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LAST INTEGRATIONIST, THE
Lamar, Jake
1996 47200 Realism slowly gives way to dark satire in this richly imagined but disjointed first novel about race, politics and criminal justice. Attorney General Melvin Hutchinson, who's black, is President Troy McCracken's first choice to fill the vacant vice presidency after the current veep suffers a stroke. Hutchinson is a living symbol of law and order in this near-future America, where executions are televised live and the Justice Department has established boot camps called DRCs (Drug Reeducation Centers) to stop inner-city crime. In a brilliantly effective device, using Hutchinson and his niece Emma as the main characters, Lamar examines relationships between the races through interracial romance-primarily Emma's with her Jewish boyfriend, Seth Winkler, but also through an interracial affair that left Hutchinson with a devastating secret. Less effective are the cliff-hanging surprises with which he ends the novel's sections before veering off on other plot lines only to build upon the revelations obliquely. Regrettably, the final section, which ties everything together into a conspiracy plot and ends with a brutal but cartoonish finale, buries all of Lamar's excellent character work beneath a heavy message-a thud of a wrap-up for a novel that features a lot of fine writing about race in America. Lamar's first book was the memoir Bourgeois Blues. Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc. From Booklist Dozens of nonfiction works "tell" readers how dangerous and self-destructive American attitudes toward race are. This first novel by former Time writer Lamar--whose Bourgeois Blues (1991) described his middle-class African American childhood--" shows" us where these attitudes could take us in the not-so-distant future. Melvin "Hang 'Em High" Hutchinson, the African American attorney general in the American Party administration, popular for its aggressive war on criminal "parasites," may be named to succeed the nation's comatose vice president. This polarized nation, which fights crime with star-studded televised executions, drug-reeducation boot camps, and Federal Youth Corps thugs patrolling city streets, seems ready at last to put a black American "a heartbeat away" from the presidency. But American Party leaders have an undisclosed agenda; even the conservative Hutchinson can't ignore what he learns. Lamar has created a lively, scary, believable world here, keeping his high-powered Washington skulduggery anchored to reality by exploring the less newsworthy but equally painful experiences of Hutchinson's aspiring photographer niece. This involving read provides nourishing food for thought. Mary Carroll Crown 0517593750 / 9780517593752
Hardcover AS NEW CONDITION New York
Price:
16.34 USD
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