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Samaritan
Ray Mitchell, a former TV writer who has left Hollywood under a cloud, returns to urban Dempsy, New Jersey, hoping to make a difference in the lives of his struggling neighbors. Instead, his very public and emotionally suspect generosity gets him beaten nearly to death. Ray refuses to name his assailant, which makes him intensely interesting to Detective Nerese Ammons, a friend from childhood, who now sets out to unlock the secret of his reticence. Set against the intensely realized backdrop of urban America, the cat and mouse game that unfolds is both morally complex and utterly gripping.
378 pages, Paperback
First published January 7, 2003
76 people are currently reading
1473 people want to read
About the author
Richard Price
133 books958 followersLibrarian Note: There is more than one author in the GoodReads database with this name.
Also writes under the pen name Harry Brandt
A self-described "middle class Jewish kid," Price grew up in a housing project in the northeast Bronx. Today, he lives in New York City with his family.
Price graduated from the Bronx High School of Science in 1967 and obtained a BA from Cornell University and an MFA from Columbia. He also did graduate work at Stanford. He has taught writing at Columbia, Yale, and New York University. He was one of the first people interviewed on the NPR show Fresh Air when it began airing nationally in 1987. In 1999, he received the American Academy of Arts and Letters Award in Literature.
Price's novels explore late 20th century urban America in a gritty, realistic manner that has brought him considerable literary acclaim. Several of his novels are set in a fictional northern New Jersey city called Dempsy. In his review of Lush Life (2008), Walter Kirn compared Price to Raymond Chandler and Saul Bellow.
Price's first novel was The Wanderers (1974), a coming-of-age story set in the Bronx in 1962, written when Price was 24 years old. It was adapted into a movie in 1979, with a screenplay by Rose and Philip Kaufman and directed by the latter.
Clockers (1992) was nominated for the National Book Critics Circle Award. It has been praised for its humor, suspense, dialogue, and characterizations. In 1995, it was made into a movie directed by Spike Lee; Price and Lee shared writing credits for the screenplay.
Price has written numerous screenplays, of which the best known are The Color of Money (1986), for which he was nominated for an Oscar, Life Lessons (the Martin Scorsese segment of New York Stories) (1989), Sea of Love (1989), Mad Dog and Glory (1992), Ransom (1996), and Shaft (2000). He also wrote for the HBO series The Wire. Price was nominated for the Writers Guild of America Award award for Best Dramatic Series at the February 2009 ceremony for his work on the fifth season of The Wire. He is often cast in cameo roles in the films he writes.
Price also wrote and conceptualized the 15 minute film surrounding Michael Jackson's "Bad" video.
Additionally, he has published articles in the The New York Times, Esquire Magazine, The New Yorker, Village Voice, Rolling Stone, and others.
Also writes under the pen name Harry Brandt
A self-described "middle class Jewish kid," Price grew up in a housing project in the northeast Bronx. Today, he lives in New York City with his family.
Price graduated from the Bronx High School of Science in 1967 and obtained a BA from Cornell University and an MFA from Columbia. He also did graduate work at Stanford. He has taught writing at Columbia, Yale, and New York University. He was one of the first people interviewed on the NPR show Fresh Air when it began airing nationally in 1987. In 1999, he received the American Academy of Arts and Letters Award in Literature.
Price's novels explore late 20th century urban America in a gritty, realistic manner that has brought him considerable literary acclaim. Several of his novels are set in a fictional northern New Jersey city called Dempsy. In his review of Lush Life (2008), Walter Kirn compared Price to Raymond Chandler and Saul Bellow.
Price's first novel was The Wanderers (1974), a coming-of-age story set in the Bronx in 1962, written when Price was 24 years old. It was adapted into a movie in 1979, with a screenplay by Rose and Philip Kaufman and directed by the latter.
Clockers (1992) was nominated for the National Book Critics Circle Award. It has been praised for its humor, suspense, dialogue, and characterizations. In 1995, it was made into a movie directed by Spike Lee; Price and Lee shared writing credits for the screenplay.
Price has written numerous screenplays, of which the best known are The Color of Money (1986), for which he was nominated for an Oscar, Life Lessons (the Martin Scorsese segment of New York Stories) (1989), Sea of Love (1989), Mad Dog and Glory (1992), Ransom (1996), and Shaft (2000). He also wrote for the HBO series The Wire. Price was nominated for the Writers Guild of America Award award for Best Dramatic Series at the February 2009 ceremony for his work on the fifth season of The Wire. He is often cast in cameo roles in the films he writes.
Price also wrote and conceptualized the 15 minute film surrounding Michael Jackson's "Bad" video.
Additionally, he has published articles in the The New York Times, Esquire Magazine, The New Yorker, Village Voice, Rolling Stone, and others.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 239 reviews
March 11, 2023
Rating: 3.95
This being the first book I've read by the author, I found the plot, characters and premise intriguing.
The story is centered around Ray Mitchell, an occupational nomad and 'invisible' father. Growing up in Dempsey, a tough area of NJ, we learn about his childhood friends of which a black girl nicknamed "Tweetie" was his closest.
The story toggles back to the present where Ray's vocational flash backs include English teacher, cab driver, drug addict and Emmy nominated TV series writer in Los Angeles. After cleaning up his act, he's back in the same NJ neighborhood having been bored with the LA scene. Flush with cash from TV, his urge to teach storytelling results in a volunteer position at the school he was both student and teacher years previous. The after hours class includes a handful of teenage students of which one or two are interested. During the first week he encounters Coley, aka Salim now age 30, a former English class student who remains to hold him on a pedestal.
As the story progresses, we see Ray battle his inner demons and guilt for abandoning his wife and teen age daughter Ruby, the antidote taking form in overzealous kindness. Having notoriety and a six figure bank account in Dempsey is abnormal, as is a former drug addict playing good samaritan when unexpected. As the saying goes, 'no good deed goes unpunished', we learn Ray's involvement with Danielle Hernandez, mother of Nelson and wife of Freddie, a drug dealer in prison, it's clear lust derailed his logic.
This is where 'Tweetie', aka Nerese enters the picture, a detective for 20 years and nearing early retirement. When she gets word Ray has returned and has been hospitalized, she decides her swan song is finding the culprit and takes the investigation on eagerly. As she learns about Ray's entanglement with Danielle, Freddie becomes the obvious target. Throughout the plot we witness Ray's tenacious commitment to helping strangers, acquaintances or friends. Whether money, advice, fatherly love or 'teaching', there are no bounds for his good samaritan-ness.
Having had his head traumatized with a vase he lays unconscious in the hospital; Tweetie's anger causes her to dig deeper for clues about the attacker. When Ray finally rises from the coma and is able to speak, she's convinced he's shielding the attacker, but can't figure out why. When he finally returns home, Danielle, Nelson and Salim become frequent visitors, each with their own agenda.
The narrative gives the reader insights into the criminal mind along with kids who lack self esteem. The author shows how Ray's days of teaching and caring take the form of fatherly skills with both his daughter and Danielle's son. However, the closeness he builds with Nelson does not sit well with Freddie and as with most well crafted mysteries, an unexpected twist arises at the end.
I'm not a fan of narratives packed with dialog, but in this case, it serves the story well. Driven by themes of lifelong friendship and redemption, its well crafted, paced and engaging and reads more like a movie script than novel. I thoroughly enjoy his style and will be reading others he's written.
This being the first book I've read by the author, I found the plot, characters and premise intriguing.
The story is centered around Ray Mitchell, an occupational nomad and 'invisible' father. Growing up in Dempsey, a tough area of NJ, we learn about his childhood friends of which a black girl nicknamed "Tweetie" was his closest.
The story toggles back to the present where Ray's vocational flash backs include English teacher, cab driver, drug addict and Emmy nominated TV series writer in Los Angeles. After cleaning up his act, he's back in the same NJ neighborhood having been bored with the LA scene. Flush with cash from TV, his urge to teach storytelling results in a volunteer position at the school he was both student and teacher years previous. The after hours class includes a handful of teenage students of which one or two are interested. During the first week he encounters Coley, aka Salim now age 30, a former English class student who remains to hold him on a pedestal.
As the story progresses, we see Ray battle his inner demons and guilt for abandoning his wife and teen age daughter Ruby, the antidote taking form in overzealous kindness. Having notoriety and a six figure bank account in Dempsey is abnormal, as is a former drug addict playing good samaritan when unexpected. As the saying goes, 'no good deed goes unpunished', we learn Ray's involvement with Danielle Hernandez, mother of Nelson and wife of Freddie, a drug dealer in prison, it's clear lust derailed his logic.
This is where 'Tweetie', aka Nerese enters the picture, a detective for 20 years and nearing early retirement. When she gets word Ray has returned and has been hospitalized, she decides her swan song is finding the culprit and takes the investigation on eagerly. As she learns about Ray's entanglement with Danielle, Freddie becomes the obvious target. Throughout the plot we witness Ray's tenacious commitment to helping strangers, acquaintances or friends. Whether money, advice, fatherly love or 'teaching', there are no bounds for his good samaritan-ness.
Having had his head traumatized with a vase he lays unconscious in the hospital; Tweetie's anger causes her to dig deeper for clues about the attacker. When Ray finally rises from the coma and is able to speak, she's convinced he's shielding the attacker, but can't figure out why. When he finally returns home, Danielle, Nelson and Salim become frequent visitors, each with their own agenda.
The narrative gives the reader insights into the criminal mind along with kids who lack self esteem. The author shows how Ray's days of teaching and caring take the form of fatherly skills with both his daughter and Danielle's son. However, the closeness he builds with Nelson does not sit well with Freddie and as with most well crafted mysteries, an unexpected twist arises at the end.
I'm not a fan of narratives packed with dialog, but in this case, it serves the story well. Driven by themes of lifelong friendship and redemption, its well crafted, paced and engaging and reads more like a movie script than novel. I thoroughly enjoy his style and will be reading others he's written.
March 23, 2015
His best book, I think. The female cop is one of the best characters I've ever read. Love.
January 9, 2015
A failed screenwriter returns to his hometown of Dempsey, New Jersey (the same fictional city featured in Richard Price's masterpiece Clockers), in order to get back in touch with his roots and to teach a high school class. After he decides to do some good deeds in the inner-city community, he gets his ass kicked close to death. He's refusing to name his attackers or give a reason for the beating, so his old high school friend, and now near-retired cop, Nerese "Tweetie" Ammons, sets out to find the answers.
Richard Price is a great wordsmith with true sense of authenticity in his writing. In Samaritan although there's some rambling soliloquizing from certain characters that drags and slows down the story at times, he tells a solid story of deep moral and emotional complexity with compelling, relatable characters (Nerese specifically is a refreshing creation). The novel also turns out to be a thoughtful look at the urban public education system.
Richard Price is a great wordsmith with true sense of authenticity in his writing. In Samaritan although there's some rambling soliloquizing from certain characters that drags and slows down the story at times, he tells a solid story of deep moral and emotional complexity with compelling, relatable characters (Nerese specifically is a refreshing creation). The novel also turns out to be a thoughtful look at the urban public education system.
February 29, 2024
If an unknown writer turned in this manuscript to a publisher, they’d laugh him out of the building.
“How dare you hand us something that isn’t a pastiche of the last ten bestsellers in this genre? Don’t you know anything about writing?”
Almost everything I’ve read lately in the genre of crime and thrillers has been shit, pure shit and formulaic, the written equivalent of paint-by-numbers art. Most of these “thrillers” have been cannibalized from other novels or movies, even taking bits and pieces of titles and rearranging them, like those refrigerator magnet words, to name the next bestseller. The offspring eat their parents so that they all seem like the same book with one of only a handful of plots: a child disappears, a woman’s husband isn’t the man she married, a murder story with the usual twists, turns, red herrings, and dead ends. It’s like they are all making something using the very same blocks, and there are very few blocks.
And then you have the novels of Richard Price.
In my review of Lush Life I wrote that there was a crime in the novel, but it hardly mattered to the story. It was just one murder in a city that has a murder every day—during a good year. The crime was just one aspect of the story, and sometimes a very small part. This book doesn’t even have a murder, although Ray’s beat down came dangerously close to homicide, but Price’s books aren’t about a case, they’re about a world, the world around the crime. Hell, the crime isn’t even necessarily the center of these universes, just one of many objects whirling around, mostly out of control, or at least beyond the control of the protagonists, at least some of them.
Samaritan unfolds on two levels: a police investigation just a step or two behind the actual events as they occurred, clearing up, bit by bit, the bad information and inconsistencies of the statements of witnesses and very circumstantial evidence, as the cops call it. One part of the story is the reflection in a murky puddle, the other is the object itself, the truth, for what that’s worth.
Bobby Sugar is a retired cop making a buck in the private sector. You could call him the guy behind the guy, the detective behind the detective. The silent partner that every cop wants and needs desperately in his corner. He has a very small, supporting role in this novel, but he could walk out of this story and inhabit his own series of novels. Here is his resumé:
To various police departments around the country, to the IRS, to credit retrievers and to innumerable banks, he was an FBI agent doing a workup on a suspect. To the Central Insurance Bureau, he was a fraud investigator from Blue Cross needing a history of claims. Referencing the staff rosters of every public and private hospital from New York to California, he was an affiliated doctor compiling the medical history of a new patient; and to former employers he was either an executive headhunter needing off-the-record feedback on a potential recruit, or a political campaign manager doing a background check on a new volunteer.
A step down on the investigative food-chain is Tommy Potenza, AKA White Tom, the token white dude in the projects and the local gossip, another great character whom Price conjures out of his subconscious, from the dark recesses of his mind that created the haunting hellscape of Clockers and his fictitious Dempsey, New Jersey, a place even worse than the real New Jersey hellscapes lying somewhere in the shadows of what the tourists see in New York, places where there is no sunshine, only the flashing lights of police cruisers, where it’s always five in the morning after a rough night and all good people should be home behind double-locked doors.
The only gap I find in Price’s armor is that I don’t like the protagonist, Ray, and don’t believe that anyone so weak and gullible would have made it out alive from a childhood in the projects. I never really bought his motivation for anything he did and I, too, felt he “had it coming.” He was just too easy of a mark, a sucker who wouldn’t have survived in the corridors and open lots of his childhood home in Hopewell. I didn't much like the character of Strike in Clockers, but that didn't keep me from rating that novel up among my favorites of the 1990s.
Ray is an idiot, but he does have moments of lucidity:
…knowing at that moment, knowing with absolute certainty, that the remainder of Salim’s life, regardless of whatever school of spirituality or industrious free enterprise game plan he embraced, would be one long unbroken cavalcade of elaborate excuses and self-defeating con jobs, and that any continued bankrolling of this kid on his part would be the equivalent of flushing money down a toilet.
But then, only a page or two later, Ray buckles…again!
“I’ll go for another four hundred and fifty.” Ray looked away
Oh my god, does this guy ever got it coming to him. As if Ray’s inexorable march to his own destruction weren’t clear enough from the start, one more expectation of hope has been straddled, like the penultimate hurdle in a short race where the outcome was really never much in doubt. Will he be able to dodge another bullet, or a screwdriver, as the case may be?
Nerese is such a better, stronger human. I kept readingthe books mostly to learn more about her. She is like the protagonist in the old fairy tale of the tortoise and the hare, and you just know better than to bet against her no matter what the odds. Her opponent in this contest—or whatever it is—seems to be everyone who looked down on her in her life, underestimated her, and that was just about everyone, but mostly she is competing against the victim.
Two women, different galaxies succinctly put in this exchange between Nerese and Ray’s ex-wife:
“Maybe it’s just me, but Ray, he overparents. Overthinks, overreacts, overagonizes. You know the type I’m talking about?”
“To be honest?” Nerese said. “I personally have never met the male ‘over’ type. The ones I know range from ‘under’ to nonexistent.”
For some reason, this paragraph stopped me dead in my tracks and shines a lot of light on how Nerese is moving ahead in her investigation, with all the cunning of a chess master looking five moves down the board:
The trick here tonight would be to get Nelson to contradict at least a few details in his mother’s account of the evening in question and to do so in her presence without her pulling the plug on the interview. The other needle to thread was to pull this off without letting the boy get wind of what this was all about: his mother’s infidelity, his father’s violence, the possible—no, most definite—return of said father to jail. Nerese could handle rage, bluster and deceit; innocence was tricky.
Price never comes out and says it directly, nor should he, as it’s not really his place, but it’s there, plain as day, for readers to see: don’t have fucking children if you can barely even take care of yourself. This novel is populated by throwaway children, most of them compounding the problem by perpetuating the cycle by having their own throwaway brood. If you portrayed the treatment of a pet the same way some of these kids were raised, people would throw a fit.
Even Ray and Nerese, the two people who can actually afford to have a child, have yet to be validated as parents, and things aren’t looking exactly rosy for either of them.
“How dare you hand us something that isn’t a pastiche of the last ten bestsellers in this genre? Don’t you know anything about writing?”
Almost everything I’ve read lately in the genre of crime and thrillers has been shit, pure shit and formulaic, the written equivalent of paint-by-numbers art. Most of these “thrillers” have been cannibalized from other novels or movies, even taking bits and pieces of titles and rearranging them, like those refrigerator magnet words, to name the next bestseller. The offspring eat their parents so that they all seem like the same book with one of only a handful of plots: a child disappears, a woman’s husband isn’t the man she married, a murder story with the usual twists, turns, red herrings, and dead ends. It’s like they are all making something using the very same blocks, and there are very few blocks.
And then you have the novels of Richard Price.
In my review of Lush Life I wrote that there was a crime in the novel, but it hardly mattered to the story. It was just one murder in a city that has a murder every day—during a good year. The crime was just one aspect of the story, and sometimes a very small part. This book doesn’t even have a murder, although Ray’s beat down came dangerously close to homicide, but Price’s books aren’t about a case, they’re about a world, the world around the crime. Hell, the crime isn’t even necessarily the center of these universes, just one of many objects whirling around, mostly out of control, or at least beyond the control of the protagonists, at least some of them.
Samaritan unfolds on two levels: a police investigation just a step or two behind the actual events as they occurred, clearing up, bit by bit, the bad information and inconsistencies of the statements of witnesses and very circumstantial evidence, as the cops call it. One part of the story is the reflection in a murky puddle, the other is the object itself, the truth, for what that’s worth.
Bobby Sugar is a retired cop making a buck in the private sector. You could call him the guy behind the guy, the detective behind the detective. The silent partner that every cop wants and needs desperately in his corner. He has a very small, supporting role in this novel, but he could walk out of this story and inhabit his own series of novels. Here is his resumé:
To various police departments around the country, to the IRS, to credit retrievers and to innumerable banks, he was an FBI agent doing a workup on a suspect. To the Central Insurance Bureau, he was a fraud investigator from Blue Cross needing a history of claims. Referencing the staff rosters of every public and private hospital from New York to California, he was an affiliated doctor compiling the medical history of a new patient; and to former employers he was either an executive headhunter needing off-the-record feedback on a potential recruit, or a political campaign manager doing a background check on a new volunteer.
A step down on the investigative food-chain is Tommy Potenza, AKA White Tom, the token white dude in the projects and the local gossip, another great character whom Price conjures out of his subconscious, from the dark recesses of his mind that created the haunting hellscape of Clockers and his fictitious Dempsey, New Jersey, a place even worse than the real New Jersey hellscapes lying somewhere in the shadows of what the tourists see in New York, places where there is no sunshine, only the flashing lights of police cruisers, where it’s always five in the morning after a rough night and all good people should be home behind double-locked doors.
The only gap I find in Price’s armor is that I don’t like the protagonist, Ray, and don’t believe that anyone so weak and gullible would have made it out alive from a childhood in the projects. I never really bought his motivation for anything he did and I, too, felt he “had it coming.” He was just too easy of a mark, a sucker who wouldn’t have survived in the corridors and open lots of his childhood home in Hopewell. I didn't much like the character of Strike in Clockers, but that didn't keep me from rating that novel up among my favorites of the 1990s.
Ray is an idiot, but he does have moments of lucidity:
…knowing at that moment, knowing with absolute certainty, that the remainder of Salim’s life, regardless of whatever school of spirituality or industrious free enterprise game plan he embraced, would be one long unbroken cavalcade of elaborate excuses and self-defeating con jobs, and that any continued bankrolling of this kid on his part would be the equivalent of flushing money down a toilet.
But then, only a page or two later, Ray buckles…again!
“I’ll go for another four hundred and fifty.” Ray looked away
Oh my god, does this guy ever got it coming to him. As if Ray’s inexorable march to his own destruction weren’t clear enough from the start, one more expectation of hope has been straddled, like the penultimate hurdle in a short race where the outcome was really never much in doubt. Will he be able to dodge another bullet, or a screwdriver, as the case may be?
Nerese is such a better, stronger human. I kept readingthe books mostly to learn more about her. She is like the protagonist in the old fairy tale of the tortoise and the hare, and you just know better than to bet against her no matter what the odds. Her opponent in this contest—or whatever it is—seems to be everyone who looked down on her in her life, underestimated her, and that was just about everyone, but mostly she is competing against the victim.
Two women, different galaxies succinctly put in this exchange between Nerese and Ray’s ex-wife:
“Maybe it’s just me, but Ray, he overparents. Overthinks, overreacts, overagonizes. You know the type I’m talking about?”
“To be honest?” Nerese said. “I personally have never met the male ‘over’ type. The ones I know range from ‘under’ to nonexistent.”
For some reason, this paragraph stopped me dead in my tracks and shines a lot of light on how Nerese is moving ahead in her investigation, with all the cunning of a chess master looking five moves down the board:
The trick here tonight would be to get Nelson to contradict at least a few details in his mother’s account of the evening in question and to do so in her presence without her pulling the plug on the interview. The other needle to thread was to pull this off without letting the boy get wind of what this was all about: his mother’s infidelity, his father’s violence, the possible—no, most definite—return of said father to jail. Nerese could handle rage, bluster and deceit; innocence was tricky.
Price never comes out and says it directly, nor should he, as it’s not really his place, but it’s there, plain as day, for readers to see: don’t have fucking children if you can barely even take care of yourself. This novel is populated by throwaway children, most of them compounding the problem by perpetuating the cycle by having their own throwaway brood. If you portrayed the treatment of a pet the same way some of these kids were raised, people would throw a fit.
Even Ray and Nerese, the two people who can actually afford to have a child, have yet to be validated as parents, and things aren’t looking exactly rosy for either of them.
October 31, 2008
I enjoyed this mystery much more than some of the Amazon reviewers. There are two main characters, a former TV writer named Ray and his high school friend, Tweetie. Ray is back in town trying to reestablish a connection to his daughter Ruby. When Ray is beaten nearly to death, Tweetie, an almost retured cop, comes in to figure out what happened. I found the plot to be interesting, and the characters to be complicated enough to hold my attention. Price does a nice job with the atmosphere and dialogue.
February 4, 2022
Very well written story - the main character annoyed the hell out of me right till the end.
August 20, 2014
Crime fiction would owe Richard Price a huge debt if he'd just written "Clockers" and then stopped. Like that book, this one is full of some of the best dialogue ever written, pitch-perfect journalistic detail, and a great perk-your-ears-and-try-to-figure-it-out mystery. To that, Richard Price throws in the neurotic self-dissecting streak he made such good use of in his earlier, more traditionally "literary" work. The results will be sure to get under the skin of anybody who has ever worked as a teacher or social worker in a rough area, and I'd actually put this on the reading list for anyone considering taking a job like that. If you've ever dragged themselves out of bed because "the kids needed you", this story is an uncomfortable but valuable look in the mirror.
December 22, 2008
Very good addition to modern urban-setting fiction by Richard Price. As with his other books he uses misdirection in the plot to make a point -- the book essentially is about how even the best intentions can be propelled by vanity, and the consequences of that for both any given individual and this modern moment. The plot involves a television writer who moves back to his boyhood home in northeastern New Jersey, and who, after starting a job at a local school where he teaches writing, is found severely beaten in his apartment. He then refuses to name the culprit, and the story spools out from there. The central question in the book is, can we really do good if our charitable or sympathetic impulses stem from a desire think of ourselves in the best light? Or as my grandmother used to say, "Too good no good." A bad way of putting it, maybe, but a it cuts to the point right away.
April 23, 2008
Ray Mitchell lived in the housing projects in Dempsey, New Jersey when he was a kid, but, despite many setbacks, he has become successful, writing for an award winning TV series about inner city high school students. He’s divorced, with a 12 year old daughter that he hardly knows, and hell bent on making life easier for folks still living in the projects.
Richard Price knows the language and characters of the streets. His descriptions and dialog create fully formed images in your head of the characters he writes about. Drug use, adolescent angst, money woes, prison visitations, parental responsibility and sex are the main ingredients in the mean streets that run through this book.
Richard Price knows the language and characters of the streets. His descriptions and dialog create fully formed images in your head of the characters he writes about. Drug use, adolescent angst, money woes, prison visitations, parental responsibility and sex are the main ingredients in the mean streets that run through this book.
June 17, 2008
It's easy to forget what a good writer Price is. Writing for movies and TV has sharpened his sense of character and dialogue. Ray is one of the most complex characters I've come across in fiction in awhile. What really does motivate us to try to do "good?" And how do we react when the consequences of our acts of "charity" aren't what we expect? Or worse, when those consequences are negative and we feel they are what "we deserve?" The twist at the end was wrenching.
December 21, 2007
This book has been sitting around my house for months and I finally picked it up. Wow! I have never read a crime pop fiction that has so much character devo in it. It is so well written and fascinating... enjoyed every page.
April 14, 2008
Lush Life has been getting a lot of super press, so found this earlier novel for a non-twenty-five dollar price. Eh. Lots of wonderfully drawn minor characters shoehorned into a less than compelling mystery plot.
August 4, 2015
Price dissects a crime and breaks it down to the basics - spot on with his dialog as usual.
Read
October 28, 2024St. Paul knew what he was talking about when he said, "Charity suffereth long." It's been suffering an identity crisis lately. Two years ago, Nick Hornby examined the personal costs of philanthropy in a comic novel called "How to be Good." Last year, in "A Bed for the Night," David Rieff claimed that international relief organizations create a debilitating culture of dependency among their starving beneficiaries.
And now comes Richard Price's "Samaritan," with an alarming EKG on a bleeding-heart liberal. All these books raise unsettling questions about the limits of charity and the conflicted motives that inspire it. But Price's novel, without the satiric exaggeration of Hornby's comedy or the depressing futility of Rieff's exposé, is most likely to scrape one's tender good will.
Price tells what should be a feel-good story about a divorced dad who returns to his old neighborhood to give something back. A few years of writing for a TV drama have given Ray Mitchell enough cash to retire and volunteer at the grungy school he graduated from 25 years ago. His writing class attracts only a few students, but walking up the down staircase, Ray is thrilled to think he's going to save these needy black kids with the power of his unconditional white love.
Unfortunately for Ray, this inspiring plan is interrupted after a month, when he's found nearly beaten to death in his apartment. Perhaps these are more dangerous minds than he realizes.
Detective Nerese Ammons must hang on for only a few months before she can retire after 20 years of service and begin a new, much less stressful career. As a black woman in a mostly male, mostly white department, she's had enough struggles on and off her beat. But hearing of Ray's assault sparks a memory of the time he helped her when they were both children, living in the same housing project....
To read the rest of this review, go to The Christian Science Monitor:
https://www.csmonitor.com/2003/0130/p...
And now comes Richard Price's "Samaritan," with an alarming EKG on a bleeding-heart liberal. All these books raise unsettling questions about the limits of charity and the conflicted motives that inspire it. But Price's novel, without the satiric exaggeration of Hornby's comedy or the depressing futility of Rieff's exposé, is most likely to scrape one's tender good will.
Price tells what should be a feel-good story about a divorced dad who returns to his old neighborhood to give something back. A few years of writing for a TV drama have given Ray Mitchell enough cash to retire and volunteer at the grungy school he graduated from 25 years ago. His writing class attracts only a few students, but walking up the down staircase, Ray is thrilled to think he's going to save these needy black kids with the power of his unconditional white love.
Unfortunately for Ray, this inspiring plan is interrupted after a month, when he's found nearly beaten to death in his apartment. Perhaps these are more dangerous minds than he realizes.
Detective Nerese Ammons must hang on for only a few months before she can retire after 20 years of service and begin a new, much less stressful career. As a black woman in a mostly male, mostly white department, she's had enough struggles on and off her beat. But hearing of Ray's assault sparks a memory of the time he helped her when they were both children, living in the same housing project....
To read the rest of this review, go to The Christian Science Monitor:
https://www.csmonitor.com/2003/0130/p...
February 13, 2025
I enjoyed this book. It was fun to get to know the characters and find out what exactly happened to Ray and why he chose to not disclose certain things. Peeling back the layers and learning the history and motivations of these characters l kept me engaged. Though sometimes I wanted to say to Ray, it's okay to tell people no sometimes lol. Though clearly he understood that but couldn't help himself. Good read.
May 13, 2018
Good police procedural, as expected from Richard Price.
June 3, 2024
I'm late to the party on this one from the oh-so talented Mr. Price, and I wonder how it is regarded now that Percival Everett's Erasure (the book behind the movie American Fiction) has made an important statement. However, irrespective of these concerns, Price has some of the best similes and metaphors in the business. Jaw-dropping descriptions.
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October 1, 2024Osvrt
"Samaritanac" - Richard Price
Bivši filmski scenarista Ray Mitchell se vraća u rodni grad da bi uspostavio dobar odnos sa svojom kćerkom Ruby. Godinama je radio razne poslove, drogirao se. Ali sad želi poraviti sve. U svom rodnom gradu sreće stare prijatelje i poznanike. Svakome nesebično pomaže koliko može. U školi koju je nekad završio volontira kao profesor kreativnog pisanja. Sve bude dobro dok Raya ne napadnu i on završi u bolnici sa teškim povredama glave. Njegova prijateljica iz djetinjstva Nerese je detektivka i istražuje slučaj. Ali Ray joj iz nekog razloga ne želi otkriti ko ga je napao.
Meni se knjiga nije svidjela. Nekoliko puta sam htjela odustati od knjige. Radnja je jednostavna. Ali Vi pročitajte, možda će Vam se svidjeti. Čitalački ukus je različit.
Citati:
"Osjećajni ljudi ne razmišljaju glavom, već srcem, i kad nešto krene nizbrdo počnu griješiti."
"Čovjek vrijedi koliko drži do riječi."
"Protiv istine se ne možemo boriti lažima."
"Samaritanac" - Richard Price
Bivši filmski scenarista Ray Mitchell se vraća u rodni grad da bi uspostavio dobar odnos sa svojom kćerkom Ruby. Godinama je radio razne poslove, drogirao se. Ali sad želi poraviti sve. U svom rodnom gradu sreće stare prijatelje i poznanike. Svakome nesebično pomaže koliko može. U školi koju je nekad završio volontira kao profesor kreativnog pisanja. Sve bude dobro dok Raya ne napadnu i on završi u bolnici sa teškim povredama glave. Njegova prijateljica iz djetinjstva Nerese je detektivka i istražuje slučaj. Ali Ray joj iz nekog razloga ne želi otkriti ko ga je napao.
Meni se knjiga nije svidjela. Nekoliko puta sam htjela odustati od knjige. Radnja je jednostavna. Ali Vi pročitajte, možda će Vam se svidjeti. Čitalački ukus je različit.
Citati:
"Osjećajni ljudi ne razmišljaju glavom, već srcem, i kad nešto krene nizbrdo počnu griješiti."
"Čovjek vrijedi koliko drži do riječi."
"Protiv istine se ne možemo boriti lažima."
January 14, 2017
This is low key to start with and is never the gritty urban crime novel that might be expected. The way Ray looks back to his beginnings is a bit patronising and clumsily written. Expecting a crime novel the reader wonders where the story is going of continual visits of the female lead to the male lead in hospital. But after a while it becomes clearer what the book is trying to do. The book is less about whodunnit than it is about altruism, redemption, trust, and the features of people's lives that can put them down different paths. The interesting characters are those who can be nudged towards a better life, and the author is interested in how far others are willing to go in continuing to support them.
The book highlights the difficulties of escaping bad circumstances; addiction, poverty, low expectations. Ray is presented as both altruistic in supporting others with time and money, but it also shows his difficulties in establishing close relationships.
The book highlights the difficulties of escaping bad circumstances; addiction, poverty, low expectations. Ray is presented as both altruistic in supporting others with time and money, but it also shows his difficulties in establishing close relationships.
November 24, 2023
Really enjoyed this one. I definitely want to read more of Richard Price’s work
February 28, 2020
This book is so far beyond the average whodunit police procedural. It is a deep character read. "Who in this life isn't carrying around a suitcase of hidden motives?"
A good, absorbing read.
A good, absorbing read.
January 20, 2019
This fucking book. This is one of the most frustratingly uneven novels I've ever read. Tough to rate too. Cut down by fifty percent it might be a masterpiece. Instead it is a book that contains greatness, repeatedly interrupted by tedium, awkwardness, and repetition.
The way Price sets the story up is masterful. In short: a television writer moves back to the area in New Jersey where he grew up. Shortly thereafter he gets his head bashed in; he survives but won't tell anyone what happened. Price is so evocative in his sketching of this scenario that, combined with the title and biblical epigraph, the premise takes on an almost Shakespearean dimension of human tragedy. The central question of the novel is not so much who committed the assault as why. What is understood is that the answer to this question is the story of this man's life.
At first Price is trenchant in his ability to go beneath the surface of an ordinary man's life. But gradually he loses his grip on the material and it is a disorienting experience after the authenticity of the opening act. The pacing falters and begins to drag as Price hits the same character beats over and over (and over). This becomes maddening after a while. At the same time the flaws in his prose style begin to show through, especially an aimless overdescriptiveness and occasional lapses into incoherent phrasing.
This took way too long to read for a 377-page novel. It takes forever to reach any type of dramatic payoff. Near the very end there are credible and resonant moments but by this point the novel is already a mess. It's hard to think of another novel in which elements of real greatness are marred by so much bad writing.
The way Price sets the story up is masterful. In short: a television writer moves back to the area in New Jersey where he grew up. Shortly thereafter he gets his head bashed in; he survives but won't tell anyone what happened. Price is so evocative in his sketching of this scenario that, combined with the title and biblical epigraph, the premise takes on an almost Shakespearean dimension of human tragedy. The central question of the novel is not so much who committed the assault as why. What is understood is that the answer to this question is the story of this man's life.
At first Price is trenchant in his ability to go beneath the surface of an ordinary man's life. But gradually he loses his grip on the material and it is a disorienting experience after the authenticity of the opening act. The pacing falters and begins to drag as Price hits the same character beats over and over (and over). This becomes maddening after a while. At the same time the flaws in his prose style begin to show through, especially an aimless overdescriptiveness and occasional lapses into incoherent phrasing.
This took way too long to read for a 377-page novel. It takes forever to reach any type of dramatic payoff. Near the very end there are credible and resonant moments but by this point the novel is already a mess. It's hard to think of another novel in which elements of real greatness are marred by so much bad writing.
July 21, 2015
An almost perfectly written novel. The writing is exquisitely good. If you think you might ever want to write a book yourself, don't read this, because you will get depressed when you realize you will never be able to tell stories the way Price does.
The title is brilliant. The theme begins as "No Good Deed Goes Unpunished", but as the story unfolds you wonder whether there is such a thing as a purely good deed, or whether all our acts of kindness are disguised selfishness. Ray is a Samaritan. But is he a good one?
4.5 stars. I was planning on 5 stars, but there is some flab here that could have been trimmed (one purely gratuitous sex scene comes quickly to mind). And in some sense, Price is the victim of his own success. He does such a brilliant job at showing the dark side of every good trait. A man's generosity is a near-compulsive need; a mother's protectiveness is a manifestation of guilt; a former student's gregarious charm might be nothing more than a con man's hustle. In the end, everyone is pretty unlikable.
The title is brilliant. The theme begins as "No Good Deed Goes Unpunished", but as the story unfolds you wonder whether there is such a thing as a purely good deed, or whether all our acts of kindness are disguised selfishness. Ray is a Samaritan. But is he a good one?
4.5 stars. I was planning on 5 stars, but there is some flab here that could have been trimmed (one purely gratuitous sex scene comes quickly to mind). And in some sense, Price is the victim of his own success. He does such a brilliant job at showing the dark side of every good trait. A man's generosity is a near-compulsive need; a mother's protectiveness is a manifestation of guilt; a former student's gregarious charm might be nothing more than a con man's hustle. In the end, everyone is pretty unlikable.
March 1, 2015
Much more than a thriller, this book offers an intriguing look into race relations and urban poverty, especially the efforts, successes and failures of people to escape it. And, perhaps most compellingly, through the main character, Ray, explores how attempts to help people in need can come more from a misguided desire to be a hero. Price adeptly juxtaposes Ray's somewhat ulterior motives with those of the lead detective, Nerese (a refreshingly human yet skilled character for this genre) to create a nuanced story. However, something kept me from really sinking into this one. Had the balance been shifted a bit more to following Nerese, I think I would have been more into it. Still, this book offers many layers and a nice shift from mysteries/thrillers that replace depth of story telling with body counts and super-human heroes. I look forward to reading more of Price's work.
October 19, 2007
More literary than Leonard and a little less dark than Ellroy, Price ranks among the masters of modern crime fiction. His procedural detail is quite competent, but he excels at character nuance and offers some of the truest American dialog around.
Set in the public schools and projects of New Jersey's Dempsey neighborhoods, the novel is a natural extension of issues addressed in the fourth season of HBO's The Wire. It explores race, crime and poverty, and gives an unnerving account of the less-than-noble side of the desires of one White man, a lately ex-television writer, to be a hero to the less fortunate denizens of his childhood home. Riveting reading and a fine whodunit.
Set in the public schools and projects of New Jersey's Dempsey neighborhoods, the novel is a natural extension of issues addressed in the fourth season of HBO's The Wire. It explores race, crime and poverty, and gives an unnerving account of the less-than-noble side of the desires of one White man, a lately ex-television writer, to be a hero to the less fortunate denizens of his childhood home. Riveting reading and a fine whodunit.
March 26, 2012
Price knows how to write a good who-dun-it. But Price also knows how to write some lovely prose - "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 enricling 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." Have you read a better description of inner city beauty? I could quibble with a few of the plot twists in the book, but I won't, because somehow, in the end, it all works.
January 24, 2018
Richard Price idea of story is very simple, yet very deep rooted and morally ambiguous in nature. Once he gets that, he paints a large canvas of a plot around it, the scrutiny of the characters, their decision, their action, the neighborhood for most part that acts as central role for all that's happening in it down to the most minute details. Added to it the wordplay from the master of authentic dialogue and vivid description you gotta a book that's unshakable off your head once read.
There are very few writers who bring in that emotion in me.
Richard Price will always be in lofty spot among my favorites.
There are very few writers who bring in that emotion in me.
Richard Price will always be in lofty spot among my favorites.
September 7, 2007
Samaritan was the first Richerd Price novel I read. I did so because Price introduced the re-issued Requiem for a Dream by Hubert Selby, Jr., and being a huge fan of Selby, I had to read someone who became a writer because of Selby, as I had a very similar experience. Anyway, I was not disappointed. Price does not have the pyschological depth of Selby, but he has a clear, distinct voice that has plenty to say. Samartian is gripping pyschological tale of a man done in by his own deeds. Price is poignant in his delivery and authentic in the scenes he creates.
January 22, 2009
Excellent gritty urban crime fiction with definite literary quality. Ray Mitchell grew up in the projects of fictional Dempsey New Jersey and he returns there after a checkered career and a stint as a TV writer. He is compelled to help people and he is nearly killed for his trouble. An old friend from the projects, Nerese Ammons, now police, investigates the crime. Reminds me of Updike in the strength and centrality of Ray's point of view.
December 23, 2009
This book deserves a better review than i am prepared to give just now... I have nothing to remark that properly honors the book itself or how i feel about it. I must grok.
Still, it deserves something. Some sentiment. Here goes:
I knew shortly after beginning Samaritan that Price is going to be one of those writers whose whole collection i would devour, shamelessly and systematically, like unguarded deviled eggs.
I hereby designate this area sacred. A space for future gushing.
Still, it deserves something. Some sentiment. Here goes:
I knew shortly after beginning Samaritan that Price is going to be one of those writers whose whole collection i would devour, shamelessly and systematically, like unguarded deviled eggs.
I hereby designate this area sacred. A space for future gushing.
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