Jackson Park by Charlotte Carter

Rating:   PENS!!!!

Perplexed

Charlotte Carter's mystery novel, Jackson Park, is set in 1968 Chi-town, right after Martin Luther King, Jr.'s death. Cassandra, a twenty-something, black co-ed who is trying to come to terms with her own adulthood, femininity and identity, finds herself caught in the mix when a neighborhood girl, Lavelle Jackson disappears. In an attempt to help her guardians, Uncle Woody and Aunt Ivy find Lavelle Charlotte uncovers some truths about her friends, her uncle and the world at large.

I wanted so much for this book to leap off the page, because it was packed with so many themes - civil rights, loss, direction, security - but it never floated to the top for me. The clues were too vague to see and the twists were so few and far between that I became frustrated with the mystery.

The striking thing about this book is that Charlotte Carter can write wonderful prose. She uses words in a way that is reminiscent of the Harlem Renaissance:

"He had no wife, no children, no lovers, no friends that we knew of. So where did all the mourners come from? I guess black people just gravitate to funerals."

Wonderful character description! I wished the entire book could follow with the same spirit and truth as those words above.

Therefore, Jackson Park… receives 3 pens because it falls short of what it could become. If Charlotte Carter hadn't shown me that she could weave intrigue into text with such precision then I would've chalked her undeveloped plot up to being a novice writer. But she showed me that she's a master at writing, so it is hard for me to accept that this version of Jackson Park is the best that she could have produced.

This book is great for history buffs, mystery mavens, and young adults.
 

Dee Stewart

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