The Emperor of Ocean Park (Hardcover)

by Stephen L. Carter (Author) "THIS IS the happiest day of my life," burbles my wife of nearly nine years on what will shortly become one of the saddest days..." (more)
Key Phrases: Jack Ziegler, Uncle Jack, Colin Scott (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review
A complex, smart mystery filled with intrigue, drama, and more than a little danger awaits in Stephen L. Carter's engaging debut novel, The Emperor of Ocean Park. After the funeral of his powerful father (a federal judge whose nomination to the U.S. Supreme Court became a public scandal), Talcott Garland, an African American law professor at an Ivy League university, is left to unravel the meaning of a cryptic note and carry out "the arrangements" his father left behind. Armed with fortitude and familial devotion--though paranoid of his wife's fidelity--Talcott soon finds himself in an investigation that entangles him with a number of questionable Washington, D.C., denizens, including attorneys and government officials, law professors, the FBI, shady underworld figures, chess masters, and friends and family. All the while Talcott tries not to hurt his attorney wife's chance for a judicial nomination--and their fragile marriage--but the closer he comes to unraveling his father's dark secrets, the more dangerous things become.

Clocking in at over 650 pages, the novel could easily have been streamlined; many of Talcott's thoughts are unnecessarily repeated. But Carter's storytelling skills are adept: tension builds, surprises are genuine, clues are not handed out freely. The prose, while somewhat meandering, can be crisp and insightful, as demonstrated in Carter's description of the misguided paths of young attorneys who sacrifice

all on the altar of career... at last arriving... at their cherished career goals, partnerships, professorships, judgeships, whatever kind of ships they dream of sailing, and then looking around at the angry, empty waters and realizing that they have arrived with nothing, absolutely nothing, and wondering what to do with the rest of their wretched lives.

--Michael Ferch

From Publishers Weekly
Carter, a Yale law professor and distinguished conservative African-American intellectual known for his nonfiction (The Culture of Disbelief), has written a first-rate legal thriller guaranteed to broaden his audience. The narrator, Talcott Garland, is a law professor at Elm Harbor University whose occasional Carteresque editorializing about politics and justice are saved from didacticism by his abiding existential loneliness. The mystery at the heart of the novel stems from Tal's father's disgrace: Judge Oliver Garland (a Robert Bork meets Clarence Thomas type) was nominated by Ronald Reagan for a Supreme Court seat, but brought down in the Senate hearings when it was revealed that he had a friendship with Jack Ziegler, a wild-card former CIA agent now rumored to be an organized crime kingpin. When the judge dies of what looks like a heart attack and Ziegler turns up at his funeral, Tal is initiated into a quest to uncover mysterious "arrangements" his father made in the event of his untimely demise. Various shady entities observe Tal chasing down the judge's clues, which include a cryptic note ("you have little time.... Excelsior! It begins!") and derive from chess strategy. Meanwhile, Talcott is going through a rough patch: his wife, Kimmer, a high-powered attorney, is probably cheating on him, his Elm Harbor law school colleagues are suspicious of him and a fake FBI man is following him around. As Talcott digs deeper, he uncovers a vein of corruption that runs all the way to the top, and his own life becomes threatened. This thriller, which touches electrically on our sexual, racial and religious anxieties, will be the talk of the political in-crowd this summer.
Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 672 pages
• Publisher: Knopf; 1st edition (June 4, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0375413634
• ISBN-13: 978-0375413636
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.1 x 1.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.3 out of 5 stars See all reviews (382 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #357,122 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

• This is item 1 in The Today Show Book Club Series.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

29 of 32 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Fiction For Chess Players, December 6, 2002

By	Virginia Lore "rumtussle" (Seattle, WA United States) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Stephen L. Carter's The Emperor of Ocean Park has a lot going for it. His main character, Talcott Garland, is a professor of law and a second generation upper-middle class black man. As such, he is positioned to reflect on society from a point of view not often seen in literature. As the novel progresses, racism, classism, political viewpoint and a quest to live one's religious principles are explored as Garland seeks to resolve a chain of events brought about by the sudden death of The Judge, his father.

Characters, while well-rounded and viable, are seen through Garland's miasma of depression and misanthropy, and are not very likable. Garland himself lacks some vital element that makes a main character sympathetic. Although I felt sorry for him, I never really identified with him, and thus couldn't bring myself to sustain my interest in his fate over the course of the entire book. Though this could be described as a murder mystery, at over 600 pages it is much more profound than that. At times, the profundity threatened the movement of the plot. Often Garland had figured things out way ahead of the reader, so that important plot elements were revealed only in retrospect.

While it's evident that Carter is a brilliant strategist, for me, reading The Emperor of Ocean Park was like playing chess with a world-class player--I was too many moves behind and found the experience (while illuminating) more frustrating than entertaining.

18 of 19 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Frustrating...I tried to like it, but unsatisfying ending., October 5, 2002

By	clutchhitter (Boca Raton, FL USA) - See all my reviews

(1) Too many secondary characters receive too much attention

(2) A crucial character who is set-up to be intriguing turns out to have no impact on the plot at all

(3) A big secret you were waiting for...is never revealed

(4) Most of the characters are extremely self-absorbed

(5) For a book that supposedly relates the experiences an unfamiliar world. I found very little that could be called insightful or even fresh.

(6)There's a couple of nice passages that made me say "right on!" But not enough.

(7) Sub-plots introduced early in the book have very abrupt endings midway through...muting their impact or cause you to wonder why it wasn't edited out.

(8) At close to 700 pages the pacing was very inconsistent: at times I coudn't put it down, but more often I felt anchored in one spot for 50 to 100 pages at a time.

(9) The tone was unremittingly downbeat.

20 of 22 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Not What I Expected, July 22, 2002

By	Myrna Pennisi "myrnapen" (Wading River, NY USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This book has gotten a lot of good press- good reviews and the distinction of being The Today Show's first book club selection. Not a bad introduction to the market. The reality, in this case, doesn't live up to the hype.
Carter's style might be better suited to writing non-fiction than fiction. The book bills itself as a thriller, yet lacks the pace needed to sustain a good thriller. Of course, there's more to this book than the solving of a mystery, for the questions to be answered are woven into an examination of the deceased Judge Oliver Garland's character, politics, and familial role as well as an exploration of love, fidelity, loyalty - all issues of life beyond the solving of a mystery. Maybe that's the problem - Carter bites off so much, that it takes him over 650 pages to digest it all, and ultimately leaves the reader with the feeling of indigestion one gets from overindulging at a buffet rather than with the satiety of having enjoyed a fine meal. There's enough material for two novels - one a mystery, one a character (or issue) analysis. Each character has his own agenda: Older son Addison is the most detached from the family crisis, although he actually knows more than his siblings. Mariah, mother of 5 (to become 6 in the course of the book) has such comforts in her affluent life that she is left with no reponsibilities, a condition which unleashes her active imagination in seeking the answer to the family mystery. Younger son Talcott narrates. He is a complex character with personal issues that sometimes hinder his search. Are we following his relationship with his deceased father, who he refers to formally as "The Judge," or is it his splintering relationship with wife Kimmer, a candidate for a Court of Appeals judgeship? Talcott, Tal, Misha, all the same person, has definite issues with race, despite his black middle class upbringing and his position as professor of law at a New England college. Talcott's issues with his straying and ambitious wife Kimmer are woven into his quest to solve the mystery of "the arrangements" his father left to be found after his death. Kimmer, consumed with her upward move, is resentful that Talcott's search will jeopardize her candidacy and distances herself from him emotionally. Talcott, on the other hand, recognizing the weakness of their relationship, would be willing to continue it since to him, "love is a behavior, not an emotion." These sound like the words of one who can think, but can't emote. Only with his young son is Talcott capable of emotional love.
There is more character development in this novel than in the typical thriller, yet none of the characters are particularly likeable. Addison is too absent, Mariah too pathetic, Tal too much of an intellectual snob. The least likeable one, though, is the deceased Judge Oliver Garland, who set the whole plot in motion, controlling his children's lives even from the grave. 650 pages after the search for "the arrangements" began, I was just happy to have reached the end.