Whatever else may be said, and there's apt to be a lot said about David Bradley and his second novel, "The Chaneysville Incident," the man's a writer.

What he can do, at a pretty high level of energy, is synchronize five different kinds of rhetoric, control a complicated plot, manage a good-sized cast of characters, convey a lot of information, handle an intricate time scheme, pull off a couple of final tricks that dramatize provocative ideas, and generally keep things going for 200,000 words. That's about two and a half books for most of us….

John Washington [is] the book's narrator, and, like the book's author, he is young, black and a college professor. John Washington teaches history and lives in Philadelphia with a white psychiatrist named Judith….

[John is summoned by a] disreputable old man named Jack Crawley [who] is dying and has asked for him. It's the...