Decorations in Cemetery CL

Brown attempts no less a task than to unravel the mystery of race in this well-crafted and moving first novel. One morning in 1965, Dr. Thomas Eagen, who is white, and Lowell and Meredith, his 12-year-old children by his dead first wife, drive away, leaving his second wife, Catherine, and their New Orleans home. But as the trio crosses Lake Pontchartrain, a portion of the causeway bridge collapses; the only casualty is Murphy Warrington, a black man who used to work for Dr. Eagen's father. After being fished from the river, Murphy becomes the catalyst for a series of revelations about Thomas's light-skinned black mother and the reasons she abandoned her husband and son when Thomas was an infant. The story is told partly by a now-adult Meredith, partly via letters from her stepmother Catherine, and partly by the injured Murphy. Brown deftly narrates his novel from various perspectives, making cogent observations about race. But the topic may be too large for this essentially slight, albeit engrossing, story of everyday betrayal. (Jan.)