Carter’s portrayal of his grandmother is full of love and admiration, though it sometimes tips into overt speculation about her thoughts and emotions ... 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...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 ... 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.
In Invisible, Yale law professor and bestselling author Stephen L. Carter meticulously details his grandmother’s accomplishments and her disappointments. His admiration for this remarkable woman is infectious. Ultimately, the reader is forced to ask, 'What if?' What if Hunton Carter had lived in a world where race and gender were irrelevant? What else would she have accomplished? And what would we have gained?
The meaty machinations of how the mobsters were finally brought to trial... are tailor-made for a Hollywood biopic. And Eunice’s fractured relationship with her brother Alphaeus, who graduated from Harvard, joined the Communist Party and served time in prison for contempt of court, is equally gripping ... But other, less dramatic aspects of Invisible drew my interest ... Indeed, Carter has a touch of wistfulness over the self-contained world of blacks, victims of a uniform anti-black sentiment, yet undeniably, defiantly proud of who they are ... Carter’s description of those odds [the black community is up against] is riveting.
...Eunice Carter, best-selling crime-writer Stephen L. Carter’s grandmother, was a leading figure in 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 ... 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.
Carter, 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 ... She enrolled at Fordham Law School, one of the few that admitted women and blacks, and earned a law degree in 1932 ... Her career took off in 1935, when Special Prosecutor Thomas Dewey hired her to join his team investigating mob activities in New York ... 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. 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.
...beautifully written, absorbing ... It is the investigation and courtroom scenes where Carter brings his grandmother to life ... He avoids the legal jargon and terminology, telling a story that reads like a novel. It is a page-turner, even though the results are known to the reader well before the conclusion.
Bestseller Carter 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 ... The author provides...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’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.
