Book Log 2008 #22: New England White by Stephen Carter

I really enjoyed Carter's first novel The Emperor of Ocean Park, so I was very happy to tuck into his follow-up effort, which takes two of the first book's minor characters - Lemaster and Julia Carlyle - front and center.

Julia is the main character, a dean at an unanmed Ivy's divinity school, while Lemaster is the school's new president. An economics professor at the school - a former lover of Julia's - is killed near their home in a nearby town, and she becomes wrapped up in solving his killing when it is linked to the death 30 years earlier of a teenager, a murder that Julia's daughter Vanessa has become obsessed with, either a cause or a sign of some underlying mental health issues.

As with the first book, the mystery that frames New England White is at times secondary to any of the book's various themes, from mother-daughter connections to the internal politics of academia to the inter- (and intra-) relationship of the "paler" and "darker" nations.

It all comes together in a pretty engrossing whole. I actually missed a subway stop while I was reading this book, which I don't think I've ever done before. I've read some complaints that the book is too long and that there are too many ancillary characters and subplots to keep things straight, but I'd have to disagree. These can be challenges (I'll admit to some flipping to remind myself about certain characters), but without all the detail I don't think the book would have been as complete. If you go into it expecting some complexities of detail (and if you read the first book, you were probably going to do this anyway), you'll be fine. Recommended, but not for a casual browse.