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First impressions can be a bit tricky. One can pick up a book and already form an opinion after reading perhaps a third of the novel. Things could change after you move along, or it might remain the same afterwards. I disliked NEW ENGLAND WHITE when I first started reading it, and suffice it to say it did not get any better afterwards. The main plot of the story involves a professional African American couple heavily involved in academia. Lemaster Carlyle is an influential man starting his tenure at a prestigious New England university while his wife Julia serves as dean at the divinity school. While taking a shortcut home they come across the body of the university's economics professor who appears to be the victim of a robbery. He was also Julia's lover from several years ago causing the case to have an even bigger importance. There is more to the story but it is Julia who will play a major role in the book. NEW ENGLAND WHITE does not work as a mystery novel, though not for lack of trying. The book is a character study delving into the lives of the Carlyles who are dealing with their marriage and a troubled daughter with a major firebug incident. The novel acts as a soapbox for many things in the author's mind. But, instead of writing another non-fiction book focusing on what's wrong with politics and race in America, Carter tries to do with his fiction the same thing he did with his first novel, 2002's THE EMPEROR OF OCEAN PARK. I get the impression that the author was too busy trying to show off how he could use fiction once again to give his opinion on what's wrong with the world instead of writing a good novel for the sake of the reader's entertainment. Is that too much to ask? NEW ENGLAND WHITE is an op-ed piece, nothing more. The book starts with a second-person narrative that put readers in their place with what they are going to get once the book starts. It also carries a commentary regarding race relations between different-shaded African Americans before jumping into Tom Wolfe territory by starting the action a la THE BONFIRE OF THE VANITIES. Carter does streams of consciousness ramblings like in the works of James Joyce and John Updike, makes heavy use of a thesaurus, and has more gossip than Peyton Place. There are too many repetitious scenes, superfluous prose, and reader condescension because one cannot understand the characters motivation unless one is in their shoes and inside their skin. Carter should have taken a page out of Hemingway's book and kept it simple with his dialogue and narration. No one likes a show-off. It is the impression that I get here. The book's plot was all secondary.
Reviewed by Angel L. Soto, July 2007
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Contact: Yvonne Klein (ymk@reviewingtheevidence.com)
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