The Emperor of Ocean Park
Stephen L. Carter
(Reviewer - Rebecca Brown)
2002 Knopf
ISBN: 0375413634

A second son must follow his dead father's wishes to find the arrangements the Judge made before he died.

Set in the privileged world of upper crust African American society of the eastern seaboard, who summer on Martha's Vineyard, The Emperor of Ocean Park opens with narrator Talcott Garland listing what the Judge had left his three surviving offspring -- Redskin tickets for the first born & best loved son, Addison, & two houses 400 miles apart for his sister, Mariah & himself.

Talcott Garland is a tenured professor in an Ivy League law school. The only person he loves unconditionally is his son. His marriage to Kimmer, however, carries the stigma of infidelity, which keeps Talcott guessing, depressed & on tenterhooks. That Kimmer & one of his colleagues at the law school have been nominated for a judgeship, stirs old memories of the debacle of his father's nomination, decades before.

Talcott was simply taking care of family business when his father's longtime friend, Jack Zeigler -- Uncle Jack -- now elderly & ill, a man of immense mystery, power & reach, confronts him at his father's grave side, demanding to know the whereabouts of “the arrangements”.

Tal never knew the Judge had made any “arrangements”, nor where they might be. Mariah, who is sure the Judge was murdered, is plodding through decades of papers in the house her father left her, while surrounded by her tribe of children. Family members come from far afield to attend the funeral, one of whom is Cousin Sally, a favorite playmate of Addison's when they were all teenagers, & she has some special memories that haunt her, as does Talcott.

The Emperor of the title, Judge Oliver Garland, was a brilliant legal mind, conservative & famously controversial. He made more enemies than friends in his long career & life. At his Supreme Court nomination hearings televized across the nation, he was humiliated in a bitter scene of questionings. His answer was to withdraw from the nomination & sink into a private life of shame & tragedy, unable to accept the death of his youngest teenage daughter, Abby, killed by a hit & run driver.

After the funeral Addison washes his hands of the whole thing, & returns to his radio talk show in Chicago, leaving behind escalating tensions in Talcott's marriage as well as on campus, where rumors fly, faculty members conspire, careers are threatened, & students cast aspersions. Layers of investigations begin when fake-FBI agents arrive unannounced, things disappear from the Judge's den, a beautiful woman stalks Talcott. & then, one dark night, he is mugged while walking through the campus. The muggers hadn't robbed him, why?

Tal, nicknamed Misha, is a chess fiend & one day he is apprised that the Judge did in fact leave him clues, in the form of pawns accompanied by cryptic notes which turn up in the strangest places, all relating to a particular set of moves, where Black wins over White, with which the Judge, in his later years, had been obsessed -- the Double Excelsior. Tal reluctantly embarks on finding “the arrangements” -- to do so he must unearth his father's past, an endeavor that is to prove dreadfully sad & complicated.

Then a preacher is found brutally murdered, & Talcott -- a wry straight-arrow, unabashedly self-aware -- must risk his career, his marriage, even his life, to follow the clues his father left.

The Emperor of Ocean Park is an epic suspense saga of memories, betrayal & honor within the very separate world of the “People of the Darker Nations”, as Talcott Garland ironically calls himself & his society. He doggedly & musingly recounts the crumbling of his world, even as he is driven into the dangerous & inexplicable underworld of old greed, long-ago murders & blackmail, & current killings most foul.

First time novelist Stephen L. Carter has written an often scathingly funny triumph of thriller, packed with characters & action -- a rich tapestry of ambition, family secrets, murder, integrity tested, & justice gone everso wrong.

Even though there were times when I wanted to shake Talcott out of his objectivity, The Emperor of Ocean Park is superb. I listened to the Books on Tape version which is ably read by Richard Allen, who deftly highlights the wry humor which, in the written edition, might have been missed.

A satisfying read, sure to linger long in your memory.
(03/14/04)

Rebecca