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| New England White (Vintage Contemporaries) | 
 enlarge | Author: Stephen L. Carter
Publisher: Vintage
Category: Book
List Price: $14.95
Buy Used: $1.95
You Save: $13.00 (87%)
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Avg. Customer Rating:  60 reviews
Sales Rank: 23049
Media: Paperback
Edition: Reprint
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 640
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1
Dimensions (in): 8 x 5.2 x 1.2
ISBN: 0375712917
Dewey Decimal Number: 813
EAN: 9780375712913
ASIN: 0375712917
Publication Date: May 27, 2008
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Product Description
Lemaster Carlyle, the president of the country's most prestigious university, and his wife, Julie, the divinity school's deputy dean, are America's most prominent and powerful African American couple. Driving home through a swirling blizzard late one night, the couple skids off the road. Near the sight of their accident they discover a dead body. To her horror, Julia recognizes the body as a prominent academic and one of her former lovers. In the wake of the death, the icy veneer of their town Elm Harbor, a place Julie calls "the heart of whiteness," begins to crack, having devastating consequences for a prominent local family and sending shock waves all the way to the White House.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 55 more reviews...
 Fascinating plot, but..... July 10, 2007
56 out of 62 found this review helpful
Does Knopf still employ editors? This book has a fascinating plot, but following it is like trying to find a jewel amid waist-deep weeds. There are just too many irrelevant characters, pointless digressions and tiresome, unnecessary details. At 556 pages, this book is about 200 pages too long, and slogging through it becomes a chore. Yes, Mr. Carter displays many wonderful turns of phrase, and yes, savoring a literate work by a black author who knows the racial score is very satisfying, but the knowledgeable reader must fight the urge to shout "For God's sake, man, get on with it!" The premise of this book is unique and brilliant; the execution, however, falls short.
 It's a Great Story, But....... July 7, 2007
46 out of 48 found this review helpful
After Emperor of Ocean Park, I could hardly wait for a second book from Stephen Carter. I even emailed him once to find why it was taking so long (no, he didn't respond) and so when I found out his new book was coming out last week, I rushed to my local bookstore (coupons in hand) and started reading. Once again, Carter has delivered an intriguing mystery while providing juicy tidbits about life in the rarified atmosphere of rich black intellectuals.
However, as much as I loved reading all 556 pages (whew!), I found that about halfway through the book, I started getting lost in all the details. There is just so much information he includes that after a while they start to detract from the story. More than once I thought "And who is this again?" Not that any of that stopped me from reading, it's that with so many characters, so many events, so much repetition, I was relieved to finally get to the big reveal. Yes, it was worth it find out whodunnit and why, but there is another message Carter delivers that members of both the darker nation and the paler nation will likely find themselves admitting, even if to no one other than to themselves.
My favorite scene in the book? When Julia finds herself in an unfamiliar neighborhood, knocking on doors and understanding that it's race, not money/class/privilege that people see first. And that truth is not lost on her.
 It's The Very Best! June 30, 2007
23 out of 38 found this review helpful
Simply put, there is no better author alive today than Stephen L. Carter. The Emperor Of Ocean Park was the best book of fiction that I have ever read. Nothing came close - till Mr. Carter's new book - New England White. Whereas Godfather I & II (taken together) is arguably the greatest movie of all time, so too can these two books be taken together as the very best fiction to come around in the last fifty years or so. That's how good the book(s) are! Stephen Carter leaves Agatha Christie and PD James in the dust when it comes to writing a brilliant "who done it". The book is so much more. The characters become people whom you knew all of your life. You care about them, want the best for them and worry about them. New England White is also an old fashion page-turner. It is a "can't put down" novel that is written in the purest prose and in a use of language that is second to none. If you are going to read only one book all year - make it New England White. It's the very best!
Compelling Characters, but... July 24, 2007
21 out of 22 found this review helpful
The characters in this book were very compelling, especially Julia Carlyle, the wife of the university president, and her daughter. Mrs. Carlyle is an elitist African American raised at Dartmouth College and now an assistant dean at an Ivy League divinity school. As she works to uncover what is behind the murder of an ex-lover, she learns - for lack of a better term - how the other half lives. In her world, things get done because of who she is and to whom she is married - someone bothers her and he loses her job; she is an assistant dean without getting a degree - in her stratus it is who you are that matters. That group of "who you are" clashes with the more typically portrayed white privileged class which sets up the mystery portion of the book.
The book is a mystery only secondary to the exploration of the class strata among African Americans and how that compares and mirrors the white classes. The mystery is one for which Oliver Stone would be proud. It is conspiracy upon conspiracy upon complicity mixed with antagonism among whites and blacks and blacks and blacks. The black elite strata is manifested in elite clubs who pull strings behind the scenes in our society. Mr. Carter disavows the existence of such clubs in an afterword.
The characters truly carry this book, because it is s-l-o-o-o-w. I kept waiting for it to heat up; after all there are murders, conspiracies and intrigue, but somehow all of that was overcome and the pace remained slow throughout.
This is an intriguing look at American society from an elite black's view, which is a rare one to see and experience. Unfortunately, the slow pace detracted from the work.
 Ludicrous conspiracy theory, anti-women August 30, 2007
18 out of 21 found this review helpful
Seldom have I been more disappointed by a book than I was by New England White (NEW), as I enjoyed and felt enlightened by his first book, The Emperor of Ocean Park.
I agree with the other reviewers who commented on the book's unpruned state. Carter isn't creating red herrings or phosophical asides with his over-writing, he's indulging in the sound of his own voice. But that does fit with the character of his male lead, one of the most chauvinistic and overbearing characters to be found in modern fiction. His wife, the heroine, knows she's being demeaned, but does almost nothing to help herself or her children, despite the words of the narrator in claiming she reaches a transcendent state: she's even supposed to be grateful that her husband hired a secret bodyguard for her as he knew she was going to be in life-threatening situations because of his own actions.
As for the plot, not even Robert Ludlum at his most ludicrous ever devised a more complicated and impossible set-up. As with most conspiracy theories, the silence and obedience of literally hundreds of people has to be secured to make the conspiracy work. Sorry, folks, but humans just don't act that way.
I guess the writing was good. And the on-going commentary on US race relations offered some insights, but generally of the sort already known by any well-read reader who has not limited his or her reading by race.
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