reader's reviews (whom I rely on far more than the "experts"), then reading the book again, I can at last say I'm completely clueless as to why it was so well received. Lamar's writing style, while by no means atrocious, is average at best. His penchant for repeating the same information is not only redundant but highly annoying to the seasoned reader. His characters were case studies in how NOT to act: selfish, arrogant, whiny and just plain silly. There is nothing more disconcerting than reading a book in which the characters are defined by sex. What could have been a sensitive and intelligent investigation into the problems African Americans have faced for decades instead turned out to be a written version of the dating game, with the characters achieving happiness only after pairing into the "proper" combinations. The end of the book left me feeling the heros and heroines were no better off than when they started. Throw in the O.J. Simpson trial as a parallel to the characters lives and the rest is pure torture.