George Pelecanos is generally categorized as a writer of crime fiction, but it’s difficult to cleanly fit his latest novel, “The Turnaround,” into that genre. Although a crime propels the action, and violence is central to the story, this is a novel about relationships and redemption more than one about hunting down the perpetrator of a crime.
Alex Pappas, 16, is the older son of a man who owns and runs Pappas and Sons Coffee Shop, a Greek diner in Washington, D.C. Alex is basically a good kid, working the summer at his father’s restaurant, hanging out with friends at night. One night, after drinking beer and smoking some Colombian, Alex and his friends make a fabulously bad decision. They decide to take a ride through the nearby community of Heathrow Heights.
Pelecanos writes, “Heathrow Heights was a small community of about 70 houses and apartments, bordered by railroad tracks to the south, woods to the west, parkland to the north, and a large boulevard and commercial strip to the east. It was an all-black neighborhood, founded by former slaves from southern Maryland on land deeded to them by the government . . . to some of the middle- and working-class white teenagers of the surrounding area, who learned insecurity from their fathers, Heathrow Heights was the subject of ridicule, slurs and pranks.”
While the white kids are getting ready for mischief, James Monroe, 18, and his younger brother, Raymond, are heading over to Nunzio’s, the neighborhood general store, after shooting some hoops. They end up spending a good part of the remaining day with Charles Baker.
While the Monroe boys are from a solid working-class home, Baker has already seen his fair share of trouble: “Baker’s face had been scarred by a young man with a box cutter who had casually questioned his manhood. Several people had gathered to witness the fight, the subject of rumors for days. Charles, bleeding profusely from the slice but visibly unfazed, had downed his opponent, kicked aside his weapon and broken his arm by snapping it over his knee. The crowd had parted as a laughing, wounded Charles Baker had walked away, the boy on the ground convulsing in shock.”
The three are standing in front of Nunzio’s when the Gran Torino drives by. A projectile and a racial epithet are hurled. The car speeds away, unaware that the street comes to a dead end. The only route out of the neighborhood is now blocked by the three black teens. The confrontation is violent; one of the white teens flees, Alex is severely beaten, and the third boy shot.
Alex is 51 when the reader next finds him, running his father’s diner, with children of his own. He’s in a solid marriage, still mourning the death of his eldest in Iraq. One way he deals with grief is to donate the sweets left at the end of the day to the kitchen at Walter Reed; Raymond Munroe has ended up there as a physical therapist, working with those wounded in Iraq.
Raymond sees Alex, and something familiar in the face causes him to ask a few questions, leading him to memories of the teenage confrontation. That night, so many years before, physically scarred Alex; the scars left on Raymond and his brother are less obvious but deeper. Raymond reaches out to Alex, saying, “You move along in life, you feel the need to make the beds you left undone.”
It is an opportunity, though difficult, for a turnaround, to put the past to bed and gain some peace. But Charles Baker is still in the picture, and he is far less willing to let bygones be. In fact, he sees the renewed contact as a new opportunity.
George Pelecanos’ work is critically as well-regarded as that of Michael Connelly and Dennis Lehane. But he’s never reached as wide an audience, perhaps because his staccato prose smooths none of the edges of his fictional world.
“The Turnaround” is a standout, not simply because he sets the reader squarely in a fictional, yet real, world. Most coming-of-age stories are those of younger characters, but this is one in which finding peace is a journey not tied to age, but to forgiveness.
Pelecanos does many things well, not the least of which is to use popular music to set the stage. But the real power of this work lies in setting very real, recognizable conflicts and difficult decisions in what, for many readers, might be an unfamiliar world. He has created a fiction that transcends race and class boundaries, and in doing so provided a rich and thought-provoking fictional journey. One cannot ask for more.
Robin Vidimos is a freelance writer who reviews books for The Denver Post and Buzz in the ‘Burbs.
Fiction
The Turnaround, by George Pelecanos, $24.99
