Bow's Boy

By Richard Babcock

Book Overview

Every now and then, a small American town produces someone with such out-of-place talent that he seems to have come from a different world. In the 1960s hardscrabble town of Laroque, Wisconsin, seventeen-year-old Ginger Piper, a high school sports hero and a disarmingly poised and articulate young man, is that sort of figure. Or at least G. Bowman Epps--a rich, lonely, middle-aged lawyer--believes he is.

Bow is something of a town legend too: Ungainly and scarred, brilliant and stern, famous for great inherited wealth, he seems a vestige of a time gone by in a town where the legacy of past greatness--embodied in the ornate, decaying, and defunct opera house--casts a literal shadow. But when Bow discovers Ginger Piper, he is energized and inspired. Where others have seen merely a charming basketball star, Bow spies the seeds of something greater and the drive, intelligence, and passion to carry on Bow's legacy as a groundbreaking criminal attorney. When Bow offers the boy a summer apprenticeship in his orderly practice, it is an investment in a certain future, and the initiation of an oddly matched friendship. But when Ginger is accused of a startling crime that changes the town's perception of him, Bow is not only surprised, he's also implicated, and forced to choose between his fierce sense of logic and his admiration for the boy.

The story unfolds as the first agonizing repercussions of the Vietnam War are being felt and the American people are struggling to comprehend a new kind of war. It inspires a startling division between the generations at home, as politics and personal lives inevitably collide.

Bow's investigator, Charlie Stuart, narrates the events thirty years later, adding a perspective colored by tortured memories of his manic father and his halting pursuit of a young woman in town. Anchored by a compelling mystery, Bow's Boy is ultimately about greatness, heroism, loyalty, and justice, and the pain and solace of family.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 074322728X
• ISBN13: 9780743227285
• Release Date: September 2007
• Publisher: Scribner Book Company
• Length: 368 Pages
• Weight: 0.93 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.9" x 5.5" x 8.6"

Customer Reviews

Slow, but Savory Reading

Bow's Boy is a story about small town America during the Vietnam War, of loneliness, trust and betrayal between a man with no son, and the boy he wants to take that place. Starts off slow, but reader is rewarded. Like a tall, cool glass of lemonade, Bow's Boy is best read a bit at a time. Babcock has a style of writing that allows the reader to make connections with the small town of Larouqe, Wisconsin. He writes about the changing seasons in a sumptuous way that allows the reader to slip into the book. The characters are interesting. Bow is a well-known but oddball criminal defense lawyer. Charlie, his over-thirty assistant, is the narrator for the story. It seems Charlie will never break out of his comfortable rut, but then Ginger Piper, a plucky, brilliant high school student enters the picture. Things explode when Ginger is accused of smuggling a knife to one of Bow's jailed clients. An enjoyable read, especially for older people.

Coming to grips in the 60's make for a great book!

Bow's Boy is one those secret gems of a book a reader finds among the morass of today's cardboard fiction. Bowman Epps has never set foot in a courtroom, but he is one of the best criminal appeals attorneys in the state of Wisconsin. Ginger Piper is a small town hero. He will always be remember for the game-winning goal he made at the championship basketball game--even though he comes from one of the poorest families in Laroque.Bowman operates one thing: logic. This is what makes him such a successful criminal appeals attorney. Even though a person in jail should be in jail, Bowman can always find the most finite flaw from that man's trial and set his free. Seeing, Ginger Piper speak at a Vietnam casualty funeral, Bowman can see in him some of these same attributes that he sees in himself, and Bowman takes Ginger under his wing. But things go awry with Ginger, and Bowman has to decide against logic and take a stand on Ginger. How these two individuals interact with each other in the turmoil of the 1960's America makes for a great story and gripping novel. At the same time, as this book takes place during the Viet-nam war, America was at its own grip with its own logic - should we fight or should we not fight. Together, these two events tie this book into a concise story on the state of mind in the 1960s. Read it and reap great rewards for yourself.