A Father's Law

"An intense, provocative, and vital crime story that excavates paradoxical dimensions of race, class, sexism, family bonds, and social obligation while seeking the deepest meaning of the law." -- Booklist

Originally published posthumously by his daughter and literary executor Julia Wright, A Father's Law is the novel Richard Wright, acclaimed author of Black Boy and Native Son, never completed. Written during a six-week period prior to his death in Paris in 1960, it offers a fascinating glimpse into the writer's process as well as providing an important addition to Wright's body of work.

In rough form, Wright expands the style of a crime thriller to grapple with themes of race, class, and generational conflicts as newly appointed police chief Ruddy Turner begins to suspect his own son, Tommy, a student at the University of Chicago, of a series of murders in Brentwood Park. Under pressure to solve the killings and prove himself, Turner spirals into an obsession that forces him to confront his ambivalent relationship with a son he struggles to understand.

Prescient, raw, and powerful, A Father's Law is the final gift from a literary giant.

Binding Type: Paperback
Publisher: Harper Perennial
Published: 01/08/2008
ISBN: 9780061349164
Pages: 320
Weight: 0.56lbs
Size: 7.98h x 5.52w x 0.85d

Review Citations: Publishers Weekly 11/19/2007 pg. 35
Library Journal 01/15/2008 pg. 91
Booklist 12/01/2007 pg. 4
New York Times Book Review 02/24/2008 pg. 14
Ebony 06/01/2008 pg. 58
Chronicle of Higher Education 07/25/2008 pg. 12