But his lead is slipping thanks to a late entrant into the race - Sandy Wolcott, a defence attorney riding high on the success of a high-profile murder trial. Axel Hathorne, former chief of police and the son of Pleasantville's founding father Sam Hathorne, was the clear favourite, all set to become Houston's first black mayor. As usual the campaign focuses on Pleasantville - the African-American neighbourhood of the city that has swung almost every race since it was founded to house a growing black middle class in 1949. Too much is sometimes, simply, too much.It's 1996, Bill Clinton has just been re-elected and in Houston a mayoral election is looming. When it finally arrived, the resolution was a good one, though its strength was lessened by an unnecessary epilogue. I wanted to like this book much, much more than I actually did. I was engaged by Jay and his family, and enjoyed Lonnie and Rolly, but there’s so much “story” that I couldn’t quite get a full grasp on any of the characters. There was a good story underneath the details of political machinations and chemical plant lawsuit details, but the emotional heft of what Locke is trying to say is obscured by it all. The mix, like Jay’s legal case, is all a bit much.
On top of this, Locke places a dense layer of local and national politics, race, money, and power.
Jay maneuvers his way through a morass that includes grief for his wife, life as a single father, the possibility of losing his business, and his work on a trial where he’s overwhelmed. Jay’s discovery of the missing client files taken during the burglary suddenly makes sense. Meanwhile, Jay’s clients in his environmental lawsuit begin to drop out, telling him they plan to leave and go with another lawyer. Jay has little criminal law experience and feels over his head in the case, but the defendant’s powerful grandfather throws a high-powered legal team behind him, while Jay assembles his own: Lonnie, a down-and-out reporter, and Rolly, a tattooed, long-haired enforcer. When the girl turns up dead, Neal Hathorne, the nephew of a high-profile politician in the midst of a mayoral race, is accused, and Jay is asked to defend him. While Locke doesn’t specifically say it, Porter’s own wife died of cancer likely caused by the chemical company.Īs the book opens, two key things happen: a young girl, apparently a campaign worker, disappears and Jay’s office is burglarized.
Jay Porter, lawyer, recent widower, and father of two, is losing hope in a struggle over a giant lawsuit against a chemical company responsible for a lot of illness throughout Pleasantville (think Erin Brockovich). Pleasantville is a solidly middle-class black neighborhood in Houston. This novel is the second in Attica Locke’s Jay Porter series after Black Water Rising, though the two books are set 15 years apart, with this latest installment set in Houston, Texas, in 1996.
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