Samaritan

Rating:
Summary: A view of a world not often seen...
Review: A great book? No. Parts are compelling. Price writes with a great ear for dialogue and an uncanny ability to portray life in the inner-city. The story is solid and has some interesting twists. It is about men finding themselves and some women too. Ray is hard character to love as you sometimes want to shake some sense in to him. The ending is a bit pat and cliched, but still a well written look at a world most of us never see.

Rating:
Summary: Slayer
Review: Half detecive story, half good old fashioned storytelling, Richard Price's latest brilliance is anything but a (near) murder mystery. When Ray Mitchell, an ex-high school teacher, is found beaten nearly to death in his apartment, it is up to childhood friend and veteran cop Nerese Ammons to not only find the assailant, but also to get Ray to tell her what happened. What makes this book so appealing is not simply the complex plot and suspense that comes with a typical detective story, but the way in which Price develops every chracter with care and craftiness. Additionally, Ray's decision not to reveal his attacker or press chargers present a further problem for Ammons, who, along with the reader, must slowly piece together the puzzle bit by bit, chapter by chapter. Price jumps back and forth between the aftermath of the assault and the days leading up to it, providing two intricate stories within one.

Samaritan is so embedded with numerous, important life issues that the reader may forget the main purpose of Ammons's mission. The upmost generosity Ray exhibits serves to further increase the pity felt for him when he is nearly beaten to death. Price explores what happens when Ray places himself secondary to everybody else, from his daughter Ruby to his secret lover, Danielle. Ray is so caught up in the drama of his giving and teaching that he neglects himself and understands all to little about those who surround him. The fact that he is so afraid of the truth in refusing to name his attacker, despite the potential murder, adds a special twist to this already vast and expanded novel.

More surprising than the mystery about Ray's assault is the wonderful stories Ray tells while dipping in and out of consciousness in the hospital. These ramblings can take one way back to the days on a grandfather's lap listening to old war stories and how things were way back when. The fact that Ray mentions these past experiences add to the bond he and Ammons share, and provides a nice break from the continual serach to find the guilty party. Price has nearly mastered this storytelling technique, with the minor exception that, at times, the reminiscing gets a bit tedious and boring. The intriguing combination of the stories and the assualt mystery was a risky endeavour, yet Price has done a great job in interweaving the two seamlessly and calmly. Equally as descriptive are the characters, as not a single person in the novel is overlooked or under-developed. Most are designed to add an angle in Ray's ever-growing return to normalcy, although some serve little or no purpose. Price does a nice job in using language suitable to the respective character, as Ray's students talk like cocky kids and his mentor like an old man. The diction is created to suit the individual, and adds a nice realitic touch to the novel. For the most part, all the characters are intricately crafted and all help to compliment Ray in one way or another.

With that in mind, it is no wonder that Samaritan is a successful novel. The language at times is a bit mature, and some of the topics tackled are definately not suited for children, including some very detailed sex scenes. Yet for those at the high school level and above, this book is a good read. The seldom dull moments and the time it takes for the story to really get moving prevent this novel from receiving its highest score. Yet, one cannot argue with what Price produces, a mixture of great proportions that serve not only to entertain but to teach valueable lessons as well. Ray is the nice guy in all of us, and his story is not simply depressing but shows what can happen when we get caught up in the pleasing of others instead of the care for ourselves.

Rating:
Summary: Not on par with Clockers, Freedomland
Review: Having read the first two books in the Dempsey, N.J., "trilogy" by Price, I was expecting another great read. Samaritan wasn't quite up to par. Why? While the writing was (as usual) great, in retrospect part of what turned me off was that the main character (Ray) was too politically correct in his over-infatuation with the underclass--in this case the many black characters who populated the novel in a somewhat stereotyped way. Look, I'm white and all for racial quality/harmony. But the protagonist Ray was a little too much a bleeding heart. He came off as grinding and unbelievably naive. Actually, very condescending to all the other characters who were black. Maybe that was the book's point! Maybe that's why I didn't enjoy this book as much as the first two. At least in those, all the characters--regardless of race--were treated as equal players.

Rating:
Summary: Sparkling dialogue, Interesting Characters, So-So Plot
Review: I have to give Richard Price credit for creating realistic characters with dialogue that crackles and feels painfully real coming from this group of broken people. However by the time I finished I was left wanting more. The mystery surrounding who beat one time television writer and now teacher Ray Mitchell to death left me a bit cold. And when the person is revealed I can't even say I was surprised, but worse I didn't really care. I loved the book at the start and was expecting to tap into something I'd be telling eveyone to go out and buy. Again I thought the writing was great, I just didn't completely connect with this group of people, and so ultimately didn't connect with the book.

Rating:
Summary: Boring and unbelievable plot
Review: I hoped this book would be interesting and enjoyable, but I soon noticed a quite annoying device: the author found it necessary to end declarative sentences with a question mark, as if there was an unsaid "you know?" Yes, I know people often speak that way in conversation, but I would have enjoyed the dialogue a lot more if correct punctuation had been used.

Also the victim was brain-damaged due to a blow to the head and suffered a number of other injuries, his doctors kept entering the room to give various neurological tests---yet he was able to speak quite lucidly, and a great length, to the police officer, who seemed to have unlimited access to this patient in intensive care.

The young teenaged daughter's portrayal, through Dad's eyes, was not in the least believable: uncommunicative, yet precocious; budding woman, yet childlike; you get the picture. And what father in his right mind would take her to a high-crime housing project at night, sit her down in a deserted playground amid mounds of snow, and start telling her stories of his youth?

Maybe these observations are petty? Others might disagree with me? It may have been a better book with more editing? I'll try some of the author's other books, but I was definitely not impressed with this one---after reading about half of it, I gave up and didn't really care who attacked him.

Rating:
Summary: The motives of a do-gooder
Review: I read The Wanderers, Richard Price's first novel, when I was a teenager and have read every one of his subsequent (seven including the present one) books. Although I've liked some better than others, they've all kept me thoroughly entertained and intrigued with the gritty street life Price so expertly evokes. Samaritan, like his last two novels, takes place in Dempsey, the fictional but believable small New Jersey city only a tunnel ride away from Manhattan. Samaritan is a combination mystery and psychological study. The title refers to Ray Mitchell, a man in his forties who abandons a writing career in Los Angeles to return to his hometown of Dempsey to teach. Ray is at loose ends. A recovering drug addict, he is estranged from his ex-wife and Ruby, his teenaged daughter and has no concrete plans for the future. He hopes that by returning to the home of his youth and helping some young people he will find direction. It is his need to help and be appreciated that is his downfall. For Ray is not the kind of "samaritan" who only gives help when it is truly needed; he is the kind who desperately needs to feel appreciated and will do practically anything to meet this need. The story is told partly in the present, after Ray has been assaulted and nearly killed, and partly in flashback as the events leading up to the assault are revealed. A childhood neighbor of Ray's, Nerese Ammons, is the policewoman who tries to figure out who attacked Ray and why. The problem is, Ray won't tell her and she (and the reader) cannot understand why. Nerese, a black woman who is about to retire from the police force, has problems of her own; she is a single mother with a family that includes criminals and drug abusers. In describing all this, I realize that a lot of it may sound familiar, even cliched (e.g. the cop about to retire), but Price has an unusual talent for transforming such material into a compelling story. His knack for dialogue, especially that of the city streets, is unsurpassed. Some popular writers write dialogue that sounds like writing; with Price, you can always *hear* the words and inflections. Samaritan is also helped by several interesting supporting characters, such as Salim, a troubled youth who Ray may be harming more than helping, and Tom Potenza, an ex-addict who counsels people around the projects. Race is a major factor throughout the novel, especially the question of what motivates a white man like Ray in his quest to "save" people who are mostly black. If Samaritan were presented as some kind of lesson in ethics or race relations, it would be simplistic and heavy-handed, but it isn't really that. Ray is a complex character whose motives are not entirely noble, but he is not a mere hypocrite. The novel explores the fine line that divides helping people for genuine as opposed to selfish reasons. Samaritan, like its main character, has its flaws and it's not my favorite Richard Price novel, but it is still an enjoyable and thought provoking tale.

Rating:
Summary: Samaritan
Review: I'll admit it: I was a sucker for detective stories for years. Bring me a Spenser novel, a cup of black coffee and a Barca-lounger, and I'd be happy as a clam. I'll also admit that, as I grew older, the spate of new mystery novels by Parker and Grafton and others began to seem dry, lacking in vitality. Sure, their protagonist heroes spat their share of wisecracks, but no amount of one-liners could hide the fact that most current mystery novels were devoid of substance and feeling. With Samaritan, Richard Price ups the ante fivefold on the detective story. He breathes life into it by giving the story and its characters a remarkable human touch, by going after our hearts as well as our nerves.

We meet Ray Mitchell upon his return to his birthplace of Dempsy, NJ, so he can start his life over. There, he begins teaching a creative-writing class at his former high school, reconnects with the residents at the Hopewell housing project where he was raised, and attempts to rekindle a relationship with his thirteen-year-old daughter whom he lost in the aftermath of a divorce. Ray is often generous, which is impressive considering he's had a less-than-perfect past, involving the loss of his daughter, a lowly cab-driving job, a perpetual addiction to cocaine, and finally, a letdown after an ever-so-brief stint as a TV-writer comes to an unexpected close.

Just as Ray begins to find his place again in Dempsy, he is found beaten almost to death in his apartment. Enter Nerese Ammons: a cop, a childhood friend of Ray, a former resident of Hopewell, and someone forever indebted to Ray for saving her life when they were just kids. Nerese feels morally obligated to take on Ray's case, but Ray obstinately refuses to identify his attacker and won't press charges. Nerese must now enter the abyss of Ray's past in order to solve the puzzle, while simultaneously working to keep her own life intact in the bleak and unforgiving Dempsy.

On the surface, Samaritan is made out to be a whodunit thriller, and it is, but to call it simply that would be doing the book and its author a great injustice. The strength of this book lies in the way it is written, and this is how Price brings his cast of characters to life. He records every nuance, every movement, every thought the characters possess behind their lines of dialogue, turning story characters into living, breathing people. They speak with mellifluous street-savvy, but don't be fooled. They may be hardened but their words simply glow with realistic emotion, at times expressing unrelenting urgency, at others, heartfelt compassion. Price gives all of his important characters vivid back-stories, important details of their lives and psyches, all of which may seem to some readers as unnecessary belaboring, but nonetheless clue us in to exactly what kind of people we are dealing with at certain points in the story. Simply put, Price makes us care about his characters and their various states because everything about them is real, filled with a kind of depth and humanity that can only be pulled off by an accomplished writer with an eye for the intricacies of human life.

Samaritan, all plot details aside, is about the powerful effect that adults have on children, and the similar effect children have on those adults. One of the many manifestations of this is shown in Ray's attempts to reconnect with his adolescent daughter, Ruby. Ruby has clearly distanced herself from her father following his return to Dempsy. Ray knows he's been guilty of poor fatherhood in the past and tries ceaselessly to mend the rifts, but Ruby is staunchly unyielding to her father's desperate attempts to reenter as an important part of her life. Without Ruby, Ray admits he feels as though he is nothing, hopelessly downtrodden. But Ruby is also powerfully affected by her father, shown by her stony revulsion towards him, the result of a debilitating sucker punch from her tainted past. The pain is felt by both: the child rejected by the adult and the adult rejected by the child, and the pain is felt heavily because the sacred relationship between father and daughter should be one of care, and not of heartache.

Price compels us to sink into the thriller he ravels for us, but in doing so, he never strays from the true meaning of the work. Each piece of the puzzle has a greater significance than its literal role in the mystery would suggest. We want to read on; we want to find out what happens not only for the sake of knowing Ray's attacker but also to learn a greater truth about life and people. It is as if we are a bit wiser by the end of the book, because we don't just know who dun it...we know what it is about the world that makes who dun it tick; the 'why' behind the mystery.

Richard Price thrusts us into a gritty, unfamiliar world with unfamiliar people, and by the end we couldn't feel more contrary. We know the town of Dempsy (love it or hate it we may), and we feel as though we grew up with these faces and their stories. We feel what they feel because we love them like people we intimately know. It's really for this reason that the story (and the mystery itself) has such depth: there are consequences for everyone involved in this web, not just the perpetrator. All of the characters must move their lives through the tumult of everything around them, some of them within inches of crumbling. In short, Richard Price has written a mystery novel where we feel something, where our thoughts and formulations coexist with our feelings and emotions quite harmoniously, and I believe that's precisely what a good reading experience should be.

Rating:
Summary: add this to the Men's Lit class
Review: Price's earlier strong work made the appearance of "Samaritan" the occasion of some anticipation, but for me the novel failed to deliver the expected punch.

The premise is sound: a product of the New Jersey projects with a checkered past unexpectedly achieves success as a writer in LA, but returns to his old haunts, mostly to try to reconnect with is daughter, from whom he has been physically separated since his divorce.

The novel, however, pivots on a vicious attack on the writer, Nick, who refuses to reveal the nature of the assault to a black female detective --nicknamed Tweetie -- who, remarkably, lived in the projects at the same time. In fact, Nick witnessed, and even participated in, a humiliation of a young Tweetie.

Well, Ok, quite a coincidence, but maybe we're still willing to go along, except that Price introduces yet another character from Nick's past in a chance meeting that ultimately leads to the attack that Tweetie winds up investigating.

Too much authorial meddling for me, but Price can write well, so I might be willing to go along. However, he compounds problems by insisting that his main character is an inveterate storyteller. And oh, how this character tells stories. In fact, that's about all he does, in endless forays into the past that seem merely to serve as an excuse for Price to wax eloquently through his characters. Well, other readers might have enjoyed the liberties Price takes, but for this reader, a series of speeches by the characters and long narrative expositions of what happened years ago is a prescription for a stagnant narrative, no matter now masterful the writer.

In fact, I give three stars only on the strength of the prose. Unlike novels I best admire, which gain strength as they progress, "Samaritan" tired as it reached the finish line, leaving me both exhausted and relieved that the ordeal was over.

Rating:
Summary: The slums of Dempsey, N.J.
Review: Ray Mitchell grew up in the housing projects of Dempsey, N.J., went to LA to become a successful TV writer, and now returned to Dempsey with enough money to allow himself a few quirks. Mainly, re wants to reconnect with his 13-year old daughter Ruby.

Nerese Ammons, a black detective within months of retirement, knows Ray from childhood and remembers him as being on her side when the other school children gave her grief.

Ray wants to do good so that people will love him. But he does not know how to do it without coming across like the Salvation Army. He gets lied to, he gets ripped off, he just simply cannot connect because he forgot about the slums and no longer speaks their language.

And then Ray is brutally beaten up. Nerese takes over the investigation, because she owes him from way back. But Ray won't tell her who did it. and she has to detect the hard way.

By now this book should be a mystery. But it refuses to. It is the story of the people living in the project, their hopes and aspirations. They will not make it out of that slum, and they know it. But still they keep trying. They act like mafia godfathers hoping the image will put them on a higher level. The children visit prison and the criminals become superman. Yet at all times they have a clear understanding of their surroundings and the psychological facts of their diminished lives.

The author gives us an uncanny picture of people and locations but presents them almost like a stream of conscience. While it is fun to dig deeper here or there, the main attraction is in the swimming on the surface and let it all parade by.

Rating:
Summary: A Good Old Fashioned Story
Review: Somebody brained Ray Mitchel, nearly beat him to death, someone he knows, but when he wakes in the hospital, childhood friend, but now lady cop Nerese Ammons, wants to know who and why, but Ray isn't talking, he seems more afraid of the truth that catching someone who tried to kill him.

Ray, a successful writer, has recently returned to his childhood home of Dempsy. Since he's been back he's reunited with his estranged teenage daughter, started a romance with a woman from the projects and is teaching writing to bored high-school kids. However Ray is a needy soul and his judgment is usually pretty bad. He lends money to anyone, deserving or not, and his kind deeds all seem to backfire.

Nerese, a black tough-minded single mother and a good detective, is close to retirement, but is determined to crack this case, if only because Ray once did her a kind deed when they were both kids in the projects.

SAMARITAN is often somber, deals with serious emotions, is sometimes funny and Price certainly knows how to draw likeable, but flawed characters that are believable and easy to understand. And it's easy to understand why many think that Richard Price is simply one of the best writers writing today. I know that's my belief.

Jeremiah McCain