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Summary: Excellent Voice
Review: I like this book. Even though the wimpy man was very annoying. and the storyline needed tighten up here and there. It was excellent read.
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Summary: Unusual peephole into ignored segment of black society
Review: As a student of sociology, I found The Emperor of Ocean Park to be a true gem. The inner voice of a black man raised with discipline and demands to excel made upon him by his parents in an upper middle class milieu. To see the world through these eyes was a wonderful experience. The media so often pretends that this segment of American society simply does not exist. It is time that it is given a voice. That is in an entertaining mystery makes it all the better. No ponderous tract this, although I agree it could have been substantially shorter. Even when the hero succumbs to racial paranoia, his brain manages to think its way out of it. Should be read by many of those who can only see blacks in one dimension-poor and inarticulate.
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Summary: The Emperor of Ocean Park
Review: Stephen L. Carter, a Yale law professor, has written many excellent books of nonfiction. "The Emperor of Ocean Park" is his first novel. Talcott Garland, an African-American law professor at Elm Harbor University, investigates the death of his father Judge Oliver Garland, who was nominated to the US Supreme Court by Ronald Reagan, of an apparent heart attack. His father had made arrangements should he meet an untimely death. "The Emperor of Ocean Park" is a very good suspense novel. I agree with some reviewers that it could have been 200 pages shorter, but I thought it was a very entertaining read.
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Summary: Emporer reigns
Review: I am not a chess player, really, and I had never heard of problem composing or composers. However, Carter's use of this intellectual activity to help present social commentary was wonderfully subtle. Now I am interested in exploring composing. The dipiction of the black middle class seems just right (at least to me, a black female who has never been a member of that group). There is a rare honesty about the characters. I wish I could have written it!!
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Summary: A book I definitely recommend
Review: "The Emperor of Ocean Park" is both a contemporary mystery story concerning the secrets of the father who has just died, as well as a story of life being lived by a variety characters who come alive on the pages. It reminds me of some of my favorite fiction that I read decades ago - the long Russian novels of Dostoyevsky and Tolstoy, for example, that combined the politics of their times, with vivid stories and characterizations. This book is similar in nature, with the obvious difference being that it is a mystery. While I enjoyed the mystery and tried to make sense of the clues scattered about, my true enjoyment evolved from the richness of the characters that Stephen Carter created.
Misha, the narrator and son of "the emperor," speaks with casual frankness and a self-deprecating manner, often using irony and humor in his comments. His family: wife and son, father - alreay dead as the book begins- and siblings, all come alive to the reader. While the mystery has center stage as the reason for this book, the related purpose of presenting such wonderfully drawn characters, giving a true sense/a slice-of-life, was equally important to me.
I sunk into this book and finished it in a few days. My judgment of how much I liked it comes from how very much I regretted seeing it end. It's a long, satisfying book and one I would recommmend to anyone who enjoys a good novel.
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Summary: THE EMPEROR OF OCEAN PARK
Review: This was a compelling novel, that I could not put down. The 657 pages was nothing to breeze through as the plot and character development entrigued me with every passing page. Stephen L. Carter depicts uppper and middle class struggling black American families very well. HIs stoic father, (the Judge & Emperor) with all his faults he taught his son so much good. Misha's colorful siblings were all the things that make family so special. The relationships between people was entrancing as well. The family relationships where nothing was perfect but the underlying love even the characters did not know existed at times rang so true of family life. I was so moved by the book, I wanted to write the author. I cannot remember anytime that a novel has moved me to want to do that. The characters and the places came alive for me. THrough the reading I felt like I was with Misha and experiencing his anguish and joy. His love for his son touched my heart. Watching his son grow and his marriage die shows how imperfect life really is and so did the dichotomy of getting to know his father. Despite his faults I found myslef loving the judge and Misha not to mention Dear Dana, Addison and Mariah. Kimmer is a different story, but I enjoyed not liking her and what she represented. THis was a great book that makes you feel many things at the same time namely love/anger, joy/anguish, fear/calm. Stephen L. Carter thanks!
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Summary: Believe most of the hype
Review: Stephen Carter has written an engrossing novel that succeeds on more levels than it fails. Carter's characters are fully formed and unforgettable, his depiction of workplace relationships should resonate widely, and his family dramas of sibling rivalry, parental approval, and marital suspicion/malaise are perfectly rendered. Also, in Talcott "Misha" Garland, Carter has avoided the reliable hero/anti-hero dichotomy to create a protagonist who is a true everyman. Misha's faults are obvious and if you don't like how he interprets the world around him, you will have to be patient to find his virtues. While Misha's insecurities don't flatter him, they should make him recognizable and sympathetic to many readers. His greatest gift is his analytical intelligence and it's his brain, not his bravery, that will see him through his adventure. Carter's most impressive achievements are the creation of the communities in Elm Harbor and Washington, D.C. and Misha's acute observations about their white and black inhabitants.
As a mystery, the narrative suffers because, ultimately, Carter is more loyal to his protatgonist than his audience. This loyalty to Misha enhances the novel because it emerges from Carter's talent for and commitment to characterization and thematic development but it does so at the expense of producing a satisfying mystery. This is understandable in a novel that doesn't fit in a genre but not in a mystery which is why, I suspect, Emperor of Ocean Park has disappointed so many Amazon reviewers. I'm not a devoted reader of mysteries but I've read enough to know what to expect from them and Carter, perhaps willfully, doesn't conform to those expectations.
Emperor of Ocean Park is terrific debut and I look forward to reading more fiction from Stephen Carter.
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Summary: Yes, but I like it anyway.
Review: In ways, I think it's safer to hate a book than to love one, which may explain some of the reviews that have been posted. But I loved The Emperor of Ocean Park, in spite of all its apparent flaws. Look, I admit that Carter's prose can be a little stiff, a little heavy on adjectives, a little too prone to interruptions. But when I want to complain about pompous sentences, I'll complain about Henry James, William Faulkner, and Cormac McCarthy. Stephen Carter moves at an unhurried pace that greater economy would simply spoil. Too much of today's fiction is self-consciously sparse. Which is irritating. To say the least. I admit, also, that Carter's mystery is a bit contrived. But some awfully good entertainment rests on contrived government and corporate conspiracies (though, it's true, these conspiracies seem more and more realistic these days). If Carter is asking for a little credulity, I'm ready to give it to him. I'd do no less for Agatha Christie or Raymond Chandler. I also admit that the book is long. But all books can be shortened. And many don't seem to lose a lot in the shortening. At least, that's my experience with books on tape. I read all of The Emperor of Ocean Park, every word, and was not impatient for it to be over.So much for the book's flaws. It also has a lot of strengths. For one thing, the protagonist is neither superhero nor whiner. He's an imperfect, sometimes angry, but nonetheless decent guy who tries to do what's right, takes chances he'd rather not, and manages not to despise, or not to despise too much, the many people who do him dirt. (In other words, I like Talcott Garland just because I do. People who don't like him are wicked, I suspect.) It also has a great sense of people and place. No, those are not Carter's colleagues and not his family. But I get the sense that Carter knows what he's talking about. This I'm certain about: Stephen Carter has not, as someone wrote, embarrassed himself. (It's not particularly civil phrase, is it?) It's a good book. A very good book.
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Summary: Emperor of Ocean Park
Review: The Emperor of Ocean Park is set in two privileged worlds: the upper crust African American society of the eastern seaboard - old families who summer on Martha's Vineyard - and the inner circle of an Ivy League law school. It tells the story of a complex family with a single, seductive link to the shadowlands of crime." "The Emperor of the title, Judge Oliver Garland, has just died, suddenly. A brilliant legal mind, conservative and famously controversial, Judge Garland made more enemies than friends. Many years before, he'd a earned a judge's highest prize: a Supreme Court nomination. But in a scene of bitter humiliation, televised across the country, his nomination collapsed in scandal. The humbling defeat became a private agony, one from which he never recovered." "But now the judge's death raises more questions - and it seems to be leading to a second, even more terrible scandal. Could Oliver Garland have been murdered? He has left a strange message for his son Talcott, a professor of law at a great university, entrusting him with "the arrangements" - a mysterious puzzle that only Tal can unlock, and only by unearthing the ambiguities of his father's past. When another man is found dead, and then another, Talcott - wry, straight-arrow, almost too self-aware to be a man of action - must risk his career, his marriage, and even his life, following the clues his father left him.
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Summary: The Emperof of Ocean Park by Stephen L. Carter
Review: If you are looking for another Grisham page-turner, this is not it. This is a story of how an accomplished family comes to terms with the acts of its patriach (Oliver Garland), a federal judge. Carter weaves the tenents of social stratification, theological justification, political university infighting, and peculiar familial love into a complex and demanding story. Talcott Garland (Misha), the middle son of Oliver Garland, is the story teller. Misha takes you on a hunt for clues that start in Elm Harbor (somewhere in Connecticutt) and ends on Martha's Vineyard. As the story is developed, Misha drives you to Washington, D. C. and flies you to Aspen (Colorado). Misha, a naive law professor, is forced to confront Uncle Jack, an evil man who had an unusual relationship with Oliver. And, Uncle Mal, a politically connected attorney in D.C. And, Mariah, his Phi Beta Kappa sister, who devotes herself to unearthing evidence about Oliver's death. And, Kimmer, his flighty wife. For the patient reader, this is a wonderful story.
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