A Man You Could Call a Man

Short-listed for 2019 Lee Smith Novel Prize, this work of Southern Literary fiction begins in Asheville, North Carolina in the early 1970s and tells the story of how a rule-following, middle-of-the-road businessman transforms after his ten-year-old son is kidnapped. Don Harwood has always been the epitome of civility: a temperate and well-respected family man. That steady life is threatened when two of his employees learn that Don and his wife Carrie are giving $100,000 to a charity. Bitter that Don is willing to throw such large sums of money around when his employees are scraping by, they conspire to kidnap the Harwoods' son, Matthew, and ransom him for a similar payday. Don and Carrie return from the charity event to find a ladder leading to Matthew's bedroom window, an empty bed, and a ransom note. Don scrambles to come up with the ransom, but before he can pay it, the kidnappers suddenly go silent. Almost two years of grief and waiting pass before Don and Carrie must decide whether to acquiesce in the tragic loss of their son, or to take justice into their own hands.