The New City A Novel [Paperback]

A thought-prooking thriller and a literate page-turner, Stephen Amidon'sThe New Citytakes aim at the suburban American dream and captures the real nightmare behind it.
It is 1973, the Vietnam War is winding down and the Senate Watergate hearings are heating up. But Newton, Maryland, is a model community, an enclave of harmony and prosperity. Through years of cunning legal maneuvering and smooth real-estate deals, the white lawyer Austin Swope has made the dream of this new city a reality. His best friend is Earl Wooten, the black master builder who raised Newton from its foundations. Their teenaged sons, Teddy and Joel, each the repository of his father's deepest hopes for the future, are inseparable buddies. But cracks begin to appear in this pristiine and meticulously planned community, and an innocent misunderstanding is about to set the two men who control its quiet streets on a fateful collision course.?Amidon?s plot is so tightly and ingeniously constructed that the book becomes absolutely riveting.??NewsdayStephen Amidonis the author of four previous works of fiction, includingSubdivision(1992),Thirst(1993), andThe Primitive(1995). An American who lived and worked in London for fifteen years as a journalist, editor, and reviewer, he now lives in Greenfield, Massachusetts, with his wife and children.At first, the damage didn't look that bad. There was a jagged crack running through the front door's glass, but that could have happened in a hundred innocent ways. And the lobby's disorder--sand spilled from an upright ashtray and a scattering of drug awareness pamphlets--looked like the usual by-products of teen rowdiness. As Austin Swope stepped onto the metal staircase that helixed up into the converted silo, he began to think that maybe the security people had exaggerated when they spoke of a riot.

Hope disappeared when he reached the second floor. Unmistakable signs of violence were everywhere. Shattered glalãÜ