The Whites Paperback – February 9, 2016

The book is very well written. The prose is rich and engaging. It is also morally ambiguous, which is something I can usually appreciate. Here it left me feeling disappointed. The book would, no doubt, have been a dressed-up cheap dime store paperback had the main character taken a more conventional high road, but the author misses some opportunities to solidify his position. The fact that he failed to do so suggests that he either hopes the book reviews will do that for him or he tacitly endorses an indefensible position.For me, the most compelling theme of the novel is the phenomena of being a victim. Victim status is a coveted position in modern America, both in popular culture and the courtroom. The need to be a victim, and the need to advocate for the victim, can dehumanize the actor -the subject of the prosecution- and the victim. The desire for revenge, closure, and belonging are all heavily explored in the novel, some instances of this phenomenon more skillfully sketched out than others. When figures close to the main character begin to exhibit these symptoms, we can watch his sympathies rise and fall predictably with the changing context. By the end, however, Billy loses his center, consumed and eaten away just as decisively as those objectively in the wrong. The plot poses a seemingly valuable ambiguity: who carries the right to be a victim and what authority or power does that status rightfully confer? For the seeming majority of Americans in this country, the question is well worth asking. Given the present state of popular opinion, I simply wish the novel took a position rather than leaving the main character utterly in my contempt.I highly recommend the book, assuming as I must that we are called upon to skeptically challenge the character's conclusions.

Originally, Richard Price planned on releasing The Whites under the pen name "Harry Brandt," saying that he wanted to separate the novel's more commercial, plot-driven aspects from his usual writing. It's a decision he didn't stick with, obviously, and has made numerous jokes about, remarking in one interview that he realized that the novel would be just "another damn book by me" too late into the process.All of which is to say, it's not surprising that The Whites feels like an uneasy union between a traditional hard-boiled police procedural and Price's more thoughtful, internally driven novels focused on social factors. The hook is pulpy enough - an NYPD detective named Billy Graves starts realizing that numerous "white whales" (hence the title) that have gotten away with horrible crimes on various technicalities keep turning up dead, and starts investigating - and once you mix in the way that another officer begins slowly stalking and terrorizing Graves and his family in payback for a long-ago crime, you've got a pulpy setup for revenge and hard-boiled retribution.But that's not really entirely Price's style, and while The Whites gives us a good mystery to hang onto and some tightly paced thrills, Price keeps turning the novel into something more complex and introspective, making us understand not only the appeal for revenge but turning it into a question that touches on religion, divine purpose, and a lack of justice in the world. And while Price never comes across as pro-vigilante justice, he never forgets the way that grief can impact people and tear apart families, leading to victims not only of the original crimes, but victims of the rippling consequences that spread out from them. And, as if that's not complicated enough, Price realizes that you can't take on the idea of murdered suspects without taking on questions about police brutality, racial profiling, and more, and while The Whites never quite dives into those aspects fully, they undeniably linger around the edges of the novel, informing the debates and shaping characters' reactions to what's going on.With all of that thrown into the mix, as you might imagine, The Whites turns from a pulpy revenge thriller into something far more complex, and that juxtaposition doesn't always entirely work. Price's work often works best when he lets his characters drive the story, keeping the plots simple and allowing internal monologues and psychological complexities be the hook for our story. Here, The Whites sometimes struggles to hold up under the weight of its characters, as though Price really wanted to deliver a nasty noir novel and instead couldn't help but turn it into a character study in which these people's decisions are rendered in all of their complexity and nuance.That all may make for an uneasy marriage of elements, but it also means that The Whites is a rich, engrossing novel, even if its one that feels like its story is holding it back some. (For instance, it's worth noting that the novel's best scene involves an interrogation sequence which has no bearing on either of the main plot threads, and yet whose emotional impact has stuck with me for many days, long after I finished the book.) But maybe that's the best thing about The Whites; what you're expecting is a lurid noir tale, but what you get is something more sophisticated, more nuanced, and more complicated, giving us not archetypes but people, not bloodless murders but awful crimes, not easy motivations but complex reasoning, and not easy answers but instead an awful uncertainty. Maybe that's what makes it a better book than you'd expect it to be.

I don't think star ratings for serious novels are fair, but this is Amazon's system, so .....This novel is very well done. It is structurally sound. It carefully builds tension. It keeps you guessing -- about a lot of things -- and gives you the satisfaction of watching the narrative pieces click into place at the appropriate time.Many of the reviews remark on the confusion created by the number of characters. That is a valid comment, and I did experience that sense of character overload at about page 50. I had to scroll back through what I had read. Once I did that, however, I never had to do it again. What makes the characters somewhat confusing is that there are two groups of characters: 1) the "night shift" cops that Billy, the main narrator, works with at the time the story is being told, and 2) the cops Billy used to work with in the 70s, known as the "Wild Geese." It is not a spoiler to point out that the two worlds ultimately converge, as they should.A further potential source of confusion is the second narrator, Milton Ramos. Chapters narrated by Ramos are always titled "Milton Ramos," so the author is merciful in that regard. From my recollection (it's been a couple of months), the first Ramos chapter pops up at about page 50, which gives the reader the sense of, "Whoa, I'm just starting to sort out the rest of the characters, and now this?". But, again, the saving grace is the structural soundness of the novel, and the Milton Ramos element will integrate into the narrative with the satisfying 'click' that is the reward for a patient and diligent reader.So why only three stars? There are too many great books. This is a very good one of its kind.