Prologue: OUT OF TIME

Ray - January 10

Ray Mitchell, white, forty-three, and his thirteen-year-old daughter, Ruby, sat perched on the top slat of a playground bench in the heart of the Hopewell Houses, a twenty-four-tower low-income housing project in the city of Dempsy, New Jersey.

It was just after sundown: a clear winter's night, the sky still holding on to that last tinge of electric blue. Directly above their heads, sneaker-fruit and snagged plastic bags dangled from bare tree limbs; above that, an encircling ring of fourteen-story buildings; hundreds of aluminum-framed eyes twitching TV-light silver, and above all, the stars, faintly panting, like dogs at rest.

They were alone, but Ray wasn't too concerned about it-he had grown up in these houses; eighteen years ending in college, and naive or not he just couldn't quite regard Hopewell as an alien nation. Besides, a foot and a half of snow had fallen in the last two days and that kind of drama tended to put a hush on things, herd most of the worrisome stuff indoors.

Not that it was even all that cold-they were reasonably comfortable sitting there under the yellow glow of sodium lights, looking out over the pristine crust under which, half-buried, were geodesic monkey bars, two concrete crawl-through barrels and three cement seals, only their snouts and eyes visible above the snow line, as if they were truly at sea.

Two Hispanic teenaged girls cocooned inside puffy coats and speaking through their scarves walked past the playground, talking to each other about various boys' hair. Ray attempted to catch his daughter's eye to see if she had overheard any of that but Ruby, embarrassed about being here, about not belonging here, studied her boots.

As the girls walked out of earshot, the snowy silence returned, a phenomenal silence for a place so huge, the only sounds the fitful rustling of the plastic bags skewered on the branches overhead, the sporadic buzzing of front-door security locks in the buildings behind them and the occasional crunching tread of a tenant making their way along the snowpacked footpaths.

"Dad?" Ruby said in a soft high voice. "When you were a child, did Grandma and Grandpa like living here?"

"When I was a child?" Ray touched by her formality. "I guess. I mean, here was here, you know what I'm saying? People lived where they lived. At least, back then they did."

At the low end of the projects, along Rocker Drive, an elevated PATH train shot past the Houses, briefly visible to them through a gap in the buildings.

"Tell me another one," Ruby said, her breath curling in the air.

"Another story?"

"Yeah."

"About Prince and Dub?"

"Tell me some more names."

"More?" He had already rattled off at least a dozen. "Jesus, okay, hang on...There was Butchie, Big Chief, Psycho, Hercules, Little Psycho-no relation to regular Psycho-Cookie, Tweetie..."

"Tell me a story about Tweetie."

"About Tweetie? OK. Oh. How about one with Tweetie and Dub?"

"Sure."

"OK. When I was twelve? Dub's thirteen, we're playing stickball on the sidewalk in front of the building, about eight guys. You know what stickball is?"

"Yes."

"How do you..."

"Just go."

"OK. We're playing on the sidewalk. Dub's standing there at the plate, got the bat..."

Ray slipped off the bench, struck a pose.

"Ball comes in..." He took a full swing. "And behind him is this girl Tweetie, she's just like, daydreaming or whatever, and the stick, on the backswing, like, clips her right over the eye like, zzzip...Slices off half of her eyebrow, the skin, the flesh-"

"Stop."...

 

A white TV writer returns to the "projects" to become a volunteer creative writing teacher. After an assailant nearly kills him, he refuses to identify his attacker. It's up to his black female schoolmate of yore, now a cop nearing retirement, to ferret out the truth. The author uses this schema to touch on issues of race, integrity, loyalty, and poverty. He has a playwright's ear for dialogue and has drawn some memorable characters, whom actor Richard Allen plays vividly. In a soft baritone and steady cadence, Allen tiptoes gingerly through the narrative. He clearly enjoys wrapping his tongue around the passages of street language. Y.R. (c) AudioFile 2003, Portland, Maine

 

 

"Engaging...provocative...Price has a fine ear for the subtle tension between sentimentality and real devotion, and he understands the way that chronic black poverty plays into the needs of 'the selflessly selfish.' If this is a novel that raps the knuckles of a helping hand, it's nonetheless one to grab on to."

 

"It's a tribute to Price's originality that [his] characters become as distinct and real as they do...Well-intentioned Ray [is] enigmatic and fresh...Price has a great way with dialogue, [and] a better-developed-than-usual sense of structure. Samaritan unfolds on twin time tracks, [and the] carpentry works...Price's revelation of the culprit is absolutely consistent with his characters and thematically right on the money...Anyone who thinks fiction or literature too small a shelf to include the other stands to learn a lot from Richard Price."

 

"Giving new meaning to the term "inner city," Price yields up not just the familiar, blanched moonscape of urban blight but the inner lives and jackhammering hearts of those who pace and patrol it."

 

"A dream of a book...a supremely suspenseful novel (with a denouement that will leave you marveling at how artfully the author kept us from guessing the perpetrator's identity), but to call it a thriller would be selling it short. Part police procedural, part high-wire psychodrama, part social study, it's a wholly engrossing hybrid that packs an emotional wallop...."

 

"Dazzling...The perfect pace of a superb storyteller is but one of the gifts Mr. Price brings to Samaritan. Razor-sharp dialogue is another, as well as his urban-poetic descriptive flair. It all makes for an extraordinary novel, with the gritty plot of a hard-edged thriller and the cosmic concerns of a streetcorner Dostoyevsky."

 

"A whodunit only in format, Samaritan is that rarity, a novel of race relations written with authority, panache and heart."

 

"Powerful...Wise...The novel is alive because writers like Price are crafting books like Samaritan, about a guy who discovers the hard way what a complicated transactions charity can be...For all the homework that went into Clockers, Price was never a dealer or a cop. But he has been what Ray is in Samaritan, an intruder in other people's lives. His fellow feeling with this character goes deep. What he knows about Ray you don't learn by researching the streets. Instead, you prowl your own heart. It's one more beat that Price knows how to walk with authority."

 

"Without dictating Price's fiction, reality inspires his imagination, provoking a finely detailed and immensely readable inquiry into what might be called the double nature of benevolence...Where a typical crime novel would traffic in surprises and twists, Price has always eschewed the formula. The wisdom and impact of his recent books derive from his insight into just how unspectacular crime can be. The perpetrators in Price's fiction act less out of passion or greed than drudgery and shattered hope...On the narrative journey from mystery to resolution, Price demonstrates his usual gifts for dialogue, detail and empathetic portraiture...When a novelist stays that close to the ground, there is no confusing illusion with actuality...Wrenching."

 

"Price is renowned for in-your-face fiction: violent, fast-paced, yet morally complex...He's also demonstrated a flair for believable dialogue and visual detail...[Samaritan is] another of Price's first-rate urban morality plays--a compassionate, politically savvy whodunit that reads like Dostoevsky circa 2003...He proves himself to be one of our best chroniclers of big-city experience."

 

"A full-to-bursting package held together by a strong, suspenseful plot... Unknowability is the key to Ray Mitchell, the essence of what makes him such a fascinating saint...Ray is preternaturally alert, alive to the mental states of those around him. Price, through Ray's alertness, gives even minor characters a real, if temporary, being. And yet--and here's the miracle--because it's Ray's alertness, the novel, though various and populous, feels centered on his character and therefore strong. Price does this in few words. It's not a function of I.Q. It's not articulate. It's more like a prickling of the flesh...A demographic epic filled with little people who command true human feeling..."

 

"Price's seventh novel ranks with the best of the others...His books have the gutsy appeal of the classiest hard-boiled mysteries: fast pace, tripping idiomatic dialogue, unpredictable plot swerves, zingy sex, and genuine suspense...But [Samaritan] also possesses philosophical breadth, clearheaded social commentary, and a fine facility with language...Price's vivid documentation may tease us into thinking we are in Dempsy, New Jersey, but in fact we are in existentialist territory... So quirky a mix of virtues makes [Price] unique...Terrific."

 

"[Samaritan] hurtles along like the PATH train that traverses Price's urban landscape, weaving back and forth, before and after the severe beating of Ray Mitchell [whose] complexity is matched by the detective investigating the crime...Price's dialogue rings true throughout, and his sense of place is solid and of the moment."

 

"Price is not just a gifted writer but also one who thinks long and hard about human behavior...We know from page one that we're in good hands, with masterful detail, vivid scene-setting, and acutely observed, naturalistic dialogue. The crime-solving framework pulls us forward but is unencumbered by the pedantic detail of a police procedural, and the depth of the characterizations is magnificent: [The main characters] and the considerable supporting cast are fully imagined beings who surprise us but never test our credulity. Enmeshed in this taut storytelling is a meditation on the complicated nature of giving, and a caution that, with ill-considered charity, we can hurt others even when we think we're doing them a favor. Superb."

 

Samaritan by Richard Price
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