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Howie
A hard punching family saga.
Set against the tumultuous history of the twentieth century, Howie follows the life of Howie and the Kretza family from the early 1900’s in Jersey City through two world wars and the challenges of the Great Depression. From the sweltering machine shops of West Side Avenue to the docks on the Hudson, from the exhausting work of commercial fishing to the sprawling Colgate company, this sweeping tale spans decades in the life of a family that keeps punching despite the odds.
George, the patriarch, and his wife, Emma, have four children, all unique and headed in different directions. Howie, under the tutelage of his father and, later, a hard-nosed gym owner, pursues a career as a professional fighter while working backbreaking jobs in a growing city. As his training takes him closer to his first pro fight, Howie must choose between his dream of being a champion and the wishes of a loving mother who doesn’t want to see her son embark upon a career she considers savage.
From one generation to another, from the battlefields of Europe to the war in the Pacific, from the glitz and glitter of Broadway and Hollywood to the coal mines of Carbon County, Pennsylvania, and from the restaurant business in a burgeoning city to a dank prison purported to be haunted by the ghosts of executed Irish laborers called Molly Maguires and at least one demonic entity, Howie will sweep readers through the lives of three generations of colorful and realistic characters guaranteed to elicit a panoply of emotions and a few chills for good measure.
Set against the tumultuous history of the twentieth century, Howie follows the life of Howie and the Kretza family from the early 1900’s in Jersey City through two world wars and the challenges of the Great Depression. From the sweltering machine shops of West Side Avenue to the docks on the Hudson, from the exhausting work of commercial fishing to the sprawling Colgate company, this sweeping tale spans decades in the life of a family that keeps punching despite the odds.
George, the patriarch, and his wife, Emma, have four children, all unique and headed in different directions. Howie, under the tutelage of his father and, later, a hard-nosed gym owner, pursues a career as a professional fighter while working backbreaking jobs in a growing city. As his training takes him closer to his first pro fight, Howie must choose between his dream of being a champion and the wishes of a loving mother who doesn’t want to see her son embark upon a career she considers savage.
From one generation to another, from the battlefields of Europe to the war in the Pacific, from the glitz and glitter of Broadway and Hollywood to the coal mines of Carbon County, Pennsylvania, and from the restaurant business in a burgeoning city to a dank prison purported to be haunted by the ghosts of executed Irish laborers called Molly Maguires and at least one demonic entity, Howie will sweep readers through the lives of three generations of colorful and realistic characters guaranteed to elicit a panoply of emotions and a few chills for good measure.
562 pages, Kindle Edition
Published December 1, 2021
3 people are currently reading
4 people want to read
About the author
C. Howard Rieling
8 books11 followersC. Howard Rieling has a way of writing that makes people ask his wife if she’s safe being married to him. Two words that have been used to describe him are “talented…and sick.” Retribution fiction is what he calls his genre, and Rieling draws inspiration for his writing from a childhood of traumatic altercations as an inner-city kid living in Jersey City, New Jersey. Unable to escape bullying and beatings, Rieling would imagine himself to be imbued with powers like his comic-book heroes. His stories are rich in recompense and travel down dark roads, employ supernatural forces, and dish out overflowing portions of whoop-ass against carefully crafted villains.
City life led Rieling to become a lifelong practitioner of Chinese and Okinawan martial arts and he has been awarded three black belt ranks. He is also an avid collector of fossils and is happy digging and sinking knee-deep in sticky mud in bug-infested streams in search of specimens. He loves music and has two awesome and accomplished teenagers - a daughter with an angelic voice who is destined for greatness, and a son who is an animal on the drums.
City life led Rieling to become a lifelong practitioner of Chinese and Okinawan martial arts and he has been awarded three black belt ranks. He is also an avid collector of fossils and is happy digging and sinking knee-deep in sticky mud in bug-infested streams in search of specimens. He loves music and has two awesome and accomplished teenagers - a daughter with an angelic voice who is destined for greatness, and a son who is an animal on the drums.
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