The Emperor of Ocean Park

I thought I would try a book that was outside my typical genre and point of view.

The Emperor of Ocean Park is about familial intrigue, questioning the character of a parent where the relationship was already imperfect, and all the while trying to hold your own personal life together.

I don’t normally read political, law, or FBI/CIA based books, honestly it bores me, but this was different; the tone was more personal. Talcott to me is someone who just wants peace and quiet, and will just always be interrupted until he explodes. He moderately likes what he does, but being surrounded by few people who get him with no underlying racial pretenses makes him live under a constant self-regulated coping mechanism; oh, and chess.

Chess was something his father, The Judge, was passionate about, and therefore Tal is, too. The usage of chess throughout The Emperor of Ocean Park is a perfect literary device for this story. The race against time, being careful about the moves you’re making, being one step ahead of your opponent. It’s also applicable to Tal’s everyday life as well: navigating his marriage with Kimmer while she runs for Judge and caring for their son, being a participate at work and its own politics, the relationships with his siblings now that they’re adults with their own families and leading their own lives. Everything seems to be so complicated when you have a lot to balance and live life highly self-restrained it seems.

It’s interesting to read something where there’s this curtain of anger or great annoyance in the realm of success for the black community in the 80s and 90s. When Tal goes to Martha’s Vineyard where their family has a vacation home, there are a lot of moments where those feelings are brought out. To be a minority family of success in the political realm where you endure the pressure to do well and lead the way for others, while facing criticism and an unwelcome attitude from your peers; I don’t know if I’ll ever experience that, but I make a great cheerleader for my friends that do endure and succeed.

I appreciate Tal’s sister Mariah. She plays the “sister who has to ride sidecar to a brother’s quest” role pretty well. He has all of these voices that are telling him to either continue to find the answer, or to stop and let it go out of fear of what the truth will reveal. Tal has to be careful, though. In the political and law-making world, you need to be careful who you’re confiding in. Mariah keeps the focus on their family; the mystery conjured by The Judge’s sudden death should be solved to bring closure for them.

I liked how The Emperor of Ocean Park ended. There’s normalcy, and there’s disappointment, but I’m glad that Talcott can finally move forward and begin to live his life with a little more peace.

If you would like to read The Emperor of Ocean Park, I would recommend it. I just found out recently that it’s actually the first of a 3 book series, so I would probably hunt that down, too. If you want to start with The Emperor of Ocean Park, you can find it here.