Dead Reckoning

Like a modern-day version of sociologist E. Franklin Frazier, Carter casts a critical light on the lifestyles of the black and privileged. In his novels, as in real life, they must demonstrate a voluminous knowledge of mainstream culture -- its history, politics, neuroses, etc. -- while serving tirelessly as spokespersons for and guardians of their own embattled slice of marginalia. Little wonder, then, as Carter dryly notes, "black Americans at the top of their professions seemed to feel the need from time to time to slough off the personas that brought success in the wider, white world -- and to escape the small whispers and slights whose existence they secretly feared -- and hang out instead with the successful of their own nation."

What does "hanging out" involve? The black bourgeoisie of Carter's quaint New England universe are neither charming nor discreet. They convene in social clubs, hold cotillions and swap salacious gossip, all the while "proudly and determinedly preserving all that was useless in African America." Carter ironically dubs these wannabe aristocrats the Clan, whose charter members often spend much of their energy making sure that access is denied to "the wrong sort of Negroes."

The clubs, notes one Clan doyenne, let the black elite "express solidarity with the community without actually having to do anything about it. They can congratulate each other on their achievements, and leave the striving for justice to those they have left behind." This is the Carter-esque skewering we've come to know and love.

But dismissing these hardworking professionals as pampered sell-outs would be far too simple, so Carter wisely endows them with an extra layer of complexity. He reveals that they haven't really turned their backs on pursuing justice; they've simply brought it over to the "dark" side. Which brings us back to Kellen Zant, whose cold, stiff corpse gets the action underway. Zant was certain that his sleuthing would eventually topple the most powerful white men in the country. He didn't live to discover the riveting tidbit that Carter shares with the rest of us: The white men in question -- senators, presidents, fixers -- are just pale imitations of genuine influence. The real juice belongs to a secret, handpicked society of brilliant, coldly manipulative black men. Yes, that's right: black men, large and completely in charge. This shadowy circle, to which Lemaster belongs, is composed of puppet masters whose strings stretch all the way to the highest realms of government, including the Oval Office.

"Their theory is that America gives nothing freely," Carter tells us. "They believe America won't cross the street to help a black man, not if it's not forced to. And so what they do, what they've done for a long time, is gather unflattering information about people in positions of power. Or people who might reasonably be expected to attain positions of power. . . . They don't think the identity of the party in power makes a dime's worth of difference in the lives of African Americans. All that matters to them is whether the people in power are people over whom they hold some influence."

These resolute operatives bring to mind the Seven Days, a similarly vengeance-minded crew chillingly portrayed in Toni Morrison's Song of Solomon. Whenever an atrocity was committed against blacks, one of the Days was obliged to commit a similar brutality against whites. But that group's tit-for-tat missions, although bloody, are mere playground shenanigans compared to the machinations Carter suggests. His successful teasing out of such a bodacious notion -- holding our attention all the while -- is testament to his formidable storytelling. The novel's satisfying conclusion also points out how irrelevant genre labels have become. Technically, New England White is a mystery, but it's a fantasy most of all. Fitting fare, no doubt, in the land of make-believe. ·

Jabari Asim is deputy editor of Book World. His latest book is "The N Word: Who Can Say It, Who Shouldn't and Why."