When eighteen-year-old Daniel MacRae escaped his father’s alcoholic abuse in 1981, he left his Indiana hometown, uncertain he would ever return. In the years that followed, he pursued an education and embarked on a very successful career in broadcast journalism.
In April 2005, as Daniel is settling into his new role as a senior network news executive, he receives a desperate plea from his estranged mother to come home and help deal with the affairs of his dying father, Jerome. Despite his reluctance, he returns for a difficult and emotional reunion. While pursuing his new assignment, Daniel resolves to forge a new bond with his father and rebuild his broken family. However, before he can do so, he must first unearth the truth about an unspeakable event from Jerome’s past.
At that news, Daniel returns to his home in Indiana for the first time in over two decades, unable to ignore his mother’s pleas, who’s desperate for Daniel to “come and deal with [his] father in person.” While reluctantly taking over as caregiver, he discovers a connection between his father’s Vietnam-related nightmares and abusive behavior, allowing Daniel a chance to understand his father’s past—and the two men to come to a truce. Treakle immediately draws readers in, connecting Daniel’s abuse to his own life choices and exploring how it’s impacted his relationships, particularly the decimation of his marriage.
Treakle spotlights the apparent idyll of middle-America through Daniel’s mother, a preacher’s daughter who, for years, did little to stop the abuse, only coming forward to support her son when his own negative choices threatened to ruin his life. Yet the book’s heart is the life-altering events of Jerome’s military service, the violence he participated in there as a soldier, and his inability to come to terms with his actions. As Daniel searches for answers about his father’s time in Vietnam, he hones his journalism skills, leading him to unravel a mystery that grips until the final pages.
Takeaway: A father and son take on the demons of their past in this gripping story.
Comparable Titles: John Podlaski’s Cherries, Tim O’Brien’s The Things They Carried.
Production grades
Cover: A
Design and typography: A
Illustrations: N/A
Editing: A
Marketing copy: A
