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The Reckoning
George James and Freeman Hawk were unlikely friends. George was part of soft-spoken, old-money Richmond; Freeman came from a hardscrabble country family mired in poverty and marked by violence.
Fate threw them together long ago as freshman roommates at New Hope College. It was the late 60s, and George was the standard-bearer for a society living on borrowed time while Freeman was leading the charge into what came next. Before they left New Hope, though, Freeman would convert George, convince him that there was a better world to be made, persuade him temporarily to forsake the seamless life that already was mapped out for him as the Ham Prince of Richmond. Canada. The option to war-bloodied America, beckoned. The moment of truth came in a small town on the Vermont border, where George James lost his faith in Freeman Hawk or perhaps in himself and hesitated.
Fast-forward to the early twenty-first century, in a world whose axis has been tilted by 9/11. George and his son Jake, are existing in a shaky approximation of normalcy, nursing the wounds of their own, personal loss as George negotiates the sale of the family business and Jake, plunged into despair and rage by his mother s death, is consigned to a private school for troubled teens.
Things get dicier when Freeman Hawk reappears. Nothing about him is as it seems, not even his name. Freeman is on the run, but from what?
In Howard Owen s ninth novel, old scabs are torn off and new wounds inflicted. In the end there will be a reckoning for all of them, and sixteen-year old Jake James will find himself at a border as daunting as the one from which his father turned back so long ago.
Fate threw them together long ago as freshman roommates at New Hope College. It was the late 60s, and George was the standard-bearer for a society living on borrowed time while Freeman was leading the charge into what came next. Before they left New Hope, though, Freeman would convert George, convince him that there was a better world to be made, persuade him temporarily to forsake the seamless life that already was mapped out for him as the Ham Prince of Richmond. Canada. The option to war-bloodied America, beckoned. The moment of truth came in a small town on the Vermont border, where George James lost his faith in Freeman Hawk or perhaps in himself and hesitated.
Fast-forward to the early twenty-first century, in a world whose axis has been tilted by 9/11. George and his son Jake, are existing in a shaky approximation of normalcy, nursing the wounds of their own, personal loss as George negotiates the sale of the family business and Jake, plunged into despair and rage by his mother s death, is consigned to a private school for troubled teens.
Things get dicier when Freeman Hawk reappears. Nothing about him is as it seems, not even his name. Freeman is on the run, but from what?
In Howard Owen s ninth novel, old scabs are torn off and new wounds inflicted. In the end there will be a reckoning for all of them, and sixteen-year old Jake James will find himself at a border as daunting as the one from which his father turned back so long ago.
- GenresFiction
222 pages, Hardcover
First published December 1, 2010
1 person is currently reading
26 people want to read
About the author
Howard Owen
32 books67 followersHoward Owen was born March 1, 1949, in Fayetteville, N.C. He is a graduate of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (1971, journalism) and has a master's degree from Virginia Commonwealth University (1981, English).
He and his wife since 1973, Karen Van Neste Owen (the former publisher of Van Neste Books), live in Richmond, Va. He was a newspaper reporter and editor for 44 years.
Owen won The Dashiell Hammett Prize for crime literature in the United States and Canada for Oregon Hill, his 10th novel.
His first novel, "Littlejohn," was written in 1989, when he was 40. It was bought by The Permanent Press and published in 1992. Random House bought it from The Permanent Press and reissued it as a Villard hardcover in 1993 and a Vintage Contemporary paperback in 1994. It was nominated for the Abbey Award (American Booksellers) and Discovery (Barnes & Noble) award for best new fiction. It has sold, in all, more than 50,000 copies. It has been printed in Japanese, French and Korean; it has been a Doubleday Book Club selection; audio and large-print editions have been issued, and movie option rights have been sold.
His second novel, "Fat Lightning," came out as a Permanent Press book in 1994. It was bought by HarperCollins and was reissued as a Harper Perennial paperback in 1996. It received a starred review from Publishers' Weekly.
His third novel, "Answers to Lucky," was published by HarperCollins as a hardcover in 1996 and as a paperback in 1997. It received favorable reviews in The New York Times, Southern Living, GW, Publishers' Weekly, the Atlanta Constitution, the Baltimore Sun, the Memphis Commercial Appeal and numerous other publications. It was included in "The Best Novels of the Nineties: A Reader’s Guide."
His fourth novel, "The Measured Man," was published in hardcover by HarperCollins in 1997. It was praised in The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, Publishers' Weekly, Kirkus Reviews, the Raleigh News & Observer, the Orlando Sentinel, the Fort Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel and many other publications. It was one of the LA Times Book Reviews’ "Recommended Titles" for 1997. It was included in "The Best Novels of the Nineties: A Reader’s Guide."
Owen's fifth novel, "Harry and Ruth," was published by The Permanent Press in September of 2000 to critical acclaim from Kirkus, Publisher's Weekly and various weekly publications.
His sixth novel, "The Rail," was published in April of 2002. It is about (among other things) baseball and the parable of the talents. Owen won the 2002 Theresa Pollack Award for Words.
His seventh novel, "Turn Signal," was about a man whose muse drives him either to madness or to the best move he's ever made in his life. It came out in 2004 and was a Booksense selection for July of 2004.
His eighth novel, "Rock of Ages," is something of a sequel to his first novel, "Littlejohn." Georgia McCain returns to her hometown years after her father’s death to sell the family farm and finds herself immersed in baby-boomer guilt and a murder mystery. It was a Booksense pick for July of 2006.
His ninth novel, "The Reckoning," about ghosts of the ’60s, came out in late 2010 and received very positive reviews from, among others, Publishers Weekly and the New York Journal of Books.
His short story, "The Thirteenth Floor," part of "Richmond Noir," came out in early 2010.
The protagonist of “The Thirteenth Floor,” Willie Black, also is at the center of Owen’s 10th novel, “Oregon Hill,” which came in July of 2012 to very positive reviews in The New York Times, Publishers Weekly, Kirkus and elsewhere. It's also an audio book.
Willie starred in future Owen novels: The Philadelphia Quarry (2013), Parker Field (2014), The Bottom (2015), Grace (2016) and The Devil's Triangle (2017). His 16th novel, Annie's Bones, comes out in April of 2018.
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Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews
January 27, 2012
This review first appeared on my blog: http://www.knittingandsundries.com/20...
This is another instance of not judging a book by its cover. Inside of this rather plain cover is a story of family ties, friendship, and coming-of-age. Throw in a thriller aspect near the end, and you have a book that encompasses so many aspects of life.
We read of George's college experience during the Vietnam War, his wealthy family ties, his friendship with his former dorm-mate Freeman Hawk (a protestor and rabble rouser), and the ways his loyalty is pulled and tested.
From an incredibly sad first chapter, we experience Jake's loss and grief from the death of his mother to the accidental death of her dog. There is a chasm that opens up between Jake and George once Carter (Jake's mother) dies, and Jake predictably begins to act out in school, resulting in his being expelled from the magnet school he's attending and placed in an alternative school. His new girlfriend Andrea has an ex-boyfriend who threatens and bullies Jake.
Freeman has his own back story, coming from a poor family where a great tragedy made him fatherless at nine years old. He ends up as a draft dodger living in Canada (George, with his family ties, ends up serving in the reserves instead of going to war). When he asks George all these many years later if he can stay with them for a while, George agrees, causing the family to end up caught in a net of danger that he unknowingly brings with him.
Owens is a gifted writer, drawing the reader into these varied lives and making you care, really care, about what happens to George and Jake. I didn't really care for Freeman, although I did admire him for overcoming his family tragedy and making it to college, where he marched to the beat of his own drum.
For me, reading this book raised the question: "How far should the ties of friendship stretch?"
QUOTES
He drifted toward other kids, the ones who somehow communicated to each other that they had been wronged beyond all compensation, and had a right to stand to one side and despise the world that had shorted them in some fashion. He had earned his membership with his leap from the bridge.
George did not dislike Tim Fairweather. He found him to be funny, self-deprecating and decent. In the time he'd spent around Freeman's friends, Hawk's Doves, he'd come to respect him. He knew he'd never have the courage to be so openly, unabashedly different. It would have been easier, George knew, to be Freeman Hawk than to be Tim Fairweather.
He had hoped that he might graduate from New Hope without ever having the cultural and moral conflict that was now facing him.
One day the year before, as she was standing in the hallway talking with a couple of friends, a senior on the basketball team came up from behind and pressed himself against Andrea.
"Do you like that?" he'd asked, humping forward as two other boys watched, grinning.
Andrea looked thoughtful for a second or two and said, "Hmm. Just like a penis. Only smaller. I'm going to call you Peewee."
Writing: 3.5 out of 5 stars
Plot: 4 out of 5 stars
Characters: 4 out of 5 stars
Reading Immersion: 3.5 out 5 stars
BOOK RATING: 3.75 out of 5 stars
Sensitive Reader: Strong language, some sex and violence
This is another instance of not judging a book by its cover. Inside of this rather plain cover is a story of family ties, friendship, and coming-of-age. Throw in a thriller aspect near the end, and you have a book that encompasses so many aspects of life.
We read of George's college experience during the Vietnam War, his wealthy family ties, his friendship with his former dorm-mate Freeman Hawk (a protestor and rabble rouser), and the ways his loyalty is pulled and tested.
From an incredibly sad first chapter, we experience Jake's loss and grief from the death of his mother to the accidental death of her dog. There is a chasm that opens up between Jake and George once Carter (Jake's mother) dies, and Jake predictably begins to act out in school, resulting in his being expelled from the magnet school he's attending and placed in an alternative school. His new girlfriend Andrea has an ex-boyfriend who threatens and bullies Jake.
Freeman has his own back story, coming from a poor family where a great tragedy made him fatherless at nine years old. He ends up as a draft dodger living in Canada (George, with his family ties, ends up serving in the reserves instead of going to war). When he asks George all these many years later if he can stay with them for a while, George agrees, causing the family to end up caught in a net of danger that he unknowingly brings with him.
Owens is a gifted writer, drawing the reader into these varied lives and making you care, really care, about what happens to George and Jake. I didn't really care for Freeman, although I did admire him for overcoming his family tragedy and making it to college, where he marched to the beat of his own drum.
For me, reading this book raised the question: "How far should the ties of friendship stretch?"
QUOTES
He drifted toward other kids, the ones who somehow communicated to each other that they had been wronged beyond all compensation, and had a right to stand to one side and despise the world that had shorted them in some fashion. He had earned his membership with his leap from the bridge.
George did not dislike Tim Fairweather. He found him to be funny, self-deprecating and decent. In the time he'd spent around Freeman's friends, Hawk's Doves, he'd come to respect him. He knew he'd never have the courage to be so openly, unabashedly different. It would have been easier, George knew, to be Freeman Hawk than to be Tim Fairweather.
He had hoped that he might graduate from New Hope without ever having the cultural and moral conflict that was now facing him.
One day the year before, as she was standing in the hallway talking with a couple of friends, a senior on the basketball team came up from behind and pressed himself against Andrea.
"Do you like that?" he'd asked, humping forward as two other boys watched, grinning.
Andrea looked thoughtful for a second or two and said, "Hmm. Just like a penis. Only smaller. I'm going to call you Peewee."
Writing: 3.5 out of 5 stars
Plot: 4 out of 5 stars
Characters: 4 out of 5 stars
Reading Immersion: 3.5 out 5 stars
BOOK RATING: 3.75 out of 5 stars
Sensitive Reader: Strong language, some sex and violence
November 6, 2010
The start of the book was a little boring. I couldn't really get into it. It was so boring in the beginning that I was just thinking of not finishing the book. The middle got more interesting and I really enjoyed it towards the end.
August 7, 2019
Thoroughly enjoyed this novel set in Richmond even though this is a stand alone, not part of his detective series as I thought. Read this is a day and literally stayed glued to it unable to put it down. It's fun to read about your city in a fictional way that also gives insight to things you don't know about. In this case, it's about a family of money with dual timetables of the father and his college years around 1970 and his son in the present. Both men are outcasts of their gentry family now on a crash course with the reappearance of the father's radical college roommate who is now on the run. Also makes me realize just how different the Richmond that I live in currently is from even the Richmond that I moved to over 20 years ago.
I'm hooked -- now I have to seek out the Willie Black books.
I'm hooked -- now I have to seek out the Willie Black books.
January 13, 2020
George James and Freeman Hawk. Not the series. Didn't like the ending. Loose ends for poor Jake. Good that his aunt in Mexico is happy to take him in.
December 16, 2010
It’s the first few pages of a book that draw the reader in, and the last that determine the feeling as the cover is closed. Howard Owen’s beginning in The Reckoning was sadly disturbing, but enthralling as well. A dog, a last connection with the absent Carter, disconnected, fading away… It would have been hard to read on after the first chapter; but the scene changes, father and son move house, and new connections beckon.
The end of the novel leaves the reader with a sense of peace after war, belonging after displacement, future hope after losses have crept behind loss. I turned the final page with a sigh; this was a good book, and one I’m glad I read, for all that there were places where I was unsure. It’s a rewarding tale with threads of defiant stability and concern, like a teenager deciding those adult-imposed steps are worth taking after all.
Some of those steps, it seems, were never quite taken by the adults in Jake’s life. His father, George, never followed college room-mate Freeman to Canada back in the 1960’s, despite swearing he would. And now Freeman’s returned to post 911 America, never quite having become who he might have been. A dog that breaks its leash gets lost perhaps, and a dog too tightly tethered is too easily trapped. But Jake’s lost his moorings just as surely as his mother’s dog Butter. The highschooler’s growing up is threatened by his own despair, by fury of bully, by apparent apathy of parent, by folly of friend; and still somehow mirrors George’s semi-rebellious path. The one who leads Jake forward might end up as tethered and lost as the dog of that first scene. But the end of the book leaves reader and protagonist free to trust in the goodness of people again.
The story slows sometimes. The telling, maybe kindly, overwhelms the showing of emotions too human to bear. And the tale, all told, is beautifully crafted and connected, its truths well-hidden, well-found and well-founded.
Disclaimer: I received a copy of this book from the publisher, Permanent Press, in exchange for an unbiased review.
The end of the novel leaves the reader with a sense of peace after war, belonging after displacement, future hope after losses have crept behind loss. I turned the final page with a sigh; this was a good book, and one I’m glad I read, for all that there were places where I was unsure. It’s a rewarding tale with threads of defiant stability and concern, like a teenager deciding those adult-imposed steps are worth taking after all.
Some of those steps, it seems, were never quite taken by the adults in Jake’s life. His father, George, never followed college room-mate Freeman to Canada back in the 1960’s, despite swearing he would. And now Freeman’s returned to post 911 America, never quite having become who he might have been. A dog that breaks its leash gets lost perhaps, and a dog too tightly tethered is too easily trapped. But Jake’s lost his moorings just as surely as his mother’s dog Butter. The highschooler’s growing up is threatened by his own despair, by fury of bully, by apparent apathy of parent, by folly of friend; and still somehow mirrors George’s semi-rebellious path. The one who leads Jake forward might end up as tethered and lost as the dog of that first scene. But the end of the book leaves reader and protagonist free to trust in the goodness of people again.
The story slows sometimes. The telling, maybe kindly, overwhelms the showing of emotions too human to bear. And the tale, all told, is beautifully crafted and connected, its truths well-hidden, well-found and well-founded.
Disclaimer: I received a copy of this book from the publisher, Permanent Press, in exchange for an unbiased review.
November 30, 2010
Wow is what I have to say about this book. When I started reading it I wasn't grabbed at the very beginning. I don't know if it was the style of writing that didn't capture my attention or if it was just moving so slow to begin with.
This is a story about a man and his son. The father is named George Jame and the son is name Jake. George's wife dies in the beginning of the book and you see how their lives have changed. As you are reading the book you are taken to the past life of George James, when he was in college. The reason for this is because George's friend Freeman is staying in their house.
Going into the past is just so that you can learn things about Freeman and the relationship between George and Freeman. Does George really know his friend Freeman or has he turned a blind eye to his misgivings. I found the story slow at first but growing as you continued to read the book.
The ending of the book was very suspenseful and kept me interested that I didn't want to put the book down until I was finished it.
This is a story about a man and his son. The father is named George Jame and the son is name Jake. George's wife dies in the beginning of the book and you see how their lives have changed. As you are reading the book you are taken to the past life of George James, when he was in college. The reason for this is because George's friend Freeman is staying in their house.
Going into the past is just so that you can learn things about Freeman and the relationship between George and Freeman. Does George really know his friend Freeman or has he turned a blind eye to his misgivings. I found the story slow at first but growing as you continued to read the book.
The ending of the book was very suspenseful and kept me interested that I didn't want to put the book down until I was finished it.
October 19, 2016
This book was pretty good nothing to brag about . What bothered me was his dropping of the n word.Why use it ?? Whats the point ?? Makes me think he's a racist peckerwood. I won't be reading him again.
May 7, 2016
Don't let the cover, or the slow start fool you. This one's a keeper!
November 6, 2010
I really didn't care for this book. The characters were okay but the story was not all that interesting. I would not recommend it.
November 26, 2010
After reading 'Littlejohn' and 'Rock of Ages,' I couldn't resist 'The Reckoning.' As always, Howard Owen's characters are grittily real and his writing compelling.
August 28, 2012
A not terribly convincing tale about an unlikely pair of friends. Having started out a 60's idealist, I wanted Freeman to be better than he was.
October 20, 2013
After Philadelphia Quarry and Oregon Hill, this stunk.
November 3, 2010
A very well-written story.
Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews