Attica Rising

In my ongoing (and agent-mandated) quest to educate myself by reading literary thrillers, I recently had the very good fortune to stumble upon the soon-to-be-released debut novel by Attica Locke, Black Water Rising.  Set in Houston in the 1980s, it features Jay Porter, an African American lawyer who accidentally gets tangled up in more than he bargained for.  I love the way Locke depicts her protagonist Porter, who was an outspoken, up-front activist during the civil rights era, as having shut down since then due to the betrayal and violence he experienced and witnessed.  Cynical and wounded, he just wants to have a quiet, safe life, keeping his head down, focusing on his wife Bernie and the baby they're expecting.  But in Black Water Rising, life calls him to do more.  

Locke has an extensive, successful background writing for film and TV, but this is her first novel, and it's terrific.  It opens with a scene on Buffalo Bayou that is rooted, as an afterword explains, in one of Locke's own childhood memories, a disturbing episode that ended safely for her own father and family but to which she applied the writer's obsessive question, "What if?"  Black Water Rising is the result of her ruminations, and we're lucky she explored new territory.

During the 80s, I was in Texas, but way over west in San Antonio, a world away from Houston.  I don't know much about Houston during that time period, and I especially don't know much about black-white race relations there at the time, so it was interesting to learn (effortlessly, pleasurably) about that time and place, and Locke, who's originally from Houston herself, really builds her novel's world with thick, thorough description.  And despite the fact that it's set decades ago, the novel's exploration of race and rights, money, greed, politics, and Big Oil makes its concerns feel utterly timely.

Locke employs the present tense throughout the novel, and it works well to amplify the action's sense of immediacy.  And this is only one little additional thing, but I was impressed that the book--particularly given Locke's professional background--doesn't have the feel of one of those written-for-immediate-film-adaptation novels.  I won't be surprised if it gets optioned fast, but it's very much a novel, not a glorified treatment, and I recommend it highly as a solid, entertaining, and illuminating read.  I really love this book.

Black Water Rising won't be released until June 9th (thanks for the ARC, Indigo Bridge Books!), but you can pre-order a copy or get it on CD. 

Locke has a June tour scheduled, starting in L.A., hitting Chicago, Houston, and St. Louis, and winding up in one of my all-time favorite bookstores in the world, Square Books in Oxford, Mississippi (which will turn 30 this year, by the way), so if you live in any of those cities, you can go see her for yourself and get your copy signed by the author.  I wish she were coming to Lincoln!  Already being compared to Dennis Lehane and endorsed by James Ellroy, she's a writer to watch.