The Reckoning

by Patricia Tyrrell

Raised by a homeless drifter in the American southwest, fifteen-year-old Cate has never known what it’s like to have a home or a loving family, let alone how it feels to buy new clothes. But this is the only way of life she’s ever been exposed travelling the dusty highway from town to town and living hand to mouth, stealing only when the welfare cheques or food stamps run out. Despite her hardscrabble existence and lack of education, Cate is intelligent, forceful and fiercely loyal to Les, the only parent she has ever known. She’s always been aware that Les kidnapped her from her parents’ campsite when she was just three years old, but can hardly imagine how different her own life would have been if she’d never been taken, or how traumatic her disappearance was for her mother. Les has even called Janice Wingford over the years, to let her know that her daughter is alive. Listening in, Cate has always interpreted her mother’s disbelief as a lack of love.

But as The Reckoning opens, Les is making a very different phone call than he’s decided that it’s time to return Cate to her mother and tells the woman that he’ll be bringing her daughter home to Virginia. Les’s decision is not the result of remorse or wanting to do the right thing, but his realization that he may not be able to control Cate any longer — she’s committed a vicious crime, and his self-serving, fatherly love is not strong enough to survive such a test. Cate has mixed feelings, of course — she’s curious about what it will be like to meet her mother, but certain that the woman will take one look at her and demand they leave, whether because she doesn’t believe Les’s story or because she just doesn’t like Cate. She’s also scared that Les might abandon her with this stranger, and as they drive across the country to bring about the reunion she makes him promise not to leave her there alone.

The emotional heart of this novel lies in what happens when mother and daughter are brought together again, and DNA tests prove that Les is telling the truth. Cate must try to get beyond her resentment and learn what it means to have a mother, and to love her for that reason alone. Janice has to try to reconcile her memories of her sweet three-year-old with the reality of brash, difficult Cate. Complicating their uneasy relationship is the truth of Cate’s crime, which prevents both women from getting too close. But when Cate’s lies become unbearable, her mother determines that the facts must come out if there’s to be any hope they’ll truly accept one another. Together, they travel to the scene of the crime — a small town in the western desert — to confront the truth.

The Reckoning is a powerful and almost gut-wrenching exploration of what it means to be mother and daughter when horrific events of the past threaten to destroy that tenuous bond. Patricia Tyrrell’s use of Cate’s first-person perspective allows her to bring the conflicting emotions of her characters to the forefront, and the intensity of her writing suffuses the novel with suspense. But it is the stunning premise of this story that has gained Tyrrell the most attention. Asked how she came up with the idea, the author has “I had read a newspaper account of how an American woman was deceived by phone calls into believing that her kidnapped daughter was still alive, although in fact the child was killed soon after the abduction. I What if the child were alive? What if the abductor was desperate to return her? Why would he want to take such a risk? And the idea of the girl who committed a murder then came to me.” From there, Tyrrell drew on her experiences living in the United States to flesh out the narrative and created this dramatic meditation on the themes of loss and reunion, parents and children, and nature versus nurture.

Genres: Fiction

224 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2002

Reviews

[Valerie · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book took quite a while to get through, though perhaps not quite as much as my reading dates suggest. I first picked this book up on the 15th of December and got about 6 pages into it before realizing that if I didn't start my next Book Club book, I'd not finish it in time, so I put this one down. The thing is, I didn't immediately pick it back up after that, not until April-ish. Then I read it fairly quick until I was about 7 pages from the end. Not wanting to spend most of my commute with nothing to read, I took another book with me that day, planning to finish this at home... that didn't happen until today (end of June).

So, yes, not the most gripping or spellbinding of books.

That said, I do readily give this book 3 stars as the crafting, point-of-view and voice of the main character were tremendously well done. Cate's voice was unique, very true to character the whole way and refreshingly different. There were times where I was just fascinated by how differently she viewed the world from what I was expecting, but it was always, always grounded in how someone with her upbringing and lack of formal education would view those things, so that was enthralling in it's own way.

What didn't work so well for me was the way some of the people around her acted. Since we were so firmly in Cate's head, we don't really know what they were thinking as we only had their actions and Cate's (often highly skewed) view of what it meant as our guide. Still, I for one can't really believe that her mother wouldn't get the police involved when the man who kidnapped her daughter so many years ago turns up with her. Or that she would even allow him to remain around her given what he'd done.

Some of the mother's actions around what she does when she learns about the Jeff situation and their Arizona trip also don't quite work for me. Again, this could be purely because of us not knowing what she's thinking, but it veers more towards the convenient for the story rather than true to the character end of the spectrum for me.

I will admit that perhaps the reason why I'm so disappointed with parts of this book are because, on some level, I was hoping for it to have as much of an impact on me as Catherine Atkins' "When Jeff Comes Home" did on me as a teenager. But that would be my fault.

Finally, a warning, this book does use some extremely offensive racist language when speaking about people of Hispanic origins. The word choice is very true to character when used and fits the situation in the sense that it is realistic (rather than pretending that the people involved would be polite and not racist), but I wanted to mention it here as a caveat.

I will be either selling this book or swapping it for another.

[Alyssa · Rating 1 out of 5]

This idea behind the story line is compelling but unfortunately poorly executed. The writing is poor. I couldn’t tell whether this was because the narrator is uneducated having been kidnapped at 3 and only 15 when telling this story. However its not only the language itself but the repetition of the same two worries that keep going around in Cates mind. Also in comparison to a book like the colour purple, whoch is narrated by a young uneducated woman, theres a bigger difference in the quality of writing. I was disappointed that the book never delved deeped than surface level compliactions that might arise in such a situation. Wouldnt recommend or read again.

[Dorothy Mahoney · Rating 4 out of 5]

Kidnapped as a three year old while on a camping trip with her parents, Cate is returned to her mother when she is fifteen by Les, who has raised her in poverty conditions without much schooling. Cate's mother is dubious about her identity until DNA testing proves otherwise. A lengthy tension of
disbelief and trust-building by both, especially since Cate identifies with Les.

[Kirsten · Rating 3 out of 5]

I was really enjoying this until the mother decided to go back to the scene of the crime. It felt like someone else had picked up the pen and finished the book off like a game of Consequences.

[Helen · Rating 4 out of 5]

A very readable book on a difficult subject. Suddenly you have a fifteen year old daughter - one you haven't seen since she was 3. Book concentrates on the very difficult build up of trust between a mother and daughter who have lived very different lives. A different approach to the subject of child abduction.

[Amelia · Rating 3 out of 5]

In my opinion, the grammar of the book is horrible (but I'm not an expert in this area). Apart from that, the story is quite original, although it could be longer! Interesting subject.

[Tez · Rating 2 out of 5]

Not what I expected and a bit hard to relate to.