Samaritan is a re-telling of the Biblical parable of the good Samaritan, focused on former Hollywood writer Ray Mitchell who has returned to his urban New Jersey home to volunteer at his old high school teaching writing. These two things underpin Price’s novel: the role of the good Samaritan and personal narratives. Unlike Lush Life this novel is much narrower in scope, focusing primarily on the victim and the investigating officer. It’s a simpler structure.
In Jesus’ telling of the good Samaritan, a man helps one who was beaten and robbed on the road after all of the political and religious bigwigs of the day refused help. It was instruction to his disciples about the attitude he wanted them to carry into the world, one of service. Likewise, Price shows how some urban kids slip through the cracks of today’s institutions. It takes someone like Ray Mitchell, willing to take a hit for the little guy, to help right some of these wrongs.
As the book opens Ray has been the victim of an assault but refuses to identify his attacker. This prompts the almost-retired detective Nerese to investigate, she a good Samaritan of sorts as well. Her love is for police work. “I mean what can I possibly get into out there that’s got half the juice of what I’m doing now, you know what I’m saying? Greatest show on earth…Run to trouble instead of away from it” (166). For Nerese, police work epitomizes the good Samaritan, though she, too, is helped by Ray. Her interviews with him become as much about her as him through Price’s storytelling.
Ray’s rationale for paying for the funeral: “Because money’s only money and it was a good way for me to come home…It’s like, you can live under many roofs in this life? But you’re always from one place” (194).
Ray on Danielle’s story-tellling: “Danielle was…not only the teller of the tale, but the tale itself made flesh—to Ray, an individual who saw personal history and anecdote and his ability to communicate through them as his lifeline to the rest of the world—his lifeline to love, expressing his love…”(198). Ray is affected by stories, like when he is forced to act in his own scripted TV drama and he breaks down in tears impromptu, or when he melts whenever Salim asks for money (“Ray…decided, if not to believe Salim, to at least surrender to the emotion driving the story” (263)). He cannot turn away from individual’s stories and their pain. Price points to our ability to receive other people’s narratives as the key to empathy and making sense of some of the ugliness in the streets.
Late in the book Nerese must interview Nelson, Danielle and Freddy’s child. As a good Samaritan, she longs to protect Nelson. “Nerese could handle rage, bluster and deceit; innocence was tricky” (275). Part of Price’s success lies in such empathy for the people he portrays. The book is underpinned by this need to guard Nelson from the world he is in. Nerese feels it, and so does Ray.
In turn, Nelson becomes the catalyst for belief. Nerese tells him, “You make me a believer, Nelson” (331). This ties in well with the Biblical allusion, that real faith and belief inspires action. It also reflects some of Price’s optimism. This is tempered with realism, though. Nerese chastise Ray for thinking he could be a reckless Samaritan. “You reach out to a child like that, you cannot be oblivious to what you might be unleashing…you have good intentions and all, but you need too much to be liked and that’s a bad weakness to have. It makes you reckless. And it makes you dangerous” (342). It’s not that his actions or heart is wrong, but the outcomes and indirect consequences of his unrestrained generosity. Nerese is telling Ray that he counted all the cost yet of what it means to be a martyr.
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