An African-American professor faces an onslaught of troubles in his personal and professional life in Johnson's follow-up to his debut, Bittersweet. Darius Collins's existence is an ongoing exercise in crisis management—his girlfriend dumps him as the novel opens, his relationship with his ex-wife amounts to a series of bitter skirmishes and he's thrust into the middle of some nasty racial politics at his Cleveland college when a group of students tries to enlist his support in bringing a notoriously anti-Semitic African-American leader to speak at the school. Life goes completely haywire, though, when his adolescent son, Jarrod, is accused of rape and Collins learns that his ex-wife is a former lover of the corrupt politician who is trying to frame the boy. Johnson does a decent job of juggling a plethora of subplots, with the best stretches coming late in the book when the author focuses primarily on Jarrod's plight. The breezier sequences concerning Collins's romantic life don't sit easily beside the serious political and family dramas; the shifts in tone mar the book's rhythm. Nonetheless, Collins is an intelligent, well-drawn protagonist with believable strengths and flaws (upon glimpsing a more successful colleague, he remarks, "I was happy for Tyler. Truly I was. I also wanted to snatch him by the collar and beat him to a pulp for having the life, wife, and kids that should've been mine"), and the book offers a thoughtful take on some tough contemporary issues in job politics and race relations. 5-city author tour.(Jan.)
