This is the spoiler section of our monthly book review and today the story we are spoiling is John Grisham’s The Reckoning. Unlike my spoilers free review, which you can view here, there is no real structure in this article. I am going to simply talk about how the story personally made me feel.
First lets take a refresher on what the story is all about.
A Brief Synopsis: Pete Banning, a war veteran and a respected member of a small southern town wakes up one morning, eats breakfast, goes about his normal morning routine, drives into town and shoots his pastor in the face.
One of the first things I noticed about The Reckoning is the racial undertones. This threw me a little because the way in which Grisham crafts this story the black characters are more of an afterthought. Uncomfortably there but easily fading into the background. The first people we learn about after the main character himself are the black workers on the farm, then Marietta, Florry’s housekeeper/cook (although it is pure speculation on my part that Marietta is black as it is not explicitly stated that she is.) The first person to know that Pete Banning was the one who murdered Pastor Bell was the black janitor at the church. The novel is divided into three parts and throughout the first section there’s this constant understated attention drawn to the silent observers of this unfolding drama that is essentially between two white people. During court proceedings the scene would often switch to the black people watching; segregated from their white counter parts.
There was one particular scene that stood out to me of a case that proceeded Pete Banning’s initial hearing regarding a black woman and a white man. The interracial lovers had been caught and since such things were illegal at the time, they faced criminal charges. All of these things seemed very out of place to me. Why mention any of these people at all? I felt the acknowledgement of these background, often nameless characters unnecessary, which I found odd. Having read John Grisham before I know that he writes with purpose so early on I wondered if the reason behind Bell’s murder was race related.
As a side note, I wonder if my life experiences, which admittedly, has me analyzing every word spoken about people of my race from every angle in an attempt to decipher any and all possible inferences, contributed to my perceptions. Would someone with a dissimilar life experience have even given these small appearances of black people in the first section of the novel a second thought?
However, racial tones were all but forgotten during the trial of Pete Banning in my haze of frustration. Banning was pretty insufferable to me as a character. I wanted so badly to root for him. Clearly, he killed the man for a reason. In a twisted way I could feel the influence of media creeping into my mind. The preacher is usually the bad guy in these cases. I feel like Grisham played up the ‘hypocritical Christian’ narrative that is so often portrayed in our entertainment. With the pastor’s wife musing after he died that the pastor liked women maybe a little more than he should. Now by this time I am going please, please don’t let this be about an affair. I still at this point really wanted to like Pete Banning. The first section goes on with Pete’s trial with everyone scrambling to understand why Pete had done such a heinous crime, why he had his wife committed, and why was he so uncooperative.
As expected, the jury found Pete guilty and sentenced him to death. And the section does indeed end with Pete Banning’s gruesome death by electric chair.
Section 2 takes us back in time. It details in length how Pete met his soon to be wife. Their years as a young couple. Their lusty relationship and their inevitable elopement once she found out that she was pregnant. It goes into great detail about their time raising their family on the farm after Pete took a break from his military career. It was a warm moment when you get to see Pete as a loving husband and father. Ever present are the black workers including Nineva, her husband Amos, and their grandson Jupe who Pete seems pretty fond of. Soon Pete is called to go fight in the war at one of the most brutal battlegrounds, in the Philippines. By this time Pete has no interest in military life and wants to live out his days with his family on his farm. He says a sorrowful goodbye to his wife and kids. He bids farewell to an emotional Nineva, Amos, and the young boy who was now a tall handsome young man, Jupe. It was at this moment that something clicked and a theory solidified in my brain but I still had no inkling why Pete would murder the pastor.
Pete gets shipped off to the Philippines and I have no desire to relive the absolute horror on every page that is the war. John Grisham really makes you live it. He does not allow the reader to turn away from the atrocities and throughout the entire time that the war went on I could only think to myself. How could you throw it all away? Pete survived so much when so many people, thousands upon thousands died in some of the most horrific way. I was begging for it not to be something petty! Please don’t let this be about an affair was pretty much my plea with every page turn. Due to unfortunate events Pete was presumed dead and military personnel were dispatched to the farm to let the family know.
Several times Pete tried to get in contact with his family but all his efforts were in vain. Through a series of events Pete becomes a guerilla fighter and suffers several debilitating injuries. He and his friend are found later by American soldiers and based on his injuries Pete is given the opportunity to retire home. An opportunity that he eagerly accepts. Back in the US, as soon as he is capable, he calls home and informs them that he is alive and his wife Liza and Florry immediately head out to see him.
Now we are in section 3, but don’t get your hopes up. I found myself skipping a good portion of this section as it was essentially what happens post execution. A charlatan who actually shows up in the first section of the novel sets about seducing the pastor’s newly widowed wife with the sole purpose of using her grief to enrich himself. In section 3 he convinces her (or he did it on his own, I can’t remember) to file a wrongful death lawsuit so that he can sue the Banning children for their family estate. A lawsuit he wins leaving Pete Banning’s children with nothing. We, the readers do not find out what all of this tragedy is for until the LAST 8 PAGES of the novel! The ending left me thoroughly unsatisfied and frankly furious. It was all so unnecessary. As much as I hate that the con man got what he wanted in the end and is now a wealthy man (he married the pastor’s widow) I can’t say that the pastor’s wife didn’t deserve compensation. The theory I had when Pete left for war was correct. At the time I was slightly taken aback about the mention of Jupe’s tall strapping good looks. Describing an older Jupe, a character that is barely mentioned at all seemed odd. Considering that Grisham had mentioned several times how free spirited, sexually healthy, and flirtatious Pete’s wife was this acknowledgement of Jupe’s appeal to me could only mean one thing, an affair. So how does the pastor factor in on all if this?
Well a year after Liza (Pete’s wife) was told that Pete had passed away in the war Something happened to Nineva and she was unable to do the housekeeping so she sent her grandson Jupe to stand in for her. It was at this time that Liza began an affair with him. Believing she was unable to have a child anymore (after her 4 miscarriages) she did not take the proper precautions and soon found herself pregnant by Jupe. In a panic now because interracial relationships are illegal, she – well let’s take the words right off the page.
“Her first idea was to do what white women have always done when they get caught – scream rape.”
Now here is where I have to pause. You see how we find out is by Liza confessing to Florry one night after escaping the asylum, and before overdosing on pills. Florry then tells both the Banning children and when the children become slightly judgmental, she defends their mom by stating she believed she was a widow, she was not a “whore.” Further stating that she was not a bad person. So, remember that and we will circle back.
So, Liza’s first inclination is to scream rape. She confides in Pastor Bell who convinces her not to, thereby saving Jupe’s life. Instead he drives her to Memphis to get a backdoor abortion which leads to infection. Soon after, Pete comes back from the war and once he is out of the hospital, he wants to pick up their marriage where it left off but soon finds an unwilling wife. Liza is incapable physically and/or psychologically of having sex with her husband and Pete doesn’t believe her excuse of miscarriage shortly after he left for the war so he hires a private investigator who tells him Liza had gone away to Memphis with Dexter Bell and no one knew why. Putting two and two together and coming up with five Pete confronts Liza who then lies and says that it was Pastor Bell that she had an affair with. By this time Nineva and Amos, having got wind of the affair, have shipped Jupe off to Chicago for his own protection. Liza is no longer stable and falls into depression and Pete has her committed. Pete then tries to go on with his daily life but he survived a horrible ordeal with the sole purpose of getting back to his family and he just couldn’t let it go so he decides to take Pastor Bell’s life.
I am trying to sympathize with Pete but in the end, he took an innocent man’s life. He refused to forgive his wife for sleeping with someone else AFTER she believed him to be dead. It is hard to empathize with a man who has no empathy himself. I am also not of a mindset that Liza is above reproach. She might not have committed adultery in her mind but what stuck out the most to me was that she had to be convinced not to cry rape knowing full well doing so would’ve meant the death of Jupe. I will not forget that it was ONLY because Pastor Bell convinced her not to go through with it that she relented on such a cold blooded and yes murderous scheme. Secondly, I am quite appalled that a woman who repeatedly and adamantly wanted more children could abort her child so easily when it was not her husband’s and more importantly not white. To top everything off her lie caused a man his life. No one wins in this scenario. Florry unfortunately dies at the end of the novel. The Banning kids are left without their ancestral home. Nineva and all the black workers are left in the same position they have always been in, with the possibility that it might get worse. The pastor is dead, his wife is married to a man who only married her to get his hands on the Banning fortune. It was all extremely pointless. Well written and bold, but not something I will ever pick up again.
#Spoilers #bookreview #readerslife
