"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.

Author: Richard Wright
Binding Type: Paperback
Publisher: Harper Perennial
Published: 01/08/2008
Series: P.S.
Pages: 320
Weight: 0.56lbs
Size: 7.98h x 5.52w x 0.85d
ISBN: 9780061349164


Review Citation(s):
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

About the Author
Wright, Richard: -

Richard Wright won international renown for his powerful and visceral depiction of the black experience. He stands today alongside such African-American luminaries as Zora Neale Hurston, James Baldwin, and Toni Morrison, and two of his books, Native Son and Black Boy, are required reading in high schools and colleges across the nation. He died in 1960.