Samaritan

Samaritan
by Richard Price

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Book Summary Information

Author: Richard Price
Edition: Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 2004-06-08
ISBN: 037572513X
Number of pages: 377
Publisher: Vintage

Book Reviews of Samaritan

Book Review: Unsentimental but Humane
Summary: 4 Stars

Richard Price may not be a household name, but you probably know him for his screenplays: Clockers, The Color of Money, Sea of Love, Mad Dog and Glory, and the recent redo of Shaft. The Bronx-born author has also written numerous novels, most of them about working-class life in hard-bitten urban locales: housing projects, subway stations, inner-city high schools.
His latest novel, "Samaritan," is about a man who has skyrocketed out of the projects to success, but can't seem keep himself from going back. Ray Mitchell, now a wealthy screenwriter, has returned from Los Angeles to New Jersey, in part to be nearer to his adolescent daughter, Judy, in part to escape his cocaine habit. But he's also come back to excavate something from his own background in the dismal, crime-infested Hopewell housing projects. And upon his return, how is he welcomed? He wakes up in a hospital bed after having his head smashed in by an unknown assailant. He insists that he remembers nothing of what happened.
The novel's other half concerns Nerese Ammons, a black cop about to retire. She would like to leave her job with a bang by solving a case that's meaningful to her. And Ray Mitchell's assault turns out to be meaningful because, as she discovers through a happy coincidence, she grew up with Ray in Hopewell. "Samaritan's" plot proceeds with Nerese's work at solving the crime by patiently interviewing the people in Mitchell's life, starting with his casual acquaintances, and then narrowing down to his intimate friends and lovers, like a hawk circling on its prey.
As with most mystery stories, Nerese's most likely suspects (and the reader's) shift from character to character, from disadvantaged but likeable high school kids, to a group of unusual houseguests noticed by Richard's neighbor, to the husband of Ray's illicit lover, Danielle.
The story's somewhat complex plot structure is worth mentioning. Not only do the chapters alternate, switching from Ray's story to that of Nerese, but we also alternate between the present narrative and a series of flashbacks that gradually fill us in on how things managed to get where they are. Toward the end, the result is sort of like watching as a blurry digitized picture gradually comes into sharp, clean focus.
But more than plot, it is the characters who gradually become precise and clear. As the novelist E.M. Forster once remarked, with rueful irony, about the public's demand for a novel to have a plot: "Yes--oh, yes--the novel tells a story." The fact is that Samaritan, despite its plot's clever machinations, is ultimately about characters and how they evolve--or in some cases don't.
Ray's surface motivation, we discover, is to prove to those people who are still stuck in the ghetto that he "got out". And he proves this through philanthropy, hence the novel's title. He lends money to people in need, or gives it to them right out, and he knows they won't pay him back.
And by engaging in this process, he manages to sink back into the very same ghetto, entangling himself into the lives of the project-dwellers. Through his generosity, Ray becomes a martyr, in the negative sense of the word. A doormat. If he can't be loved by the people who he lends money to, then he can at least feel morally superior to them, which is the martyr's deeper motivation.
Finally, the novel's purpose seems to be the exposé of a type, the Samaritan who hopes to gain something in return for his generosity, whether it is respect, dependency, sex or love.
And if "Samaritan" is a novel about character, Richard Price delivers these characters to the reader through his strongest suit: realistic dialogue. He captures masterfully the spoken language of inner city characters no matter their age or ethnicity, whether poor black teenagers, privileged white teenagers, or world-weary cops. As the rappers would put it, he "makes it real."
On the other hand, during moments of run of the mill narrative, which any novel requires, sometimes Price's writing is downright lazy. When he's working to get a character from one place to another, or to depict a characters thoughts and feelings, the sentences are often written summarily, with no attention to rhythm, precision, variety, sound, or even intelligibility. Take this whopper, for example: "But, overcome by an embarrassed surliness as he found himself recalling the semi-euphoric flush of altruism that he had experienced in lessening degrees on each of the kid's previous cash-themed visits, Ray refused to bite." Did you have to read it twice? There's a difference between complexity and perplexity. A good editor might have cleaned up some of these train wrecks.
Whoppers aside, "Samaritan" is a compelling novel. It paints an unsentimental but humane portrait of life in the housing projects, draws us into a complex and interesting plot, and adeptly explores the theme of being addicted to performing charitable good deeds in order to win love. Perhaps most significantly, "Samaritan" introduces us to a couple of well-drawn and memorable characters. Don't be surprised if Richard Price's name shows up again in the credits when it's made into a movie.
See more writings of a literary nature at www.maninquotes@blogspot.com

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Summary of Samaritan

Ray Mitchell, a former TV writer who has left Hollywood under a cloud, returns to urban Dempsy, New Jersey, hoping to make a difference in the lives of his struggling neighbors. Instead, his very public and emotionally suspect generosity gets him beaten nearly to death. Ray refuses to name his assailant, which makes him intensely interesting to Detective Nerese Ammons, a friend from childhood, who now sets out to unlock the secret of his reticence. Set against the intensely realized backdrop of urban America, the cat and mouse game that unfolds is both morally complex and utterly gripping.

Like his previous novels Freedomland and Clockers, Richard Price's Samaritan is a crime drama set in the explosive slums of fictional Dempsy, New Jersey. Ray Mitchell, a former TV writer, has returned to his hometown to reunite with his estranged teenage daughter, Ruby. Eager to contribute to his beleaguered community, Ray begins volunteering as a writing teacher at a local high school. When a brutal assault leaves him hospitalized, Nerese Ammons, a nearly retired detective and lost childhood friend of Ray's, investigates. She discovers, however, that while Ray can identify his attacker, he is unwilling to disclose their identity. Anxious to end her career with fireworks, Nerese continues digging, only to find that Ray made several generous donations to poor acquaintances and recently began a romantic relationship with the wife of an established criminal. While the case looks closed, Nerese continues to find evidence of Ray's troubled past and shortsighted altruism, increasing the number of possible assailants and suggesting Ray's complicity in the crime.

Price's narrative, which alternates between Ray's story and Nerese's ongoing investigation, gains momentum as the mystery nears resolution. Samaritan falters, though, in its awkward attempts at timeliness and, more acutely, its underdevelopment. The selfish, people-pleasing Ray is a multifaceted character, but he fails to inspire sympathy, while the savvy Nerese never escapes two-dimensional limbo. Price brings the streets of Dempsy to life, however, with informed, realistic descriptions and inner-city survivors like junkie-turned-independent-social-worker White Tom Potenza, who still "couldn't pass a pay phone without flicking the coin return, still stopped dead in his tracks at the sight of salvageable debris." While the plot will keep readers engaged, it's the world into which they're drawn that makes Samaritan a worthwhile visit. --Ross Doll

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