Stephen L Carter
New England White
Published July 2007 by Cape at £17.99
ISBN: 0224062891
When "The Emperor of Ocean Park" was published, the "Observer" declared: "The book is superb, both as a thriller and as a novel of social observation."
Now, with that same astute social observation, narrative drive, and richness of plot and character, Stephen Carter returns us to the New England university town of Elm Harbor where the murder of a renowned African-American economist opens a door on the racial complications of the town's past, on one family's secrets, and on the most hidden and powerful bastions of African-American political influence. At the centre are Lemaster and Julia Carlyle. He is president of the university, she is a dean at the divinity school - African-Americans living in 'the heart of whiteness'. Lemaster's connections lead to the President of the United States, his old college room-mate. Julia is connected to the dead man, Kellen Zant, her lover before she met Lemaster. The meeting point of these connections - a murder committed and covered up in Elm Harbor thirty years ago, and the shocking plans carried out by a fraternity of the 'darker nation' - forms the core of a mystery that deepens even as Julia, guided by clues left her by Zant, closes in on the politically earth-shattering motive behind his murder. Suspenseful from first to last, galvanising in its exploration of the profound difference between allegiance to ideas and to people, "New England White" is a resounding confirmation of Stephen Carter's gifts as a writer of fiction.
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Roddy Doyle
The Deportees
Published September 2007 by Cape at £16.99
ISBN: 022408061X
For the past few years, Roddy Doyle has been writing stories for "Metro Eireann", a newspaper started by, and aimed at, immigrants to Ireland. Each of the stories took a new slant on the immigrant experience, something of increasing relevance and importance in today's Ireland. The stories range from "Guess Who's Coming to the Dinner", where a father who prides himself on his open-mindedness when his daughters talk about sex, is forced to confront his feelings when one of them brings home a black fella, to a terrifying ghost story, "The Pram", in which a Polish nanny grows impatient with her charge's older sisters and decides - in a phrase she has learnt - to 'scare them shitless'. Most of the stories are very funny - in "'57 per cent Irish" Ray Brady tries to devise a test of Irishness by measuring reactions to Robbie Keane's goal against Germany in the 2002 World Cup, Riverdance and "Danny Boy" - others deeply moving. And best of all, in the title story itself, Jimmy Rabbitte, the man who formed The Commitments, decides it's time to find a new band, and this time no White Irish need apply. Multicultural to a fault, "The Deportees" specialise not in soul music this time, but the songs of Woody Guthrie.
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