THE COLOR OF TREES by Canaan Parker...

THE COLOR OF TREES by Canaan Parker (Alyson Publications: $8.95, 221 pp., paperback original). When Peter Givens enters Briarwood, a posh New England prep school, he has to battle triple alienation. He’s black, and virtually all of the other students are white; he grew up in a housing project in Harlem, while his classmates are the sons of privilege, and his nascent homosexuality puts him at odds with the school’s superficially wholesome atmosphere. This promising first novel boasts well-drawn characters and an skillful evocation of a rarefied milieu. But Parker fails to resolve some questions the story raises, especially Peter’s struggle to resolve the conflict between the upper-class white values he learns in school and his growing awareness of his black heritage.