Customer Reviews

New England White - A Novel

5 star:		(22)
4 star:		(21)
3 star:		(20)
2 star:		(8)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

After Emperor of Ocean Park, I could hardly wait for a second book from Stephen Carter. I even emailed him once to find why it was taking so long (no, he didn't respond) and so when I found out his new book was coming out last week, I rushed to my local bookstore (coupons in hand) and started reading. Once again, Carter has delivered an intriguing mystery while providing juicy tidbits about life in the rarified atmosphere of rich black intellectuals.

However, as much as I loved reading all 556 pages (whew!), I found that about halfway through the book, I started getting lost in all the details. There is just so much information he includes that after a while they start to detract from the story. More than once I thought "And who is this again?" Not that any of that stopped me from reading, it's that with so many characters, so many events, so much repetition, I was relieved to finally get to the big reveal. Yes, it was worth it find out whodunnit and why, but there is another message Carter delivers that members of both the darker nation and the paler nation will likely find themselves admitting, even if to no one other than to themselves.

My favorite scene in the book? When Julia finds herself in an unfamiliar neighborhood, knocking on doors and understanding that it's race, not money/class/privilege that people see first. And that truth is not lost on her.

Does Knopf still employ editors? This book has a fascinating plot, but following it is like trying to find a jewel amid waist-deep weeds. There are just too many irrelevant characters, pointless digressions and tiresome, unnecessary details. At 556 pages, this book is about 200 pages too long, and slogging through it becomes a chore. Yes, Mr. Carter displays many wonderful turns of phrase, and yes, savoring a literate work by a black author who knows the racial score is very satisfying, but the knowledgeable reader must fight the urge to shout "For God's sake, man, get on with it!" The premise of this book is unique and brilliant; the execution, however, falls short.

The characters in this book were very compelling, especially Julia Carlyle, the wife of the university president, and her daughter. Mrs. Carlyle is an elitist African American raised at Dartmouth College and now an assistant dean at an Ivy League divinity school. As she works to uncover what is behind the murder of an ex-lover, she learns - for lack of a better term - how the other half lives. In her world, things get done because of who she is and to whom she is married - someone bothers her and he loses her job; she is an assistant dean without getting a degree - in her stratus it is who you are that matters. That group of "who you are" clashes with the more typically portrayed white privileged class which sets up the mystery portion of the book.

The book is a mystery only secondary to the exploration of the class strata among African Americans and how that compares and mirrors the white classes. The mystery is one for which Oliver Stone would be proud. It is conspiracy upon conspiracy upon complicity mixed with antagonism among whites and blacks and blacks and blacks. The black elite strata is manifested in elite clubs who pull strings behind the scenes in our society. Mr. Carter disavows the existence of such clubs in an afterword.

The characters truly carry this book, because it is s-l-o-o-o-w. I kept waiting for it to heat up; after all there are murders, conspiracies and intrigue, but somehow all of that was overcome and the pace remained slow throughout.

This is an intriguing look at American society from an elite black's view, which is a rare one to see and experience. Unfortunately, the slow pace detracted from the work.

Seldom have I been more disappointed by a book than I was by New England White (NEW), as I enjoyed and felt enlightened by his first book, The Emperor of Ocean Park.

I agree with the other reviewers who commented on the book's unpruned state. Carter isn't creating red herrings or phosophical asides with his over-writing, he's indulging in the sound of his own voice. But that does fit with the character of his male lead, one of the most chauvinistic and overbearing characters to be found in modern fiction. His wife, the heroine, knows she's being demeaned, but does almost nothing to help herself or her children, despite the words of the narrator in claiming she reaches a transcendent state: she's even supposed to be grateful that her husband hired a secret bodyguard for her as he knew she was going to be in life-threatening situations because of his own actions.

As for the plot, not even Robert Ludlum at his most ludicrous ever devised a more complicated and impossible set-up. As with most conspiracy theories, the silence and obedience of literally hundreds of people has to be secured to make the conspiracy work. Sorry, folks, but humans just don't act that way.

I guess the writing was good. And the on-going commentary on US race relations offered some insights, but generally of the sort already known by any well-read reader who has not limited his or her reading by race.

I hate to be low man on the totem pole with the fewest star review, but boy was reading this novel a challenge. The Emperor of Ocean Park had the same problems this book has, and I criticized it here for those very problems, but it had characters to savor and themes that resonated and was, despite its drawbacks, a very satisfying read. This is quite different. Same flaws, no redeeming qualities, and we have a boggy swamp. This is one tiresome slog through a world populated with folks at the extreme end of the Bell Curve. Nearly everyone is astonishingly talented, accomplishing great things and moving on to their next wondrous achievement. Many great thrillers have been written about the ordinary guy who unexpectedly finds himself in extraordinary circumstances. But the characters described here seem as if Carter gathered Albert Einstein, Bill Gates, Oprah Winfrey, Jack Welch and Mortimer Adler and tossed them together to see what happens. Oh, and a teenage prodigy who can recall battle maps from memory while practicing French, calculus, and whatever else. Can't even imagine a parallel for her.

In addition, I just kept wondering why anyone would create such a convoluted puzzle. Who would expect this knot to be unraveled? OK, I'll accept a few conincidences, and the clever deciphering of an obscure clue in a mystery novel. But this book overwhelmed me with the unlikely and the incredible and the astounding. One thing was made clear though; Kimmer is even more unpleasant here than in The Emperor of Ocean Park. Good riddance! And Mr. Carter, please, please, no more "darker nation" and "paler nation." I counted how many times you used them here, and it is way too many.

I sought out this book after hearing a review on NPR. It was praised as an involving mystery and class study. I was disappointed on both counts. As a whodunit, I gave up caring because of the slow pace and random plot twists. I also found it hard to become involved because I found the author so obsessed with race that I never really met his characters on any deeper level than their whiney attitudes towards race and class. Carter seemed openly hostile to the "paler nation" in his use of language and uniformly unwholesome white characters. Perhaps this wouldn't have stood out as much if his black characters were presented with any resonance. Carter's most flattering prose seemed reserved for the Cadillac Escalade driven by the main characters.

There is certainly a great deal to be said about class and race at all levels of New England society. Not much said here though.

As a lover of Carter's firstnovel, I started this one with energy and hope. Two or three hundred pages later, I recognized that my expectations weren't to be. The details of New England(and upper class) "darker nation" society were great, the descriptions of obviously New Haven interesting to this once Yalie, BUT... As others have said, so unnecessarily LONG! And the clues Kellen left--how on earthcould anyone have expected anyone to follow through on them. Three stars for all the good New England detail, but how disappointing this novel is in general. I hope Carter tries it again, and has a good editor to help.

The "really terrific" part of this review title reflects the fact that reading NEW is enjoyable in a slow, floating-gently-down-the-stream-with-nothing-better-to-do way. It's a measure of the author's talent that the book is enjoyable despite its many flaws, all of which add up to a "lousy" rating: the writing style is convoluted (the average sentence occupies two inches of text and contains eleven commas plus a dash or two); the characters are unlikeable; the mystery is solved through the gradual revelation of clues too obscure to be believable; and the book is hundreds of pages too long. Read NEW when it comes out in paperback, if at all.

I wss so anxious to read this work by Stephen L. Carter, because I thoroughly enjoyed Emperor of Ocean Park. I found myself getting bogged down by the first few chapters, but with determination I plowed on. Unfortunately the experience did not get any better. It appears that Mr. Carter assumes all of his readers enjoy keeping a dictionary and a thesarus by their side as they read for please. I did enjoy the challenges of increasing my vocabulary, but it all got to be too much.

I'm just flabbergasted that Alfred Knopf, the publisher, would let loose this torrent of words (> 500 pages, hardback) without further editing. This is my first Carter book, and he's definitely got talent. But the book reads like Carter just scratched out his manuscript and that's more or less what was published. C'mon, guys! Writing is all about revision.