Instruct: Classify an Amazon review as either positive or negative.
Query: High hopes; meager pay-off

"As so often, I am the first to speak, and what I say is utterly stupid." The narrator of THE EMPEROR OF OCEAN PARK speaks to the reader through 64 over-long and cliche-ridden chapters. (The quote above opens up chapter 51... and by then, we know the narrator is telling us the truth.) The plot is a stacked deck; the characters are good, but he uses them unimaginatively. Stephen L. Carter has written some wonderful non-fiction books. But his first novel is slow, dull, terribly long-winded and full of stock characters and situations. I was surprised and disappointed, almost from beginning to end.