The Golden Gate: A Novel

As the novel’s protagonist and primary narrator, Detective Sullivan is a round, dynamic character whose investigation into Walter Wilkinson’s murder forces him to confront his own fractured identity and moral code. A Berkeley graduate and a decorated veteran, Sullivan is intelligent and highly competent, a protégé of the famed police chief August Vollmer. He approaches his work with a rational, evidence-based methodology, believing in forensics and procedural correctness. However, his defining characteristic is his internal conflict regarding his mixed ethnic heritage. He is the son of a Mexican Jewish father and a white mother who is considered an “Okie” (a derogatory term used during the 1930s to describe poor migrant workers, especially from Oklahoma, who fled the Dust Bowl and Great Depression to seek work in places like California). Sullivan chooses to pass as white, having changed his name from Alejo Gutiérrez to navigate a prejudiced society. This decision is the source of a persistent internal struggle, illustrating the theme of The Social and Psychological Costs of Racial Passing. He consciously lives his life trying to stay above what he calls the “suspicion line” (97), a boundary that separates those the law protects from those it protects against.