NEW ENGLAND WHITE is a murder mystery. In fact, it's two
murder mysteries, one current day which is inextricably
linked to another from thirty years prior. NEW ENGLAND
WHITE is that...and so much more.
Lemaster and Julia Carlyle careen off a snowy road while
returning home from a social event and discover the body
of Julia's former lover, Kellen Zant, a highly sought
after economics professor at the New England university
where Lemaster is president and Julia serves as a divinity
school dean. Somehow all of this connects to the
Carlyle's teenage daughter, Vanessa. Something is
desperately wrong with Vanessa, something more than usual
adolescent angst. And it has to do with the thirty-year-
old murder of Gina Joule, for which a young African-
American male was hastily convicted and which Vanessa has
been researching, as well as Kellen Zant.
When Julia starts asking questions, it seems a lot of
people are interested in Gina's murder, many more than
Julia imagines. As she searches for answers and begins to
connect the dots, she finds a trail of clues left
specifically for her by the deceased Zant. Their
relationship predates her involvement with and subsequent
marriage to Lemaster, but somehow everything is related—
Gina's murder, Vanessa's psychological dysfunction,
Kellen's murder, the current US presidential campaign
involving two of Lemaster's former college roommates, and
Lemaster's increasing authority in a secret society known
as the Empyreals. Julia is willing to rip the covers off
and expose all of the longheld secrets if it means saving
her daughter's mental health. Her fragile relationship
with Lemaster might even be destroyed in the process.
It's a chance she's willing to take. But there are others
who are of a different mindset, some who believe the past
should stay in the past and others who will stop at
nothing to influence the current presidential election.
Hence, Julia finds herself in danger as she races to
discover the truth about the deaths of both Gina Joule and
Kellen Zant.
Stephen L. Carter examines racial attitudes towards
African-Americans whose achievement and wealth places them
in the upper stratosphere of American society, where they
seemingly would rest above the many petty racial
indignations that African-Americans of lesser status
face. It also examines the racial attitudes of those
upperclass Blacks towards each other and the people around
them.
Some of the attitudes and behaviors revealed may seem
surprising. A lot of them, to me, a middle-class African-
American woman, are understandable. Race is the one thing
that doesn't change, no matter how much money, status, or
power one acquires. All of them remain a sad commentary
on the degree to which race affects all of the lives of
everyone, Black and white, from the custodian to the
president of the United States.
The language of the book, I suspect, is as much Mr.
Carter's as it is that of his characters. The talk is of
university professors, upper echelon politics, and the
like. It shines a light on a world of privilege, money,
and status most will never know. Many folks never think
of African-Americans having a place in this world, at
least not prior to affirmative action taking hold, but we
did, even if it remained a separate subset of this world
all our own. I also suspect that much of what Mr. Carter
describes in his fictional world is largely true today.
It is in my world.
I got off to a slow start reading NEW ENGLAND WHITE—my
fault entirely because my focus was elsewhere—but once I
committed, I found the story to be a real page turner.
Every scene raises another question for readers, forcing,
if not daring, them to read on. By three-quarters of the
way though this 500+ page tale, I couldn't put it down,
determined to solve, as quickly as time would permit, both
whodunits as well as the question of why.
The motivations of the murderers, at least of the modern
day killer (no spoilers here), are still a bit fuzzy for
me and thus, diminished my enjoyment just a hair. Overall,
I found NEW ENGLAND WHITE to be an extremely well-written,
highly entertaining tale, one that in today's highly
charged racial and political environment certainly causes
the reader to say, "What if...?"
The eagerly awaited, electrifying new novel from the
author of The Emperor of Ocean Park (“Among the most
remarkable fiction debuts in recent years . . . A
rip-roaring entertainment”—TheBoston
Globe).
When The Emperor of Ocean
Park was published, Time Out declared: “Carter
does for members of the contemporary black upper class what
Henry James did for Washington Square society, taking us
into their drawing rooms and laying their motives bare.”
Now, with the same powers of observation, and the same
richness of plot and character, Stephen L. Carter returns to
the New England university town of Elm Harbor, where a
murder begins to crack the veneer that has hidden the racial
complications of the town’s past, the secrets of a prominent
family, and the most hidden bastions of African-American
political influence.
At the center: Lemaster Carlyle,
the university president, and his wife, Julia Carlyle, a
deputy dean at the divinity school—African Americans living
in “the heart of whiteness.” Lemaster is an old friend of
the president of the United States. Julia was the murdered
man’s lover years ago. The meeting point of these
connections forms the core of a mystery that deepens even as
Julia closes in on the politically earth-shattering motive
behind the murder.
Relentlessly suspenseful,
galvanizing 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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