The Reckoning: A Novel: 25

Product Information

In the summer of his seventeenth year, Sam­uel Sooleymon gets the chance of a lifetime: a trip to the United States with his South Sudanese teammates to play in a showcase basket­ball tournament. He has never been away from home, nor has he ever been on an airplane. The opportunity to be scouted by dozens of college coaches is a dream come true. Surprised at the intrusion, Bell said, “Well, good morning, Pete.” He was about to stand when Pete whipped out a pistol with a long barrel and said, “You know why I’m here.” Pete Banning, in his early 40s, is a man of few words. When he deliberately guns down Dexter Bell in his church office, he refuses to explain why. “I have nothing to say” is his refrain to the end. Pete’s guilt is never in doubt.

He won’t listen.” Pete took a bite of his omelet. “I just want him to hurry up and graduate. I’m tired of paying tuition.” Until now. Today would be the last day of his life as he knew it, and he had accepted this. He had no choice.In this case, Grisham seems to have wanted to write two books. One, as he explains in his Author’s Note at the end of the novel, centers on the curious story of a prominent man in a small Mississippi town who murdered another prominent man and was executed after refusing to divulge his motive. This narrative hook, which he came across many years ago, now becomes the story of Pete Banning, who murders the Reverend Dexter Bell in Part One of the novel and goes to his death refusing to explain why he did it. Es una novela muy diferente de lo que suele hacer Grisham. Tiene parte de thriller legal, pero lo importante no son los juicios. El acento lo pone en la historia del protagonista y en el contexto. He was elected to the Mississippi state House of Representatives in 1983, where he served until 1990. Llevaba unos cinco o seis años sin leer nada de John Grisham. Fui lectora suya durante mucho tiempo, pero llegó un momento en el que me resultaba repetitivo y dejé de leerlo. Este libro me llamó la atención y lo anoté como posible. Tras leer una reseña de un amigo por aquí me decidí a leerlo. Digamos que me he reconciliado con el autor.

Years later, Pete was called to fight in World War II and was sent to the Philippines. He was among the soldiers who surrendered to the Japanese and forced to walk about 65 miles from Bataan to prison camps. Pete survived the march as well as his time in the prison camp though he was severely malnourished and suffered dysentery and malaria. Pete and a war buddy, Clay Wampler, escaped Japanese captivity when the freighter ship on which they were riding to be used as slave labor in coal mines was sunk by torpedoes. Pete and Clay joined guerrilla forces and fought against the Japanese. Pete suffered a broken leg when he helped destroy a bridge crucial to Japanese troops. Pete’s other leg was injured with shrapnel when he and his men happened upon a battalion of Japanese soldiers. It was just days later when Pete and the others were found by American soldiers.The Reverend Dexter Bell had been preaching at the Clanton Methodist Church since three months before Pearl Harbor. It was the third church of his ministry, and he would have been rotated onward like all Methodist preachers but for the war. Shortages in the ranks had caused a shifting of duties, an upsetting of schedules. Normally, in the Methodist denomination, a minister lasted only two years in one church, sometimes three, before being reassigned. Reverend Bell had been in Clanton for five years and knew it was only a matter of time before he was called to move on. Unfortunately, the call did not arrive in time. Me ha gustado mucho la ambientación en ese Mississippi rural de los años cuarenta del pasado siglo. Refleja a la perfección el tema de los prejuicios raciales. Clanton es una localidad en la que casi nunca se ha cometido un crimen. En palabras de sus policías, alguna pelea y el linchamiento de un chico negro, pero claro eso no cuenta, no era ilegal colgar a un chico de color en esa época. Por muy sabido que lo tengamos leerlo así de crudo te deja helada. The problem with the Bataan section of the novel is that it’s too larded down with information cobbled from his reference sources, and it’s far too detailed in terms of physical suffering. It’s a fair bet that after endlessly recurring descriptions of diarrhea and beheadings, many readers won’t make it all the way to Part Three. The question of why Pete Banning shot the Reverend Dexter Bell is just not compelling enough to justify struggling through the middle portion of this book. With regard to the Bataan material, it’s not that Grisham isn’t allowed to write about things other than courtroom drama. Playing for Pizza (2007) is an example of a book in which he broke away from the legal thriller groove and wrote a story that was charming, engaging, and entertaining. It’s not that he has to write the same thing, every time out.