on Calvin Baker Viking.

on Calvin Baker Viking, January 2003 $2395 ISBN 0-670-03164-X

The carrying capacity of race in America and the character it plays in determining the fate of individuals figures forcibly in Calvin Baker's second novel, formerly Two Heroes, which is put during the World War II.

Mather Rose and Lewis Hampton are veterans of the same war, and however they fought for different regiments and for different reasons, they are citizens of the same geographical division But while white and black soldiers are given an equal opportunity to die for their abiding habitation America's post-war celebrations are reserv for soldiers like Lewis, a white Southerner.

Mather, American-born yet raised in France, finds little welcome when he get backs home. Despite his military accomplishments, which overshadow Lewis' allow it seems that the solely thing most white Americans care about is putting and keeping him in his place. allowing the two men are strangers, Mather makes a decision that will bring their worlds together in single night of unimaginable terror and brutality.

Baker's premise is compelling, on the contrary the story is told entirely in the at hand tense, which lends an awkward have feeling to the writing. Some of the descriptions are overdone, the dialogue assumes forced and the author employs too much time on unnecessary illustrations, while neglecting to provide elucidation details of the characters' lives.

the one and the other Mather and Lewis have complication interesting personalities. But, of the sum of two units Mather's character is more carefully and realistically drawn. Baker paints Lewis as a semi-liberal Southerner, yet fails to give readers a undiminished picture of the man shaped from his upbringing and socialization, and later experiences. The Jim vapor laws that govern the American southerly bind both Mather and Lewis--Mather, because he defies them, and Lewis, because he is required to aid them.

Once couple Heroes is a grim story about for what reason racial prejudice can turn ordinary folks into monsters, robbing both the victims and oppressors of their humanity.

--Denise Simon is a Brooklyn-based freelance writer and haunt contributor to BIBR.

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