Returning to Dempsy, Price's fictional, downtrodden New Jersey city in his novels Clockers and Freedom-land, the street-smart author once again stares contemporary race relations in the face. This time he focuses on Ray, a white TV scriptwriter and former high school teacher who returns to Jersey from Hollywood to reconnect with his teenage daughter, only to land in intensive care with a fractured skull from getting whacked in the head with his own vase. Investigating the assault is Nerese Amnions, a portly black cop indebted to Ray for a childhood gesture of kindness. Ray knows who attacked him but refuses to give up a name.
As in a classic whodunit, Price sets up a cast of potential perps, all with motive: There's Ray's ex-wife, his new girlfriend, her just-out-of-the-joint husband and others. As in Freedomland, the point of view and timeline change between chapters, slowing the plot, and there are long talky stretches. As to what does happen, the title gives a hint: In Biblical times Samaritans were considered dangerous heretics; the trick lies in figuring out who the Samaritan is (or are). Though slow going, by the end the book just about satisfies. Price's prose remains dead-on, and this time you'll likely forget the plodding, faux-thriller plot. (Knopf, $25)
BOTTOM LINE: Good enough Samaritan
Amazing Grace
by Steve Turner
A song has to be amazing to merit a 223-page book. Fortunately, "Amazing Grace" is not only one of the most-recorded songs but one whose history reads like a bizarre adventure.
The song's author, John Newton, was an 18th-century slave trader who believed prayer saved him from a storm at sea. Writing the Christian hymn in 1772, he became a minister and abolitionist. The song has since been recorded by Judy Collins, Destiny's Child, Bryan Ferry and even Allen Ginsberg. Turner measures different perspectives—one military officer considered the tune great martial music—with a hipster's eye and a parishioner's faith. (Ecco, $23.95)
BOTTOM LINE: Get to know hymn
by Colleen McCullough
Billed as a novel about Caesar and Cleopatra, the final installment of McCullough's series on ancient Rome confines the beguiling Egyptian queen to barely 100 of 748 pages. Alas, the rest is devoted to mind-numbing details of Caesar's battles to expand the empire and family squabbles that make TV soaps seem highbrow. And given McCullough's habit of interspersing contemporary lingo with period dialogue ("Knock me over with a pine needle!" says a member of the Kill Caesar Club), you may want to wait for the movie of the week. (Simon & Schuster, $28)
BOTTOM LINE: The empire strikes out
by Richard Powers
"In some empty hall, my brother is still singing," begins Powers's new novel, which continues with breathless urgency for some 600 pages. With his characteristic mastery of structure and language, Powers has orchestrated a story that, despite its pitfalls and caesuras, plays with bravura to its end.
The singer of the opening line is Jonah Strom, a mixed-race musical prodigy. His parents, a German Jewish physicist and a black singer, attempt to shield their children with music, but the kids become proof that a life untroubled by prejudice isn't possible. Jonah and his brother Joseph struggle in the white halls of classical music, while Ruth, the youngest, joins with black militants. Powers sets the saga against a back-drop involving questions of time and race: The former is artfully woven, with alluring knots and switchbacks; with the latter, however, Powers's efforts seem facile. The occasional slips are forgivable, though, because this tale reverberates long after Jonah's last note has been sung. (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, $27)
BOTTOM LINE: Music to your eyes
Page-turner of the week
by Ed McBain
A city councilman is shot dead onstage before a fundraising rally. But Det. Oliver Wendell Weeks has a bigger problem. While he was investigating, someone purloined his prize possession: his manuscript for a crime novel. Fans of the venerable 87th Precinct series love to hate Ollie—a thoroughly odious bigot, glutton and mangier of many languages—and his star turn inspires McBain to give new meaning to deadpan humor. Excerpts from Ollie's atrocious tome (starring a sexy female cop who makes statements like "'This is what they call The Denouement,' I thought," plus a Jamaican informant who speaks only in rhyme) poke fun at the conventions of crime writing as well as some of McBain's own quirks, like his thinly veiled fictionalization of New York City geography. Meanwhile there's plenty of grit as well as wit as the 87th's better-mannered boys and girls in blue hit the streets to help solve the case. After some grim recent entries in the series, this loosely knit lark offers a giggle on every page. And brace yourself: Ollie even gets a romantic interest. (Simon & Schuster, $25)
BOTTOM LINE: Feloniously funny
by Rohinton Mistry
Mistry, the author of the 1996 Oprah selection A Fine Balance, returns to grapple with class conflicts, forbidden romances and familial secrets in modern India, but this time his themes (lately explored also in the hit indie film Monsoon Wedding) feel as familiar as rice.
Where the author excels, however, is in his use of language, which vacillates between curry-pungent and rosewater-delicate. Watching her 9-year-old son feed her 79-year-old father, "Roxana felt she understood the meaning of it all, of birth and life and death," writes Mistry. "My son, she thought, my father, and the food I cooked...A lump came to her throat; she swallowed."
Such moments shine in an otherwise plodding work. Centered around Nariman, a kindly patriarch suffering from Parkinson's disease, and his three bickering grown children, the story jumps between the present (the family's unraveling) and the past (in his youth, Nariman lost his true love because his parents didn't think she was suitable). In both eras Mistry finds little new under the hot Bombay sun. (Knopf, $26)
BOTTOM LINE: A tired family affair
by Alice McDermott
Fifteen-year-old Theresa is a babysitter and dog-walker to East Hampton's rich. A lovely loner whose middle-class parents have upper-crust dreams for her, Theresa is devoted to her young charges and ambivalent about her blossoming beauty. A sweet summer turns sour, though, when her 8-year-old cousin Daisy comes to visit and begins to suffer from mysterious bruises.
McDermott, author of the 1998 National Book Award winner Charming Billy, renders with subtlety and restraint an adolescent's blurry view of the adult world. In spare prose she paints deceptively simple pictures and allows the complex truths hidden within to slowly appear. Her novel is a quietly resonant study of the contrast between, innocence and experience, and Theresa makes for a soulful seeker and guide. (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, $23)
BOTTOM LINE: Golden Child
- Contributors:
- Edward Nawotka,
- Dawn Eden,
- Debby Waldman,
- Allison Lynn,
- Samantha Miller,
- Michelle Tauber,
- Michelle Vellucci.
Saved by the Bell Reunion
The hookups, the meltdowns, the memoires
The case reveals what was really going on what they think of each other now!
