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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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Summary: It's No Laughing Matter
Review: Author Stephen Carter, in real life a black professor at Yale law school, is a talented writer with a knack for drawing the reader in by adding interesting plot twists at critical points in his novel. I found intriguing the manner in which the author crafted a work of fiction from the kinds of headlines we all have seen. And, the perspective his main characters offer on what it feels like to be black in upper middle class America is thought provoking. The book is filled with rich portraits, but noticeably absent is any character with a sense of humor. Is the humorlessness intended to be a commentary on the black condition in America? Or is it a reflection of the legal community in general, and the legal academic community in particular? These questions were answered to me in the "Author's Note" at the end of the book. Carter says there, in effect, "You might read this book and think Yale law school is a horrible place, that today's law stuents are horrible people, and that our legal system is horribly flawed, but don't worry...this is a work of fiction". Frankly, I thought this was a cowardly way for a member of the legal establishment to try to avoid accountability for a work that makes an undeniable statement on the extent to which our legal institutions rob people of their humanity. I defy anyone to read the brilliant indictment of modern law students with which Carter opens Chapter 9 and to then accept at face value the closing apologia in which he says that he treasures and respects his students. Bottom line: I'm glad I read it.
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Summary: Yes, it's long, but . . .
Review: And I so wished that I had a red pen to strike out words, lines, whole paragraphs. Then, why was I staying up until 3 in the morning? Two nights in a row? And why was I surprised at the end? I don't read thrillers much, it takes a lot to thrill me and easy violence is too easy. What made this book so interesting was that Talcott, the main character is just clueless at the beginning and has learned wisdom at the end. He is a worthy hero, because no one likes him, because he is a "wimp", because he has tried so hard to make everyone else in his family happy, because he tries so hard not to make any waves. Now the waves are coming at him and he has no skills, friends, or family to really help him. What does he do? It was quite interesting to find out and I'm glad I invested the many hours in this book. It kept me thinking. I just hope that Mr. Carter's editor next time takes a stronger hand and helps to separate the wheat from the chaff. Mr. Carter . . . a good editor helps make you a better writer. And I will read the next book you write.
Rating: 
Summary: boring, boring, boring
Review: a bad excuse for a 'recommended' book. too long, too coincidental, too boring. don't waste your money!
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Summary: The Emperor of Ocean Park
Review: Claudia Bernard said it all---why have you deleted her review!?
This monstrous book is insultingly padded with superfluous verbiage. It might have been slightly more interesting if the multi-monickered protagonist had actually succumbed to his recurring red haze of anger and killed his wife, rather than passive-aggressively risking sabotage of her career. I suspect judicious editing would have resulted in a poorly written short story, at most. Our book group concluded that "the Emporer has no clothes"!
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Summary: Byzantine
Review: If you like byzantine mysteries this may be the book for you but as many have said here, it is way overlong and the plot is certainly incredible, meaning not credible. Carter writes well and his telling of the trials and tribulations of the Garland family is the strength of the book but in the end, it reads primarily as a thriller and as a representative of that genre, it is merely OK.
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Summary: What Was Stephen Carter Thinking?
Review: How could a well-respected legal scholar embarrass himself like this? He not only uses this book to trash his colleagues, but reveals himself to be a fiction writer of little restraint, zero talent and no ability to communicate creatively the important themes he so obviously cares about. After penning this dreadful book you'd think he'd be too humiliated to show up at Yale ever again. I, for one, will never read his scholarly writings with the same respect with which I once afforded them. Not a gripping thriller (didn't anyone tell Carter that the constraints of the genre require an author to wrap up the loose ends at the finale?), nor a good literary novel (the fiction writer's mandate to "show, not tell" seems to have eluded him as well), nor an insightful piece of social commentary, this book attempts much and delivers NOTHING. Nor is it as ground-breaking in its portrayal of the black upper-middle class as the publisher's hype would have us believe. Both Barbara Neely in Blanche Among The Talented Tenth, and Dorothy West in The Wedding covered the same African-American-vacation-enclave-on-Martha's-Vineyard ground years before. This ponderous, silly book seems to be the unfortunate offspring of the union between an unbridled ego and a publishing industry that has lost sight of everything except producing blockbusters. The fact that The Emperor of Ocean Park has actually proven to be a commercial success is the only mystery related to this book that's worth pondering.
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Summary: I wanted to like this book!
Review: I wanted to like this book, I really did. After reading the reader reviews here, I was even more determined. After all, the Today show was impressed enough to offer this up as the first selection in their book club; John Grisham was confident enough to endorse this author - how could I go wrong? As I read, I tried to ignore the other reviewers' almost unanimous appraisal that this thing was entirely too long. I love long novels. I get deep within the story and characters and hate to see the approach of the last page. Well, I hate to admit it, but they were right. This book needs another editing pass, big time. Mr. Carter repeats himself! I was amazed to find many of the same sentences, word for word scattered throughout the book. I am no editor, but I could have certainly pared this down to a far more manageable level in short order. The big mystery didn't seem anywhere near as earth shattering as promised by the 600-page build-up. Or maybe, by the time Professor Garland revealed all the details, I was just so sick of him that I didn't feel any impact at all. No wonder he didn't have any real friends to speak of. He was a total wimp. Kimmer (I hate that name) was equally distasteful. And what, pray tell did "Dare you" mean? Their son constantly says this but I never really did figure out what this meant. Still, I read the whole thing, didn't even skim through sections as other reviewers wrote they did. Mr. Carter writes well; it isn't his fault that he had a spineless editor - someone who should have insisted that tome be put on a serious diet. It would have worked so much better. The reader just gets tired reading it. I don't think that was the intention! I expect Mr. Carter will produce another novel and I will read that one too. I think he has talent and hope that he is not discouraged by the negative reviews. He just needs to learn a bit of "word economy". That's all.
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Summary: Great story, so-so mystery
Review: A fascinating discovery for a European: there is a black upper class in America - in the book they are sometimes called "The Gold Coast". But they still feel marginalized, full of rage and suspicion, isolated within their professional communities. They distrust the liberals, but for historical reasons cannot trust the conservatives - or those among them who convert to the conservative cause. The father of the narrator - a Clarence-Thomas-like judge - did and was subsequently embroiled in a confirmation battle that destroyed his reputation and his family. His death means trouble for his son; a lot of people want to know about the "arrangements" of the dead judge. They are a riddle - a chess problem with a hidden message - and they mean trouble. As if the hero had not enough of that already: with his ambitious but unfaithful wife, at his university, with his family history and his life in general. The story is fascinating as a glimpse into life on the Gold Coast, but it rather fails as a mystery. The narrator cheats, because he discovers something, acts and then tells the reader two or three chapters later what and when he found out. Besides: the plot is either too arcane - the big conspiracy that involves them all: liberals and conservatives - or too obvious and sometimes facilitating between those extremes Still: this is a book to be recommended.
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