Book Review: New England White - A Novel by Stephen L. Carter - Page 2

If Emperor was tinged with a little Grisham and Turow, New England in full foliage demands to be seen with a little Dan Brown, for its Da Vinci Code-style cliffhanger chapters and secret society sideshow; Stephen King, for a couple ethereal characters and a creep show backwoodsman; and a little Tom Wolfe for a suburban social swirl that sees "Six years on Hunter’s Meadow Road, where the houses stood continents apart, and Julia had learned the names of perhaps two families in the near vicinity. Here was the secret segregated truth at the heart of integration." She goes on, "No vandalism was committed. No crosses were burned. No epithets were uttered. The family was not attacked. It was simply ignored."

Of course, Carter, Yale Professor of Law and author of seven books of nonfiction, including Culture of Disbelief: How American Law and Politics Trivialize Religious Devotion (1993), and Civility: Manners, Morals and the Etiquette of Democracy (1998), sticks pretty much to the fictional matter at hand and seems to be having fun in experimenting with style and character. But there are times when he refreshingly yields to some more direct social and political impulse, ranging from a bit of skewering of academic doublespeak (this from his most levelheaded character), to a demonstration of lingering but overt racism and humiliation encountered by Julia when she’s inexplicably banned from her longtime neighborhood beach - by an old student of hers, yet.

It takes all kinds, as Carter well knows and as he well illustrates in his deeply-etched and memorable secondary characters, from Dickensian to rapscallion. There’s ever-faithful Mr. Flew, Lemaster’s indefatigable assistant, so ecstatically happy to be able to finally use his self-defense skills in coming to the rescue of Julia: "Know what? I can see why people go to war. It’s fun!"

Then on the other end of the enthusiasm and enunciation scale is Trevor Land, secretary of the university who, "with his tiny eyes and rimless spectacles and vested suits with gold watch chain, his delicate chin and soft, inept hands," looked like a "foppish time server. His habit of mouthing nonsense words — Yes and Oh, no doubt and I see formed half his vocabulary -- confirmed the impression."

Which helps confirm -- setting aside the nonsense a spell — the wide appeal of New England White: It’s fun! Oh, no doubt...

Article Author: Gordon Hauptfleisch

Gordon Hauptfleisch is a Blogcritics Books Editor, freelance writer, and book reviewer for San Diego Union Tribune Books (R.I.P.). For many years he worked in and managed bookstores and record stores, and most recently was purchasing manager for San Diego Technical Books. …

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