The Emperor of Ocean Park, while a work of fiction, unfolds like a real life autobiography of Talcott - Tal or Misha when greeted informally. He is a university law professor in the fictional city of Elm Harbor. His wife Kimmer (Kimberly) is a partner in an Elm Harbor law firm.
While Talcott’s father was a distinguished lawyer and judge his reputation was shattered by a “mortifying confirmation fight” after he was nominated for the Supreme Court. Details roll out through the pages. Garland is a sardonic narrator.
His father has bequeathed to him a house on the Vineyard on Cape Cod near the Kennedy’s. Carter had me when Garland states:
My father died at his desk. And, at first, only my sister and a few stoned callers to late-night radio shows believed he had been murdered.
His sister, Mariah, has startled him with her pronouncement that “Uncle” Jack Ziegler killed their father. She insists he did not die of a heart attack.
Ziegler had been the Judge’s roommate at university. He is a “disgraced former employee of the Central Intelligence Agency” who lunched with the judge and, at the time of the confirmation hearing, was facing trial on multiple charges. Guilt by association is an American tradition. By the time Ziegler is acquitted of almost all charges the Judge’s nomination is long gone.
The upper class Garland family have their own class distinctions within the Black community. His mother referred to those Black people lacking their economic or social or academic status as not “our kind of Negro”.
He has his own pretensions. Black people are members of the “darker nation”. White people are the “paler nation”.
The Garland’s have good connections to other American elites.
Talcott and his father both have a:
“…. disapproving look. Like everybody’s morally smaller than you are.”
The Honorable Oliver C. Garland was a favourite of right wing groups and a constant media presence; he was an erudite conservative.
Kimmer is seeking a federal judicial appointment. In contemporary America she is right to worry whether a tainted father-in-law can doom her chances.
Some of the most interesting characters are the law school colleagues of Talcott. They are a varied group who are first identified by their liberal / conservative status and thereafter by their skills, in decreasing importance, as writers of scholarly articles, at collegial infighting in, fund raising, finding outside work and teaching. They maintain an outward civility to each other. I could have read a book devoted to their interactions. I doubt many non-lawyers would be as interested in the nuances of their positions on major legal issues and the conflicts, often modest in significance to those outside the law school, between them.
Talcott is an outlier in the faculty as a Christian. Religious beliefs are rare among the professors. Atheism is preferred.
An unknown group believes he is the repository of “arrangements” conveyed by his father. He was not given any “arrangements”. Somehow his father’s hobby of creating chess problems is connected. Talcott is in a Kafequese situation. Carter handles the shadowy adversaries well. Credible conspiracies are a challenge.
When the break in the mystery comes it is neither luck nor intuition. It comes from Talcott analyzing a tidbit of information given to him.
The winding end to the conclusion is somewhat convoluted and loses some of the pace of the narrative. The drama is diminished by the cryptic answers provided to Talcott. Yet just when the pages are going slowly Carter adds a twist I never saw coming or starts driving the plot forward.
The family dramas remain vivid. It is striking how it is the women of Talcott’s life who lead the way. He is more often the follower.
While the main characters are lawyers the law plays a modest role in the story. The politics of American judicial appointments are important but much of what happens could have had the characters in other prominent occupations or university faculties.
There are abundant memorable word vignettes. Watching the departure from the gravesite he thinks “my father, for most of the mourners, is already in the past”.
“The way it was before” echoes through the book. The phrase resonates with the fictional characters and readers. Only the events defining life vary from person to person. With the Garland’s change is not welcomed. “Before” was a better time in their family memories. Talcott knows “before” is gone but he cannot move forward unti her resolves “before”. The phrase haunts the book.
The book is a grand saga with even minor characters well drawn. I was reminded of my lament in my review of Noble House about looking for a grand modern saga. The Emperor of Ocean Park qualifies. I had wondered how Carter would end the long complex plot. He finds a credible resolution. As usual, I had not foreseen the ending. Carter is an excellent writer.
This does sound like a real family saga, Bill. The characters really got my attention, which I always appreciate in a story. But I was also thinking about the look at society that the book offers. It really sounds as though the book offers an interesting perspective on that, too. I think I may have to look this one up.
ReplyDeleteMargot: Thanks for the comment. I was reminded of how little I know of "societies" within our overall "society". I expect you would find the law professors memorable and could appreciate their interactions.
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