The Reckoning

"The Reckoning: An Inconvenient Discovery about Pleasure" is a lighthearted first-hand account about the seductive perils of our time. The action revolves around Albrecht, a tradition-bound Austrian nobleman and those who cause him woe: his mother, Istenne, whose idealistic antics scandalized Europe years ago; his daughter, Princess Stephanie, whose worldly mischief is creating no less of a contemporary stir; and his cousin, the narrator, whose Americanized ways offend every tenet of...
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"The Reckoning: An Inconvenient Discovery about Pleasure" is a lighthearted first-hand account about the seductive perils of our time. The action revolves around Albrecht, a tradition-bound Austrian nobleman and those who cause him woe: his mother, Istenne, whose idealistic antics scandalized Europe years ago; his daughter, Princess Stephanie, whose worldly mischief is creating no less of a contemporary stir; and his cousin, the narrator, whose Americanized ways offend every tenet of Albrecht's existence. There is also God in the guise of both the stern but just Yahweh of Abraham and the ever-forgiving Jesus Christ. Underlying the action is Albrecht's conviction that humanity's unbridled ways can still have the same sort of incalculable consequences as the loss of Paradise by Adam and Eve. Whether set in a dilapidated chateau at the foot of the Pyrenees, in a burgundy-red studio on Manhattan's Upper East Side, or at an ocean-side cottage in Laguna Beach, "The Reckoning" carries an inconvenient message for those seeking to maximize their pleasures in life. The book's epilogue, however, offers a provocative alternative.Ernest Kolowrat was born in Prague in 1935. After attending schools in the former Czechoslovakia, Turkey and England, he graduated from Yale and served as a junior Naval officer with the U.S. Pacific Fleet. During the decade of the 1960s, he was successively employed as world affairs editor for Scholastic Magazines in New York, director of information for the American Institute for Foreign Study in Greenwich, Connecticut, and director of 10th Anniversary Programs of the Peace Corps in Washington. Since 1971, he has been a freelance writer, publicist and film maker. He is the author of "Hotchkiss: A Chronicle of an American School.""Kolowrat's combination of American and European sensibilities speaks in a frank voice to audiences on both sides of the Atlantic."--Alice Pistkova, Prague Post?tender, funny, touching and true --a unique page-turner."--Stephen Birmingham, Author "Our Crowd"