Stephen L. Carter. The Emperor of Ocean Park. Vintage, 2002.
For a shorter review see: 
The Emperor of Ocean Park by Stephen L. Carter
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
The Emperor of Ocean Park is one of the best written contemporary novels I have read. The author knows how to write well—and tell a story. I have known about Professor Carter from his nonfiction work, but this, his first novel, is also a gem.
The story grabs the reader right away. Unlike most novels, it is written in the present tense, but this is not an affectation. It is written mostly from the point of view of Talcott Garland, a professor at a stand-in for Yale Law School, where Carter actually teaches. Much of the story is set in Elm Harbor, Connecticut. New Haven is nicknamed the Elm City, and Haven means “harbor.”
On one level The Emperor of Ocean Park is a mystery. It is a complicated one, but a mystery nevertheless. Talcott’s father was a Federal judge and in the running for a Supreme Court position. However, his college roommate was Jack Ziegler, “Uncle Jack” to Talcott and his brother and two sisters. Though never convicted of a crime, Ziegler was associated with known criminal organizations, and when a former clerk of Judge Talcott—even his own kids call him the Judge—testified of his relationship with Ziegler during the Judge’s Supreme Court confirmation hearings, his nomination was withdrawn.
When the Judge dies, Ziegler shows up at the burial service and asks Talcott about his father’s “arrangements.” It is clear he was not talking about his will and how his estate would be distributed. Other people ask Talcott, and his brother and sister the same thing. His brother Addison, a womanizing talk-show host, and sister Mariah, a happy and wealthy suburban mother, both prefer not to know anything about this, but Talcott has to find out.
The Talcott family belongs to the black elite. Ocean Park is a section of Martha’s Vineyard where the family has a summer home. Growing up, they lived in Washington, D.C., in an upscale neighborhood and attended Sidwell Friends School. Readers may recognize that the children of a number of American Presidents attended that school, and that former President Obama owns property on Martha’s Vineyard, an island off the Massachusetts coast.
For readers from other parts of the country who make no association about the Vineyard, Talcott drops names when describing one island hangout: Bill Clinton, Jackie O, Spike Lee, and Ellen Holly, “the pioneering black actress.”
While all the active characters in this novel are fictional, we are reminded from time to time of different political events because of the Judge’s stature and residence in the national capital. One of the strengths of this book is the social and political commentary that accompanies it. Different characters, of course, have different views of the law and society, so their comments make for interesting reading.
Because most of the main characters are black, the novel gives the reader an idea of how black people think and feel about America. Since they are the black elite—professors, judges, bankers—they can be said to have achieved the American Dream. Still, they are aware that they are a distinctive group. The Judge called them the darker nation and white people the paler nation.
But the commentary is not simply about racial identity. There is much on law and on law schools. The novel does a good job in illustrating the politics of campus personnel—gossip, rivalries, and so on. Chapter nine begins with a long single-sentence paragraph describing his “under-educated but deeply committed Phi Beta Kappa ideologues” who make up the student body of his elite law school.
Not only are there several different people besides Uncle Jack curious about the judge’s arrangements, whatever they are, but there is also plenty of family drama. His sister Abby was killed by a hit-and-run driver when she was a teenager. It took a few years for the Judge to get over her death.
Talcott also suspects his wife has been unfaithful. Still, the Professor recognizes the importance of the family as the building block for society.
Two parents who actually love each other might be an interesting and radical beginning, but the mere suggestion that the traditional household might be good for children offends so many different constituencies that hardly anyone is willing to raise it any longer. Which further suggests, as George Orwell knew, that within a generation or two nobody will think it either. What survives is only what we are able to communicate. Moral knowledge that remains secret eventually ceases to be knowledge. (228)
Two people whom Talcott trusts are both Christian people. One is a clergyman who counsels him. Another becomes involved in a plot he dreams up. He teases her about the fundamentalist Methodist church she attends.
Carter (or Garland) can also be ironic when describing cultural scenes. He describes the culture’s “lurch” from integration, to “ethnic tribalism to diversity to multiculturalism to whatever it is we call the unbridled celebration of self…”(311).
Professor Garland would, for reasons I am not going to spoil, becomes momentarily famous and so is asked to speak at his law school’s graduation. If you read nothing else in this book, read his speech (pp. 582-583). While it is primarily about the legal profession, it applies to all of us.
One could say the same thing about the whole book. I sense that Professor Carter bled while writing this novel. The heart comes through. It is a terrific legal thriller, but it is something more. It is work of literature that deserves staying around. Thanks for writing this one, Professor.