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Title: Unusual peephole into ignored segment of black society
Review: As a student of sociology, I found The Emperor of Ocean Park to be a true gem. The inner voice of a black man raised with discipline and demands to excel made upon him by his parents in an upper middle class milieu. To see the world through these eyes was a wonderful experience. The media so often pretends that this segment of American society simply does not exist. It is time that it is given a voice. That is in an entertaining mystery makes it all the better. No ponderous tract this, although I agree it could have been substantially shorter. Even when the hero succumbs to racial paranoia, his brain manages to think its way out of it. Should be read by many of those who can only see blacks in one dimension-poor and inarticulate.
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