Freedomland
BDD Audio, $25
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REVIEW BY ROBERT FLEMING
Inspired by the tragic 1994 Susan Smith incident in North Carolina, Richard Price sought to understand the social and cultural effects a heinous crime -- cruelly exploited by a headline-thirsty media and insensitive political opportunists -- has on a city fraught with racial tension. The result of his curiosity is his latest and most accomplished novel, Freedomland, which continues his astute explorations of race, power, and intricate human relationships in the same neighborhood that his celebrated work, Clockers, took place. When Brenda Martin, a young white single mother, alleges that her vehicle was car-jacked by a black man near the infamous Armstrong housing projects, every person with an agenda comes forth to take unfair advantage of the situation. The city is cleaved in two along racial lines, with the residents of an African-American neighborhood squaring off against the whites of a blue-collar neighborhood. A false arrest of a black man only inflames the volatile atmosphere, pushing events to the brink of violence. In the hands of a less capable novelist, this book could have emerged as cheap melodrama, but Price tinkers with the format of the American whodunit, fashioning a penetrating study of his three leading characters. The focus of the town's pity and compassion, Martin is revealed as a complex, troubled woman with several grim secrets tucked away in her past. Detective Lorenzo Council, assigned to the case, has split loyalties. His sentiments are with the residents of the Armstrong projects, where he grew up, but his duty is to uphold the law. Then there's Jesse Haus, a white reporter out to build a reputation from the Martin case. Price holds the reader's attention as he shocks and surprises with a rapid series of brutally frank scenes. The pacing is fierce. He dissects the growing controversy surrounding the crime, studying it under a microscope like a lab researcher, ultimately satirizing our national obsession with anything sordid and provocative. However, the climax of Freedomland fulfills all of the criteria of the modern mystery fable, permitting Price to insert a few twists and turns near the wild conclusion, leaving the reader breathless but satisfied. Robert Fleming is a writer in New York.
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