E-Book Overview
Never before published, the final work of one of America's greatest writers 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 near the end of his life, it appears in print for the first time, an important addition to this American master's body of work, submitted by his daughter and literary executor, Julia, who writes: It comes from his guts and ends at the hero's "breaking point." It explores many themes favored by my father like guilt and innocence, the difficult relationship between the generations, the difficulty of being a black policeman and father, the difficulty of being both those things and suspecting that your own son is the murderer. It intertwines astonishingly modern themes for a novel written in 1960. Prescient, raw, powerful, and fascinating, A Father's Law is the final gift from a literary giant.
E-Book Content
A Father’s Law Richard Wright Contents Introduction v Chapter 1 He saw the dim image of the traffic cop make… 1 Chapter 2 Ruddy was relieved to plunge into the faint drizzle of… 15 Chapter 3 An hour later, Bill and Ruddy were sitting side by… 42 Chapter 4 Ever since its incorporation as an independent municipality, Brentwood Park… 54 Chapter 5 Dawn was breaking when Ruddy emerged from police headquarters. He… 61 Chapter 6 Ruddy rang his doorbell and waited for Agnes or Tommy… 66 Chapter 7 The late breakfast was filled with laughing chitchat; Ruddy felt… 75 Chapter 8 Never had Ruddy felt more deeply protective toward his son… 93 Chapter 9 Smiling urbanely, his eyes holding a light of respect and… 99 Chapter 10 Ruddy felt that his nerves were drained, taut, tired, but… 111 Chapter 11 Chief Turner’s usually unruffled feelings had been swept by a… 125 Chapter 12 Midnight was striking on all the town’s clocks as the… 152 Chapter 13 Having dispatched the station’s standing corps of stool pigeons to… 161 Chapter 14 Ruddy slept unbrokenly for twelve solid hours, and when he… 191 Chapter 15 Ruddy felt feverish. Moment by moment a fear and a… 212 Chapter 16 Even while en route home for his lunch, Ruddy could… 221 Chapter 17 With screaming siren, with his head tight to the point… 229 About the Author Other Books by Richard Wright Credits Cover Copyright About the Publisher I N T RO D U C T I O N TH E ENIG M A O F RICHARD W R I G H T ’ S L AST UNF INISHE D NOVE L “I started a brand-new piece of prose, the idea of which had been simmering in my mind for a long, long time. I’m pounding on the machine morning and night. . . . Now I’m free, with white sheets of paper before me, and a head full of wild ideas, ideas that excite me. Maybe writing with me is like being psychoanalyzed. I feel all the poison being drained out.” Letter from Richard Wright to Margrit de Sablonière, August 2, 1960 “The last pages written by our great authors on the point of death need our attention. A Father’s Law is one of those rare instances of a thriller within a thriller in our literature. Wright writes the main core of this unfinished outpouring of a novel as a thriller, but the real thriller is that the author will no longer be around to give us the answer because he reaches his ‘breaking point’ through death. Leaving us with vi I n t ro d u c t i o n mourning and, for his readership, with ‘frustration’ and also a new line of reflection on why thrillers play the role of ‘sedatives’ in our society: you start out reading smugly reassured that the writer owes you the solution for your money and patronage.” Letter