The Republic

What is justice, what is virtue, asked Plato in his Republic. The characters in J. B. Powell’s novel ask the same thing in their quarter of Berkeley. The sculptor Aidan, aka George Bush, faces not only municipal charges from the city for refusing to buy a permit to park on his own street, but federal charges for impersonating a government official. Annie, a runaway mother from Montana, searches for a father for her child, but gets side-tracked by crack cocaine. Liam, he has misplaced himself in Bogart’s role in Casablanca, looking for an outmoded (perhaps sadly so) ethic. Raja, father of eleven—or is it twelve?—children, pack-rats the city’s streets to eke out a living and fight the racism he and his children face, while his daughter Bianca gets shuffled to a foster home. Sonny wants to be a chef, but can’t shake the vision of a slain Mexican donut maker, nor the vision of Annie’s smile. . . . So, does Cold Water, a killer loan shark, represent the only justice we’re likely to find? Or will Matthew’s gamble pay off—does that compose the only true justice, true virtue? The medieval wheel of fortune? Descend into Powell’s modern Berkeley cum Piraeus