A Father’s Law (P.S.) (Paperback)
From Publishers Weekly
The centennial of Richard Wright’s birth occasions the publication of this still-unfinished crime novel, which Wright was working on when he died in 1960. Ruddy Turner, a black Chicago police officer, is appointed the police chief of a rich Chicago suburb, Brentwood Park, when the current police chief is murdered. As Ruddy settles into his office, a woman is found dead in the Brentwood Park woods, possibly the sixth victim of what we would now call a serial killer. Ruddy’s son, Tommy—a brilliant but high-strung sociology student at the University of Chicago who makes Ruddy uneasy because of his difficult temperament—knew one of the murder victims well and has been studying Brentwood Park. In an atmosphere of mounting hysteria in town, Ruddy’s unconscious cop mind begins to connect Tommy to the murders. Is it due to some Freudian rivalry between the father and the son, or to the facts of the case? The plot elements and dialogue in this draft are crude, and it’s hard to say how the book would have been shaped out of its state of flux. A short introduction from Wright’s daughter, Julia, speculates provocatively and notes how Wright brings race, class and family dynamics to bear on Ruddy’s actions and thoughts, which he does brilliantly. (Jan.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
From Bookmarks Magazine
Richard Wright’s unfinished novel divided critics. Some hailed it as “a prescient examination of the generational and class conflicts that await black Americans as they move from the margins of society into the cultural mainstream” (Washington Post); others panned its wooden dialogue, melodrama, and disappointing exploration of racial identity. They all agreed, however, that Wright would most certainly have tackled these narrative flaws. Despite the novel’s shortcomings, Wright’s admirers will be grateful for the opportunity to hear his voice once more.
Copyright © 2004 Phillips & Nelson Media, Inc.
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August 15th, 2009 at 6:54 pm
I have always been a fan of Richard Wright. “Black Boy” was one of the first books that I ever read to completion in my early years, along with S.E. Hinton’s “The Outsiders”, and then “Native Son” by Wright. Ponyboy and Bigger made great impressions on me as a rural Mississippi kid with hopes of living somewhere that would remotely resemble a world in motion.
I learned of “A Father’s Law” through an online group. Dr. Jerry Ward, Jr. had written a review of the book before it was available to the general public. I placed my order before the book was available and anxiously waited for delivery.
I read this book slowly, because reading this book brought back memories and themes from his earlier works. Expelling them was not to be done. Instead, I weighed them against the lines and tones of the new work. The unfinished story shifted my perception of Mr. Wright away from the racial themes that predominated his other works. Mr. Wright was writing a story that seemed to be freeing him to go beyond doing the necessary work of using literature as a form of protest. He was using literature to create the type of books that made writers great because of how they wrote, and not what they wrote. “A Father’s Law” shows progression. Once there was Bigger and now there is Police Chief Ruddy who has a troubled son, Tommy, that echoes the Bigger character-type but who also demonstrates the distance that we now see between generations. The effects of that distance within the story is seen in the actions taken by the son.
The plot of the unfinished novel is an unfinished reality we continue to ponder with, especially regarding youth and crime. Ruddy was able to rise out of the themes Wright presented to us in Native Son and other stories. However, he was successful in using Tommy to show us what we now know by experience and the evening news of the late eighties and nineties which had the young and old facing and moving in different directions.
The book is well done. His daughter, Julia, paid great tribute by completing this project and submitting the manuscript. It is a gift to us all. It ended at a very exciting point in the story. I would be certain to guess that the author was gearing to steer us to a dynamic conclusion. While reading, I thought I’d feel cheated with this being an unfinished novel. I was not cheated at all. Instead, I was left at a crossroad marvelling at the various paths that lay ahead.
Also, The story put me in the mind of Walter Mosely and his Easy Rawlins novels at times. With revisions that would only come with the work that time didn’t allow, this book could have been a finished product that would serve as a pivot point in the career of a great writer. “A Father’s Law” is a great celebration.
August 15th, 2009 at 11:57 pm
Amazing work. I only wish there would have been a conclusion. It has prompted me to read other works by Richard Wright. I knew going in I would be left hanging because it was an unfinished work but after a few pages I didn’t care. I threw causion to the wind and fell head first in love with the story.