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Summary
Summary
The bestselling author delves into his past and discovers the inspiring story of his grandmother's extraordinary life
She was black and a woman and a prosecutor, a graduate of Smith College and the granddaughter of slaves, as dazzlingly unlikely a combination as one could imagine in New York of the 1930s--and without the strategy she devised, Lucky Luciano, the most powerful Mafia boss in history, would never have been convicted. When special prosecutor Thomas E. Dewey selected twenty lawyers to help him clean up the city's underworld, she was the only member of his team who was not a white male.
Eunice Hunton Carter, Stephen Carter's grandmother, was raised in a world of stultifying expectations about race and gender, yet by the 1940s, her professional and political successes had made her one of the most famous black women in America. But her triumphs were shadowed by prejudice and tragedy. Greatly complicating her rise was her difficult relationship with her younger brother, Alphaeus, an avowed Communist who--together with his friend Dashiell Hammett--would go to prison during the McCarthy era. Yet she remained unbowed.
Moving, haunting, and as fast-paced as a novel, Invisible tells the true story of a woman who often found her path blocked by the social and political expectations of her time. But Eunice Carter never accepted defeat, and thanks to her grandson's remarkable book, her long forgotten story is once again visible.
Author Notes
Stephen L. Carter was born in Washington, D.C. on October 26, 1954. He received a bachelor's degree in history from Stanford University in 1976 and a law degree from Yale University in 1979. After graduation, he served as a law clerk for Judge Spottswood W. Robinson, III, of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, and for Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall. In 1982, he joined the Yale University faculty and is currently the William Nelson Cromwell Professor of Law.
He is the author of numerous non-fiction works including Reflections of an Affirmative Action Baby (1991); The Culture of Disbelief: How American Law and Politics Trivialize Religious Devotion (1993); The Confirmation Mess: Cleaning Up the Federal Appointments Process (1994); Integrity (1996); The Dissent of the Governed: A Meditation on Law, Religion, and Loyalty (1998); Civility: Manners, Morals, and the Etiquette of Democracy (1998); and God's Name in Vain: The Wrongs and Rights of Religion in Politics (2000). He has also written several fiction works including The Emperor of Ocean Park and Jericho's Fall. He was the first non-theologian to receive the prestigious Louisville-Grawemeyer Award in religion.
(Bowker Author Biography)
Reviews (5)
Publisher's Weekly Review
Bestseller Carter (Back Channel) narrates the life story of his exceptional grandmother, Eunice Carter, an African-American attorney who masterminded the sting operation that resulted in the imprisonment of mobster Charles "Lucky" Luciano. Eunice Carter graduated from Smith College cum laude with a bachelor's and master's in just four years, and went on to attend Fordham Law before being employed by the future governor of New York and Republican presidential nominee Thomas Dewey. Working under Dewey, Eunice spearheaded the investigation that proved the mob was running New York City's brothels and helped flip the witnesses that specified Luciano's involvement. For years after, however, Dewey repeatedly passed her over when making appointments. The author provides fascinating analysis on this time in history in which most African-Americans moved from voting Republican to Democrat, leaving conservatives like his grandmother and Dewey out in the cold. Carter also provides background on Eunice's parents, both renowned African-American rights activists; explores her tense relationship with her brother, whose Communist ties very likely hindered her success; and discusses her less-than-ideal marriage. And he evokes her Harlem, where "women wore fancy hats. Men wore colorful suits.... In the clubs, jazz combos played... [and] the rising black bourgeoisie flourished." Carter's enthusiasm for his grandmother's incredible fortitude despite numerous setbacks is contagious; Eunice Carter's story is another hidden gem of African-American history. Photos. (Oct.) c Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
Booklist Review
The mid-twentieth century was a fascinating period in African American history, when intellectual giants and social pioneers like Mary McLeod Bethune, W. E. B. DuBois, and Paul Robeson interacted with presidents and power brokers and the great Negro Club movement held sway over African American society. Eunice Carter, best-selling crime-writer Stephen L. Carter's grandmother, was a leading figure in this milieu: one of a tiny handful of female African American lawyers, she was connected professionally and socially with the most influential people of the day. As a member of the National Council of Negro Women and the NAACP, and an early observer at the United Nations, she, along with her family, were closely involved in key issues and political events. As a protégé of New York district attorney Thomas E. Dewey, she conceived of the strategy for indicting Lucky Luciano. Oddly enough, though she is the central figure, Eunice is not the book's most interesting character. Carter connects her failure to achieve lasting fame to her brother, Alphaeus, who was jailed during the Red Scare and whose unpardonable crimes included organizing black voter-registration drives and attacking the Republican Party. There is an intriguing story to be told about African American political divisions, the burgeoning civil rights movement, and Alphaeus' role in the fight against racism, colonialism, and McCarthyism. One hopes Carter will explore those subjects in his next book. HIGH-DEMAND BACKSTORY: Carter's millions of readers will be curious about his return to nonfiction to share a slice of his family's history within the larger national picture.--Lesley Williams Copyright 2018 Booklist
New York Review of Books Review
"IT IS THE CURSE of historians . . . to judge the past by the norms of the present." Stephen L. Carter, a Yale Law School professor and the author of, among many other works, the novels "The Emperor of Ocean Park" and "New England White," has good reason to make this blunt judgment early in his latest book, which is devoted to his grandmother Eunice Hunton Carter. Her privileged life and her career as a prosecutor constitute a more complicated narrative than the one contemporary readers may expect of an African-American woman who lived during the first half of the 20th century. Eunice Carter died in 1970, when Stephen was in high school; he remembers her as "a stern and intimidating woman of advanced years." But in "Invisible," which is as much a biography as a reconstruction, Carter has a more urgent mission than retrieving fond family memories: He is explaining, with success and with the clarity of distance, why Eunice was such an extraordinary figure. Her existence so defies retrospective wisdom that when a heavily fictionalized version appeared briefly on the HBO series "Boardwalk Empire" it prompted incredulous, mocking comments charging that the character - a black woman prosecutor, in large part responsible for the arrest and conviction of a Lucky Luciano-like mobster - was pure anachronistic fantasy. But she wasn't. Eunice Carter did spearhead the strategy that brought down Luciano in 1936, reasoning correctly that prostitution rackets in Harlem, and how they were organized, might be the means of achieving his downfall. Carter was only the second woman in the history of Smith College to receive a bachelor's and a master's degree in four years; she graduated from Fordham Law School, started her own practice and joined the New York City special prosecutor's office run by Thomas E. Dewey. She was the only woman and the only African-American among Dewey's hires, brought in, according to one historian, for "her command of Harlem pool halls as well as Albany committee rooms." Carter likely drew inspiration from her parents, William and Addie Hunton. Brilliant and accomplished, they traveled widely as key early figures in the Y.M.C.A. Eunice and her younger brother grew up, in large part, away from each other and from their parents - she was, according to family lore, "their father's favorite," despite years of separation - though they did spend a formative year and a half together in Germany with Addie. (Their journey home to America landed their mother in some trouble when the white woman traveling with them was detained, not realizing what a segregated world awaited them.) African-American newspapers lauded Eunice's professional accomplishments as a prosecutor and public figure, noting her success working with Dewey with particular pride, but they were perhaps even more interested in covering her personal life. The Chicago Defender described her wedding to Lisle Carter, a successful dentist, as "a very impressive ceremony" and "the topic of discussion among society folk." Just a year earlier, she had been a bridesmaid at the most important social event in Harlem, the wedding of Madame C. J. Walker's granddaughter. Carter's upward career climb was especially impressive in that overt racism didn't thwart her choices. But she could never quite escape its noxious hold on American society, whether it was being paid far less than her white male peers on Dewey's staffor being passed over, in favor of a rival, for a prestigious judicial appointment. Most personally painful, however, was her brother's fervent belief in communism, which landed him in prison at the height of McCarthyism and led her to realize that her career had reached not a glass ceiling but a glass cliff. Carter's portrayal of his grandmother is full of love and admiration, though it sometimes tips into overt speculation about her thoughts and emotions ("although Eunice was known for her poker face, she would not have been human had she not chafed at her exclusion"). Mercifully, "Invisible" escapes hagiography in favor of cleareyed portraiture, even when matters don't fit comfortably into it. This is especially true when Carter chronicles the fissures in her marriage (including the possibility of a long-running affair with the jazz musician Fletcher Henderson) and the deep estrangement between Eunice and her brother, which was not fully repaired by the time both died, within 10 days of each other. A keen sense of loss permeates the book, grief for a ruptured family whose members could not be reconciled. "Invisible" is not only a personal restoration project; it's the reclamation of a key figure in recent American history whose accomplishments "beat ceaselessly against the artificial but nearly impregnable barriers that whiteness built." Eunice Hunton Carter's story is a reminder, in her grandson's words, that "if you listen with the ears of history and optimism, you can hear the inner supports" of those barriers "starting to slip." Above all, it proves that one can't shoehorn lives like Eunice's into bite-size stories of triumph. Struggle demands nuance. Truthful narratives demand complexity. Stephen L. Carter has revived his grandmother's voice when we most need it, and with utmost urgency.
Kirkus Review
An accomplished and determined woman transcended racial barriers to rise to prominence.Carter (Law/Yale Univ.; Back Channel: A Novel, etc.), former clerk for Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall, celebrates the life of his grandmother, Eunice Hunton Carter (1899-1970), who forged an astonishing legal career that included successfully prosecuting mobster Lucky Luciano. At the age of 8, Eunice told a young friend that she wanted to become a lawyer "to make sure the bad people went to jail." Two decades later, she acted on that desire. After graduating with degrees from Smith College, a married mother of a 2-year-old son enmeshed in the social whirl of upper-society Harlem, she realized that she was thoroughly bored. She enrolled at Fordham Law School, one of the few that admitted women and blacks, and earned a law degree in 1932. Two years later, the GOP tapped her to run for New York state assembly against the Democratic incumbent: "Black and female, conservative and brilliant, charming and charismatic," she seemed the perfect candidate. Although she lost that race, the campaign gave her visibility, and soon Mayor Fiorello La Guardia appointed her to a special commission to investigate rioting and unrest that had erupted in Harlem. Her career took off in 1935, when Special Prosecutor Thomas Dewey hired her to join his team investigating mob activities in New York. It was, writes Carter, "the job every young lawyer wanted." Eunice became Dewey's staunch supporter, campaigning for him when he ran for Manhattan district attorney, New York governor, and president against Franklin Roosevelt and Harry Truman. Yet he always picked others to fill important appointments. Nevertheless, Eunice's many social and political activities earned her widespread admiration. Carter places Eunice's experiences in the context of American culture, politics, and her own family: her activist mother; her defiant brother, whose Communist Party membership, Eunice believed, threatened her career; and her son (the author's father). Eunice could be imperious, "judgmental and often dismissive," impatient and aloof. Quitting, the author writes, "was not in her nature."A vivid portrait of a remarkable woman. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Library Journal Review
In the same vein as best sellers such as Liza Mundy's Code Girls and Margot Lee -Shetterly's Hidden Figures, this new work from Carter (The Emperor of Ocean Park) presents the untold story of his grandmother Eunice Hunton Carter, the black female lawyer who prosecuted notorious mobster Lucky Luciano. The author begins with Eunice's childhood in Atlanta and later Brooklyn. Her mother served in World War I and was active with the YWCA and NAACP, and her father was secretary of the YMCA. After graduating from Smith College and marrying Lisle Carter, Eunice made her way toward a legal career, working under prosecutor Thomas Dewey and then-New York City mayor Fiorello LaGuardia. Despite existing social and gender norms, Eunice's hard work turned into an opportunity to join Dewey's team dedicated to taking down Mafia figures. VERDICT With artful storytelling and a narrative-like delivery, Carter tells Eunice's story in the best way possible, offering a compelling, unputdownable read with as much value in social history as legal appeal. Not to be missed. [See Prepub Alert, 4/23/18.]-Mattie Cook, Flat River Community Lib., MI © Copyright 2018. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Table of Contents
Prologue | p. xiii |
Part I Inheritance | |
1 The Burning | p. 3 |
2 The Legacy | p. 14 |
3 The Student | p. 29 |
4 The Czarinas | p. 41 |
5 The Escape | p. 54 |
6 The Candidate | p. 69 |
7 The Commission | p. 87 |
8 The Prosecutor | p. 99 |
9 The Premise | p. 110 |
10 The Raiders | p. 119 |
11 The Preparation | p. 132 |
12 The Trial | p. 141 |
13 The Visitor | p. 154 |
14 The Politico | p. 164 |
Part II Passion | |
15 The Celebrity | p. 177 |
16 The Decision | p. 189 |
17 The File | p. 201 |
18 The Connections | p. 214 |
19 The Defeat | p. 231 |
20 The Breakup | p. 245 |
21 The Reinvention | p. 254 |
22 The Siblings | p. 261 |
Epilogue | p. 273 |
Author's Note | p. 281 |
Notes | p. 283 |
Index | p. 351 |