Tom Wingo is an unemployed South Carolinian football coach whose internist wife is having an affair with a pompous cardiac man. This tale of identity and privilege never shakes off its sense of running a mechanical course.Ī flabby, fervid melodrama of a high-strung Southern family from Conroy ( The Great Santini, The Lords of Discipline), whose penchant for overwriting once again obscures a genuine talent. David abuses his power Juanita, poor, black, and unsophisticated, is “railroaded by a bunch of powerful white men” and Anton had “three parents in his life had each betrayed him.” While the author delivers her morally explicit story in an efficient, readable fashion, the inevitability of its outcome renders it earthbound. Characters are simple, plot developments easy to predict, and the racial lessons heavily underscored. Umrigar’s conscientious, one-track story doesn’t offer much in the way of nuance. Anton-also lied to-thrives, studies at Harvard, and is elected attorney general, but the reckoning is unavoidable.
The son of a senator and tapped for the governorship himself, David has powerful friends who help ensure a lengthy prison term for Juanita, and when her release is imminent, David persuades her, with lies, to relinquish custody of her son. Soon the judge is convinced that all parties (except Juanita) will be better off with Anton living with the Colemans permanently.
The question haunting Umrigar’s ( The Story Hour, 2014, etc.) seventh novel is: when? When will the chickens come home to roost? After Anton Vesper’s new father, Judge David Coleman, manipulates both the child and his crack-addict mother, Juanita, in order to cement Anton’s adoption? David and his trusting wife, Delores, lost their only son, James, in a car crash, and while Anton will never replace James, David thinks fostering the boy will help Delores heal. A neglected 9-year-old biracial child adopted by a powerful white family grows up to fulfill his potential only to confront a secret which will recast his entire sense of self.
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