Product Description

In her long-awaited fifth novel, acclaimed writer Marita Golden takes another unflinching look into the face of family, race, love and identity.

For twelve years Carson Blake inhabited a world of his own creation. Scorned by the father who was incapable of showing him affection and nearly consumed by the mean streets of Prince George’s County, Maryland, Carson did what no one else could: he saved himself.
After joining the police force and building a family with his wife, Bunny, Carson is finally in control of his life in the enclave where African American wealth and privilege shares the same zip code with black American crime and tragedy. Both Carson and his wife have great careers and three beautiful children: Roslyn, Roseanne, and Juwan. Carson is a devoted father, determined not to be the father that Jimmy Blake was to him. But while Juwan’s astounding artistic talent is his father’s pride, the boy’s close relationship with classmate Will conjures up emotions and questions in Carson that threaten to spill over and poison the entire Blake family.
And then, one night in March, nearing the end of a routine shift, Carson stops a young black man for speeding. He orders Paul Houston to exit the car and drop to his knees. But when Houston retrieves something from his waistband and turns to face Carson, three shots are fired, one man loses his life and two families are wrenched from everything that came before and hurled into the haunting future of everything that will come after. When it is revealed that Paul, a son of educators and a teacher in Southeast D.C., was only holding a cell phone, Carson’s carefully woven world begins to unravel.
After is a penetrating work of discovery for a man whose life careens more than once off the edge of disaster. Golden’s astounding prose will stay with you long after you’ve turned the last page.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #604530 in Books
• Published on: 2007-07-17
• Released on: 2007-07-17
• Original language: English
• Dimensions: 8.32" h x .50" w x 5.50" l, .66 pounds
• Binding: Paperback
• 256 pages

From Publishers Weekly
The author of half a dozen books on race, both fiction and nonfiction, Golden tackles the subject from a different perspective in her latest novel about a black policeman who kills an innocent young black man. Thinking the driver he just pulled over is reaching for a gun, Maryland police officer Carson Blake shoots first. But what Carson thought was a gun turns out to be a cellphone. Carson; his wife, Bunny; and their three children struggle through the aftermath as Golden explores the baggage that comes with the badge for a black family man. The story has potential, but Golden's flat prose and bloodless dialogue drain it. She does offer some studied insight into a fraught dynamic, but the novel as a whole is standard and sentimental. (May)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist
Carson Blake is a confident Maryland police officer in his mid-30s. He is struggling with the cynical life cycle of young black men--being a product of that experience and having the responsibility to "serve and protect" the larger community. His fairly comfortable life is drastically changed when a routine traffic stop results in his use of deadly force against an unarmed black man, a schoolteacher whose professor parents live within the general area where Blake's family lives. Obsessed with guilt about the shooting, Blake misses his son's struggle with sexual awareness and gender identification. His wife, Bunny, labors to save Blake from going off the deep end and balance his need to do right by his victim's family and his own. Golden deftly portrays the life-altering consequences of an unfortunate act, the threats to Blake's family and the victim's. But she also artfully reflects on police brutality from inside the black middle class, where neither affluence nor good intentions offer sufficient protection. Vernon Ford
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Review
Praise for the previous works of Marita Golden

“Marita Golden’s novel [The Edge of Heaven] brings us—with sensitivity and deft artistry—the precious stories of three generations of women in the aftermath of a tragedy that has torn each from herself and each from the others. Golden’s women are altogether knowable and most unforgettable: their struggle to find their way back to some tiny form of normalcy will make a place in a reader’s memory and heart.”
—Edward P. Jones, Author of The Known World

“Golden has a rare gift for the poetry of language.” —San Francisco Examiner and Chronicle

“Marita Golden writes with a fine hand.” —Newsday

“An acclaimed chronicler of Black women’s lives.” —Kirkus Reviews

“[Long Distance Life is] a novel of impressive artistry and power.” —Washington Post