Rating: 
Summary: The force of a great thinker brought to fiction
Review: A tremendous debut! One reviewer I saw noted that Carter received four million dollars for his first two novels, and that after reading Emperor Of Ocean Park it was clear that Mr. Carter was robbed! After seeing it for myself, I have to agree. The only reason I can think that someone would give this novel one star is that they have a personal grudge with his many seminal non-fiction works. Too bad - if they could put aside politics, they could simply enjoy a great read. What a grand way to start out your summer reading!
Rating: 
Summary: Like a different city with the same landmarks
Review: As the wife of a DC attorney and a 15-year resident of Washington I would have to try really hard to recognize the setting of "Emperor" as the same city in which I spent so many years. The diversity of the city may be a little too complicated for the points Carter tries to make but I think there was probably more room for the exploration of different aspects of the many races and faces that comprise our Nation's Capital.However, I do realize that Carter has a different agenda than I might have had. I am, of course, familiar with Carter's socio-political bent (conservative, African-American law professor critical of affirmative action and heavily into fundamental Christianity)and have to admit that I'm pretty much none of the above. I simply wish the city had been able to shine. Even so, this is a smart and pretty thrilling novel for one so big (over 600 pages)and it does have a good bit of sizzle. "Emperor" explores the meanings of loyalty, trust, marriage, family, career and citizenship. However, Carter avoids slipping into preachiness and does manage to basically keep the plot percolating along for most of the way. It is a little bit darker than I had expected and I found myself pretty depressed by the end but I really enjoyed the novel and found it 1000 times easier to read than any of Carter's articles on the law, none of which I have completed.
Rating: 
Summary: Smart writer, bad book
Review: I have to agree with Michiko Kakutani's review in the New York Times yesterday, in which she referred to this book as: "a contrived, implausible and needlessly baroque melodrama, which reads as if it were written for serial publication, with nearly every chapter ending on a hokey cliffhanger."
Mr. Carter is an accomplished, smart, admirable and even a brave writer in much of his non-fiction. This book, however, is a mess. I could not wait to read it after seeing the New Yorker profile a few weeks ago, but this is just a complete disappointment. The publisher's hype machine definitely got attention for this book - it's too bad that it just does not deliver. Stick to what you know, Mr. Carter.
Rating:
Summary: Lives up to hype -- and then some
Review: Excellent, just excellent! I'd originally stayed away from "Emperor" because I'd read - skimmed, maybe -- a couple of Carter's non-fiction books, and thought they were simplistic, unoriginal and failed to state much of anything new. When I finally picked up "Emperor", I was fully prepared to put it down, if it didn't grab me. Imagine my surprise when I discovered I was hooked right from the beginning, and couldn't bear to stop reading! This is an amazing book. It's so good, on so many fronts, it's hard to know where to start. The characters are believable, interesting and jump right off the page. The plot is great -- I finally figured out what he'd do in the last few pages, but it was suspenseful throughout. I agonized with the characters, found myself wondering what I would do, in their situations. I just loved "Emperor" -- it's on my short list of 'best books ever'. And let me add one more thing: I'm an observant Jew, and I greatly appreciated the fact that the protagonist in this book is an unabashed Christian, a man who is not afraid or embarrassed to admit that he prays, that he struggles with his faith and his G-d, a man who sincerely tries to live up to what he believes is expected of him as a Christian believer. Kol hakavod, much honor, to Mr. Carter, for creating such a literary hero. What a delight to find a novel by a Christian that's 'kosher' in terms of morality and tznuit, modesty. This is a really great book -- don't miss it!
Rating: 
Summary: Too Much Descriptions and Other.......
Review: The story was pretty good. But there was just to much description and too much detail that made the story long very hard to read. Sometimes it better to stay with the point of the story. This book had a lot of boring details that could have been eliminated. But I will say it got my interest to learn about the game of chess. I read a lot of books and this was just too long.
Rating:
Summary: A Great Book
Review: I thoroughly enjoyed this book. Stephen Carter brought all the characters to life and engrossed me in the action and mystery of it all. Although each page was not a "page turner", I was constantly wondering what was going to happen next. The interlocking of characters was fantastic, and it provided many brilliant plot twists. I did not mind the length or the attention to details; it provided that much more for me to enjoy!
Rating:
Summary: Too Much of a Good Thing
Review: While well written with insightful and often acid wit as it explores the rarely viewed world of black academia and jurisprudence, Stephen L. Carter's 600-plus page 'epic' is, quite simply, too much of a good thing.
The Emperor of Ocean Park is the story of Talcott Garland, so miserable and unintentionally self-depricating, that he's actually quite humorous. He is an uppercrust African American law professor at a distinguished Ivy League university, married to a brilliant and biting bronze beauty who is being considered for a federal judgeship. Talcott's father, a Clarence Thomas-esque jurist, universally disgraced when scandal broadsides his ascention to the Supreme Court, has just died. The question (that only Talcott and his sister seem to be asking) is: Was Judge Oliver Garland murdered?
Through Tal's often bumbling investigation, we meet an array of idiosyncratic characters, discribed in almost too much, albiet imaginative, detail.
The richness of the author's observations of human nature seasoned by ethnic culture, social position, and quiet money overshadow the frail story and sometimes distracts, as good as they are. Carter, without a doubt a wonderful and welcomed writer of fiction, could lose 200 pages of discriptives and end up with a masterpiece. As it stands now, his book is merely pretty good..
Rating: 
Summary: Not worth the time
Review: I rarely give up on books but after 450 pages, I called it finished. Carter insists on writing everything down with no filtering whatsoever. Unfortunately, what he has to say is not very enlightening, even for one who has very little knowledge of upper middle-class African-American or the academic life. The mystery was so uninteresting-though convoluted- that I have no curiousity at all about the outcome. A disappointing read.
Rating:
Summary: A sleep Inducer
Review: An intriguing mystery that coukld have been done with a third the length. Trying to separate the mystery's flow from the uninteresting deviations into the author's distaste of his treatment as a minority and into non-important and complex family traits is a numbing task. His adept handling of the language, however, is admirable. Insomniacs will appreciate it, though.
Rating:
Summary: I loved this book
Review: Although I suspect this book was not wildly popular, I loved it. I found myself drawn into the mystery that Carter cleverly weaves. I say clever but I mean intelligent because ultimately this book's virtues rests on Carter's wise, intelligent writing. In fact, the only defect might have been the temptation to edge the book toward being a Grisham-like potboiler instead of a more literary work. Not that I think Carter doesn't have a gift for interesting plot twists. He does. But his real strengths, in my estimation, are character development and dialog. I came home from work each night anxious to learn what the characters were up to and what interesting insight or wisdom would be revealed. A rare quality I associate with a writer like Mark Helprin or Leo Tolstoy.
I am sure this book was popular enough that Carter's publisher will be insisting he write another book. I certainly hope so and anxiously look forward to it.
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