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Christopher Flynn is trying to get it right. After years of trouble and rebellion that enraged his father and nearly cost him his life, he has a steady job in his father's company, he's seriously dating a woman he respects, and, aside from the distrust that lingers in his father's eyes, his mistakes are firmly in the past.
One day on the job, Chris and his partner come across a temptation almost too big to resist. Chris does the right thing, but old habits and instincts rise to the surface, threatening this new-found stability with sudden treachery and violence. With his father and his most trusted friends, he takes one last chance to blast past the demons trying to pull him back.
Like Richard Price or William Kennedy, Pelecanos pushes his characters to the extremes, their redemption that much sweeter because it is so hard fought. Pelecanos has long been celebrated for his unerring ability to portray the conflicts men feel as they search and struggle for power and love in a world that is often harsh and unforgiving but can ultimately be filled with beauty.
Review:
"Bestseller Pelecanos (The Turnaround) probes the volatile and fragile relationship between a father, Thomas Flynn, and his son, Chris, in this less than satisfying effort. As a rebellious teen into drugs, Chris had minor brushes with the law and did a stint in juvenile prison. Now 26, he's working for his father's D.C.-area carpet installation business and staying clean. Still, Thomas remains disappointed in his son's lack of achievement or ambition, and Chris remains resentful that he's not accepted for who he is. A rather tired device, a bag of stolen money found by Chris and a friend and fellow former inmate, serves to set in motion a chain of actions that will lead to critical decisions for both Flynns. Pelecanos adroitly sketches the obstacles and temptations that face juvenile offenders in and after prison, but this novel, with its dispassionate style, never manages to generate high suspense or evoke much sympathy for its characters. Author tour. (May)" Publishers Weekly (Copyright Reed Business Information, Inc.)
Review:
In George Pelecanos' "The Way Home," it's the little things that matter. As a writer on the fine HBO series "The Wire," Pelecanos explored crime, punishment and redemption — not in any grand manner, but through the prism of the smaller moments of life. He's fascinated by the minor decisions that end up making a huge difference in the long run, and the ripples that result when good but imperfect people... Washington Post Book Review (read the entire Washington Post review) try to do the right thing — even when they're not exactly sure what the right thing is. Chief among those people in his new novel is 17-year-old Chris Flynn, a middle-class kid from the Washington suburbs. As the story begins, Chris is smoking pot, breaking into cars and fighting — a minor-league badass whose screw-ups are born more out of boredom and directionlessness than any major defect of character. After a car accident and police chase, Chris runs out of chances with the law, and a judge sentences him to a juvenile prison, where he's one of only a few white kids incarcerated with black teenagers, most of whom haven't had his advantages. Nor do they have parents like Thomas and Amanda Flynn, a heartbroken and somewhat confused couple whose other child died when she was 2 days old. Now their remaining child, Chris, is messy and imperfect, and to Thomas he's a "stained remainder of his failings as a father." Flash-forward a few years, and Chris is out of jail, working at his father's carpet-installation company with Ben, a buddy from prison. Neither has any ambition, but they're both living on their own and maneuvering the dating scene: manual labor during the week, a girlfriend and a bit of weed and beer on the weekend. For Chris, whose classmates went on to law school and similar pursuits, there's a nagging feeling that he'll never be the man Thomas hoped he'd be; Ben has more of a Zen attitude toward his life, knowing he "was never going to be accomplished by society's standards, or rich by anyone's, but he was comfortable with his limitations." Chris and Ben are sent to a gentrifying neighborhood near Logan Circle to meet Mindy Kramer, a hard-charging real estate agent whose specialty is flipping properties by installing some granite counters and fresh carpet in old rowhouses to make a quick buck on the yuppies and hipsters taking over the neighborhood. To Mindy, Chris and Ben are another pair of anonymous workmen; to them, she's just another pushy customer. But once Mindy leaves and Ben pulls back the carpet, the two discover a cutout in the wood floor, and inside is a gym bag containing nearly $50,000. Ben's first instinct is to keep it, but Chris, sensing trouble, insists they put it back: "There's no shortcut to where we're trying to get to. Just work, every day. Same as how it is for everyone else." So they put it back, install fresh carpet on top and try to forget they've ever seen it. A secret bag of money? It's as shopworn as it sounds, and the loudest false note in "The Way Home." Ben and Chris' reaction also stretches credulity: Would anyone really replace an old bag of money back in a floor, particularly when it seemed to have been there for years? But when one of the two slips and mentions the hidden money to the wrong person, the house is broken into, the carpet comes up, and it sets off a chain reaction that grows to involve Mindy, Ben, Chris and eventually the whole Flynn family, becoming ever more violent along the way. What rings true in Pelecanos' work isn't his plot devices but his characters, including Lawrence, a former jail mate of Chris and Ben's whose attempts at reform run more shallow than their own, and Ali, a young man who directs a storefront social center where he tries, mostly unsuccessfully, to steer inner-city kids away from the trouble around them. But his richest character is also his most workaday: Thomas Flynn, with his successful but unglamorous business in an office park in suburban Maryland, a dad who never quite gives up on his son no matter how tempted he is to do so, a man who "looked into the mirror and saw what others saw, a guy who went to work every day, who took care of his family, who made what would always be a modest living, and would pass on, eventually, without having made a significant mark." By the end of "The Way Home," both Thomas and Chris have made that mark on each other, and Pelecanos suggests that, in its modest way, it may be enough for any father and son. Reviewed by Kevin Allman, who is a frequent reviewer of mysteries, Washington Post Book World (Copyright 2006 Washington Post Book World Service/Washington Post Writers Group)
(hide most of this review)
Synopsis:
Thomas Flynn's rocky relationship with his son Chris is finally moving away from distrust and scorn, a decade after Chris served time. When a burglary break their uneasy detente, will Chris be pulled back into treachery and violence?
gaby317, December 2, 2009 (view all comments by gaby317)
The Way Home draws you in quickly and deeply. I couldn't help but sympathize with and become invested in what happened to Chris Flynn and his friend Ben Braswell. Complex and flawed, Chris comes across so clearly and authentically. His regret, his uncertainty and his desire to change make Chris one of the most interesting characters that I've come across in a while. Unlike most of his fellow inmates in the juvenile detention center, Chris came from a supportive middle class family. Upon his release, his parents rallied around him and celebrated his return. They helped train him, find gainful employment and gave him the sense that his life can continue to improve. Part of Chris's sense of disquiet comes from the difference between himself and his fellow inmates. He recognizes that his good fortune and he tries to behave decently to those around him. Chris's best friend Ben had a very different background. Ben's mother had died young from a drug overdose and he'd been in various foster homes until he entered juvenile detention. But since having been released, working for Flynn's Floors with Chris, and with his love of reading, Ben had moved beyond the dark places of his past and "looked forward to learning something new each day."
The difficult and complicated relationship between Chris and his father Thomas Flynn of Flynn's Floors adds to the complexity and richness of the story. Carefully crafted with the numerous plot twists and unusual characters, The Way Home an unpredictable and satisfying read.
Publisher: Little, Brown and Company; 1 edition (May 12, 2009), 336 pages.
Review copy provided by the publisher.
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Product details
323 pages
Little Brown and Company -
English9780316156493
Reviews:
"Publishers Weekly Review"
by Publishers Weekly,
"Bestseller Pelecanos (The Turnaround) probes the volatile and fragile relationship between a father, Thomas Flynn, and his son, Chris, in this less than satisfying effort. As a rebellious teen into drugs, Chris had minor brushes with the law and did a stint in juvenile prison. Now 26, he's working for his father's D.C.-area carpet installation business and staying clean. Still, Thomas remains disappointed in his son's lack of achievement or ambition, and Chris remains resentful that he's not accepted for who he is. A rather tired device, a bag of stolen money found by Chris and a friend and fellow former inmate, serves to set in motion a chain of actions that will lead to critical decisions for both Flynns. Pelecanos adroitly sketches the obstacles and temptations that face juvenile offenders in and after prison, but this novel, with its dispassionate style, never manages to generate high suspense or evoke much sympathy for its characters. Author tour. (May)" Publishers Weekly (Copyright Reed Business Information, Inc.)
"Synopsis"
by Ingram,
Thomas Flynn's rocky relationship with his son Chris is finally moving away from distrust and scorn, a decade after Chris served time. When a burglary break their uneasy detente, will Chris be pulled back into treachery and violence?
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