What they didn’t tell you about absolute power was that it was never absolute; the instant you had it, someone had already lined up to try to take
What they didn’t tell you about absolute power was that it was never absolute; the instant you had it, someone had already lined up to try to take it away. Princes could sleep soundly, but never kings. The ear was always tuned for the creak on the floorboard, the whine of a hinge.
The princes would probably do well to stay alert as well. Remember Richard the Third? World Gone By is the final volume of Dennis Lehane’s Coughlin Family trilogy. The series began ambitiously with The Given Day, set in Boston, among other places, in the late 19-teens. That book cast a perceptive eye on the social movements of the era, and the underlying problems that called them into being. It was an opus magnus, big canvas, big ideas, well realized. The second of the Coughlin books, Live by Night, shifted the focus to Florida in the roaring twenties, Prohibition, rum trade, a fair bit on the DNA of violence. It was smart, literary, insightful, and a damn fine read. It took a lot of wordsmith ordnance to produce the first two. But it seems that there were only a few cartridges left when it came time for the third. This is not to say it is not a good book. I liked it. But, compared to its older siblings, it is disappointing for the reduction in scope, and the feeling one might get that Lehane was dashing through this one to finish the series so he could move on to something else.
Joe Coughlin, in Live by Night, had carved out a nice little chunk of the Florida crime market. Even bought himself some public respectability. But now he has scaled back. Maintains a low public profile. Although he is still a member of the organized crime council, he functions as a freelancer, an advisor, a voice of wisdom, a gangland statesman almost.
“So was I a gangster?” He nodded. “Yes. Now I’m an advisor to people.” “Criminals.” He shrugged. “A friend of mine was Public Enemy Number Three about six years ago—“ She sat up quickly. “See, that’s what I’m saying. Who could begin a sentence, ‘A friend of mine was Public Enemy’ anything?”
He is doing well, plenty of money, a son he adores, a gorgeous, connected girlfriend. He hobnobs with the movers and shakers financial and civic, also has working relationships with the military and the police. But he gets wind that there is a hit out on him, and the game is afoot. Who, when, why? This gives the story structure, a ticking bomb, with tension ramping up as the deadline approaches.
[image] Dennis Lehane -from Boston Magazine
Lehane brings back plenty of the cast from the last episode, but there is enough new blood to keep things pumping. Joe’s pal, boss of bosses Dion Bartolo, appears to have a mole in his organization. People are dying or being locked up. It’s bad for business and needs to end. One of Joe Coughlin’s challenges is to unearth the snitch. There is enough organizational politicking, back-stabbing (literally, as the case may be) and maneuvering for fans of Wolf Hall or Game of Thrones. The seats of power may be smaller, but the desire, and willingness to do whatever it takes is just as high.
The scale of this book is far different from that of its elders, 309 pps for this one, versus 402 for Live by Night and 704 for The Given Day. This one takes place within a few weeks, whereas the prior two covered decades. But thematic strains persist.
the gangster genre to me has always been a metaphor for unfettered capitalism. It’s the American system run completely amok without regulation, without anything. So whereas in the real world you have, say, Exxon buying off the State of New Jersey (a recently proposed [and accepted] pollution settlement) — well, in the gangster novel, that would just be somebody would get killed. - from the U-T San Diego interview
Family figures large here, again. Lehane brings back issues of fathers and sons, how violence by elders scar and steer their children. Can the cycle ever be broken? Moms have a hard time of it, mostly by their absence. Although one, who is, delightfully, a floral arranger and contract killer, makes a well-deserved dent in her abusive hubby’s cranium to achieve her widowhood. Widowers abound, usually with sons. It’s a man’s world, more so than in the earlier books, probably because the female characters have been killed off.
I didn’t realize that until after the book was pretty much going to print. I could have thought that one through a little bit more. Where the hell are all the women in this? - from LA Review of Books interview
Lehane touches on race as well, most poignantly in a scene where Joe Coughlin talks with his mixed race son, Tomas, about being called a nigger.
There are some wonderful characters here. A top-hatted Montooth Dix conjures images of Baron Samedi. A mob doctor has a particularly interesting tale to tell. An unaffiliated don has a group of bodyguards with a particularly daunting rep. One of the mob bosses has a gambling problem. Contract killers have kids, and even a big deal like Joe Coughlin has to cope with his kid getting chicken pox. So there are both broad and fine brushes in Lehane’s set.
Throughout the book Joe sees a young boy. He is uncertain if the boy is real, a message from the other side, maybe manifestation of a brain tumor. But the sightings trouble him. And this is not the only potentially spectral child presence in the book. He wrestles with feeling alone in the world as well, the larger family of which he was a member having, despite the lie about putting family first, done an excellent job of making orphans.
Joe gives some thought to the hereafter, making up for his crimes, sure, but more interestingly, offers up a very interesting notion of time
“Do you think she’s happy? Wherever she is?” His father turned on the seat and faced him. “Matter of fact, I do.” “But she must be lonely.” “Depends. If you believe time works like it does down here, then, yeah, she’s only got her father for company and she didn’t much like him.” He patted Tomas’s knee. “But what if there’s no such thing as time after this life?” “I don’t understand.” “No minutes, no hours, no clocks. No night turning into day. I like to think your mother’s not alone, because she’s not waiting for us. We’re already there. “
So, what’s not to like? Were this the first book in the series, or a stand-alone volume, one might look at World Gone By differently. But it is part of a trilogy, so the first two parts must be taken into account as well. How does it compare? The Given Day is a big-time historical novel. An epic, a saga, about a time and place, covering considerable time, considerable history. It is a book with heft, and not just from its 700+ pages. Live By Night, while not sharing the same scope as its predecessor, was an amazing book that carried the Coughlin family gangster story forward in the context of American history. There were added artistic elements that gave the work some extra oomph. With World Gone By the scope of the first, and even the second book is abandoned for a smaller tale. The ghostly visitation by a young boy that Joe experiences would be more interesting if Lehane had not played a very similar card already in Live by Night. The sociopolitical concerns persist, and I suppose there is nothing wrong with flogging a theme, but it seemed to me that this had been done pretty clearly in the previous volumes, so that when we stop by there again this time it was a case of been-there-done-that. There is a strain of melancholy here that exceeds that of his prior books. Check out Ivy Pochoda’s interview with Lehane in the LA Review of Books on that. There are reasons.
I liked the book. There is a lot of substance surrounding the gangster tale. Some of the secondary characters were wonderful. The ramping up of tension worked well. You might not have the same sort of reaction I did to what seemed recycled material. That is mostly what kept me from liking it more. (Wish I could give it three and a half stars) Joe Coughlin is an engaging character and, despite his chosen profession, one can relate to him. World Gone By completes the Coughlin trilogy, day, night, gone.
Lehane has already begun work on another trilogy, this one set in more contemporary Boston.
The opening scene of Dennis Lehane’s Prohibition gangster tale, Live by Night has our hero, Joe Coughlin, on a tugboat, in the Gulf of Mexico, fitted The opening scene of Dennis Lehane’s Prohibition gangster tale, Live by Night has our hero, Joe Coughlin, on a tugboat, in the Gulf of Mexico, fitted for a nice set of cement footwear, while a dozen or so of his least favorite people prepare to help him into a final swim. It is from this moment that we look back over the years to 1926 to find out how Joe came to be in such peril. The first thing we see is Joe and two other petty crooks robbing a speakeasy owned by a Boston gangster. During the course of the event a masked Joe meets Emma Gould in a scene that might someday define the career of some rising young actress.
The Bartolo brothers relieved the card players of their weapons. The pistols made heavy thumps as they tossed them onto a nearby blackjack table, but the girl didn’t even flinch. In her eyes, firelights danced behind the gray. She stepped right up to his gun and said,” And what will the gentleman be having with his robbery this morning?”
With images of young Lauren Bacall as the femme fatale dancing in my head, and only on page 5, I was totally hooked!
[image] Dennis Lehane - image from his FB pages
The book is a sequel to Lehane’s ambitious The Given Day, in which the name Coughlin also figured large, but there is no need to read the earlier work to appreciate this one. Lehane wanted to write a novel that echoed the mobster movies he grew up with.
I’ve always absolutely loved the time period. It’s probably my favorite time period in American history. Anything between the two world wars, the clothes, and the cars, and tommyguns. Maybe it was too much exposure to 1920s,1930s gangster movies when I was a kid… It was certainly interesting to me to see the seeds and the growth of what we understand now as the Mafia. This was seen as the end of the independent operator decade. This was fun to look at.
But he ran into a bit of interference after having written a few chapters. Boardwalk Empire machine-gunned onto the scene and that meant Lehane would have to focus on something other than whiskey as his substance Maguffin. Splitting his residence between Boston and Tampa, he had already become familiar with Ybor City, a part of Tampa which was a major entry point for prohibition era rum. The over-the-head lightbulb clicked on and it was off to the races. Rum instead of whiskey. And structurally, he decided to trace a reverse route. The rum entered through Florida and worked its way north. Joe Coughlin begins up north and heads south. Lehane found the era appealing for another reason.
I mean everybody smoked and didn’t know it was bad for them. And it was a time where, I think, there was some sort of ignorance is bliss. You also had a time in which the entire country turned against the law of the land which had to make it fun. Think about how much fun it was to contact a friend and say we’re meeting at the speakeasy tonight. Here’s the password.
Young Joe lands in a Boston jail, where he is befriended by a powerful mob boss, Thomaso Pescatore. Maso wants to leverage his access to Joe to get his dad, Thomas, Deputy Superintendent of the Boston Police, to take care of some things for him. Otherwise, well, he could not guarantee Joe’s safety. Joe becomes a Maso loyalist, demonstrates his value to this new boss and winds up being put in charge of Maso’s crime operation in Ybor City, Florida. That is where the bulk of the story takes place.
[image] Ben Affleck as Joe Coughlin in the 2016 film - the film received a 35/42 - reviewer/audience rating on Rotten Tomatoes.
This is not some mindless good-guys vs bad-guys shoot-em-up. Lehane is a serious writer and there are larger issues under his microscope here. One is the impact of parents, fathers in particular on their children. Despite his calm demeanor and tasteful trappings, Joe’s father, Thomas, is no paragon of virtue. While he may decry his youngest son’s path it is clear that the rotten apple has not fallen far from a rotten tree. Later in the novel a gangster of some perception and skill presents a son who has inherited all dad’s worst qualities, and none of his better ones. Joe must confront his own feelings about parenthood when he becomes a father. (this will no doubt be addressed in depth in Lehane’s next novel, which will feature Joe and his son in the 1940s) And the sins of another father are visited on his child in horrible ways. A closely related theme is the karma of violence
What I have learned is that violence procreates. And the children your violence produces will return to you as savage, mindless things. You won’t recognize them as yours, but they’ll recognize you. They’ll mark you as deserving of their punishment.
Lehane offers some thematic touchstones along the way. Thomas gives Joe a watch that has special meaning for him. It plays a role in saving Joe’s life, but also serves as a symbol for Joe eventually running out of time. A similar item is the appearance of a Florida panther, which may or may not actually be present at times, and is certainly a phantom at others, carrying concern about mortality.
Joe struggles with his belief system. He is not a stone cold killer, which puts him at a disadvantage with the company he keeps.
He feared this was all there was. Didn’t just fear it. Sitting in that ridiculous chair looking out the window at the yellow windows canted in the black water, he knew it. You didn’t die and go to a better place; this was the better place because you weren’t dead. Heaven wasn’t in the clouds; it was the air in your lungs.
He inquires into the beliefs others have about a life beyond during his journey, and also wonders what might take his place if it turns out there is no god.
“We’re not bad. Maybe we’re not good. I dunno. I just know we’re all scared.” “Who’s scared?” she said. “Who isn’t? The whole world. We tell ourselves we believe in this god or that god, this afterlife or that one, and maybe we do, but what we’re all thinking at the same time is, “What if we’re wrong? What if this is it? Well if it is, shit, I better get me a real big house and a real big car and a whole bunch of nice tie pins and pearl-handled walking stick and a—“ She was laughing now. “—a toilet that washes my ass and my armpits. Because I need one of those.’” He’d been chuckling too, but the chuckles trailed off into the suds. “’but, wait, I believe in God. Just to be safe. But I believe in greed, too. Just to be safe.’”
America has a love-hate relationship with gangsters. On the one hand, we find appealing the image of the slick criminal getting over on, say, bankers. We see them not so much as bleak, soulless, bloody monsters but as outlaws. Joe struggles with the difference between being an outlaw, a romantic self-image, and a gangster, which, to Joe, is an acceptance that he is not a decent person after all. Another notion, about types of criminality, that comes into play a time or three has just a touch of contemporary resonance.
“You, you buy into all this stuff about good guys and bad guys in the world. A loan shark breaks a guy’s leg for not paying his debt, a banker throws a guy out of his home for the same reason, and you think there’s a difference, like the banker’s just doing his job but the loan shark’s a criminal. I like the loan shark because he doesn’t pretend to be anything else, and I think the banker should be sitting where I’m sitting now. I’m not going to live some life where I pay my fucking taxes and fetch the boss a lemonade at the company picnic and buy life insurance. Get older, get fatter, so I can join a men’s club in Back Bay, smoke cigars with a bunch of assholes in a back room somewhere, talk about my squash game and my kid’s grades. Die at my desk, and they’ll already have scraped my name off the office door before the dirt’s hit the coffin” “But that’s life,” Danny said “That’s a life. You want to play by their rules? Go ahead. But I say their rules are bullshit. I say there are no rules but the ones a man makes for himself.”
This view is reinforced in a conversation Joe has with a business partner.
“We’re not our brother’s keeper, Joseph. In fact, it’s an insult to our brother to presume he can’t take care of himself.”
This could be a bit of Ayn Rand pillow whisperings or a 2012 GOP talking point. Later, Joe is planning a gambling empire and notes again that criminality comes in various forms.
what he saw, clearer than any clear he’d ever known, was that the rich would come in here for the dazzle and the elegance and the chance to risk it all against a rigged game, as rigged as the one they’d been running on the poor for centuries.
Another passage made me think of the banality of evil in Nazi Germany.
Joe was reminded, not for the first time, that for such a violent business, it was filled with a surprising number of regular guys—men who loved their wives, who took their children on Saturday afternoon outings, men who worked on their automobiles and told jokes at the neighborhood lunch counter and worried what their mothers thought of them and went to Church to ask god’s forgiveness for all the terrible things they had to render unto Caesar in order to put food on the table.
In fact, one of the things I loved about this book is how many times a line or a passage summoned broader notions, or the scent of other classics. Here are a few:
Working class men had sons. Successful men had heirs.
We all believe lies that bring us more comfort than the truth.
She had that light about her that turned people into moths
I’ve got nothing against noble people, I’ve just noticed they rarely live past forty.”
“Achievement? Depends on luck—to be born in the right place at the right time and be of the right color. To live long enough to be in the right place at the right time to make one’s fortune. Yes, yes, hard work and talent make up the difference. They are crucial, and you know I’d never argue different. But the foundation of all lives is luck. Good or bad. Luck is life and life is luck. And it’s leaking from the moment it lands in your hand.
The Live by Night motif can be taken a few ways, as living outside the law, as living freely, as in surviving in an id-rich world, on the edge. When Joe was a young crook his boss would say to him. “The people we service? They visit the night. But we live in it. They rent what we own.” In a concrete sense, living by night means criminality, but it could also imply a more generic sense of extremity. But what drives someone to such extremes? And how do the stories we tell about ourselves affect who we are?
Something was getting lost in them, something that was starting to live by day, where the swells lived, where the insurance salesmen and the bankers lived, where the civic meetings were held and the little flags were waved at the Main Street parades, where you sold out the truth of yourself for the story of yourself. …the reality was, he liked the story of himself. Liked it better than the truth of himself. In the truth of himself, he was second class and grubby and always out of step. He still had his Boston accent and didn’t know how to dress right, and he thought too many thoughts that most people would find “funny.” The truth of himself was a scared little boy, mislaid by his parents like reading glasses on a Sunday afternoon, treated to random kindnesses by older brothers who came without notice and departed without warning. The truth of himself was a lonely boy in an empty house, waiting or someone to knock on his bedroom door and ask if he was ok. The story of himself, on the other hand, was of a gangster prince. A man who had a full-time driver and bodyguard. A man of wealth and stature. A man for whom people abandoned their seats simply because he coveted them
Maybe living by night is being in the dream instead of the reality.
But for all his serious flaws, I found it was possible to relate to Joe, to root for him, even. And Lehane has populated his tale with a colorful array of supporting characters, in varying shades. There is not a lot here by way of damsels in distress. Lehane’s women are not exactly blushing flowers. From the iron-nerved Emma, to a wildly successful evangelical preacher, Loretta, to the elegant Graciela, the women are rich presences in the story. This is a result of the presence in Lehanes’s life, he says, of plenty of very tough women when he was growing up.
On a gut level, it felt to me that a bit of Casablanca DNA seems to run through this story. In this world of low expectations, we can feel some empathy for Joe because he is no sociopath, even though he swims in a shiver of sharks. No, Joe is no Rick, and Emma and Loretta are no freedom fighters, (Graciela actually may be) but having established his dark roots, there is a feeling of potential for hope, for redemption, for maybe a chance to live by day, a desire to do the right thing, that gives the story poignancy. All the great lines certainly helped. I cannot think of a book I have read in recent memory that offered up so many. Ben Affleck is already in negotiations to write, direct and star in the movie. I am not sure I see him in this role, but this could be the beginning of a beautiful film.
So tip back on your panama hat, make sure the ceiling fan is spinning fast enough to cool your sweat before it plunges under your collar, check that the safety for that piece under your jacket is switched on, light up one of those very special Cubans, hoist your Bacardi cocktail and settle back. You're in for a steamin’ good time.
First Posted - October 12, 2012
Published - October 2, 2012
==========In the summer of 2019 GR reduced the allowable review size by 25%, from 20,000 to 15,000 characters. In order to accommodate the text beyond that I have moved it to the comments section directly below, in what is now (March, 2021) Comment #9
Dennis Lehane returns to the world of Boston PIs Patrick Kenzie and his partner, now wife, Angie Gennaro. He returns also to themes of parents and chiDennis Lehane returns to the world of Boston PIs Patrick Kenzie and his partner, now wife, Angie Gennaro. He returns also to themes of parents and children that informed the five-book series Lehane produced in the 1990s. In Moonlight Mile, Patrick and Angie are themselves parents. Patrick is still working as a PI, struggling with some moral conflicts in his assignments from a prestigious law firm, while Angie is trying to find some sanity in non-life-threatening work. But when the aunt of a child he had recovered in the book Gone, Baby, Gone, turns up and asks Patrick to find her missing niece, now 16, one more time, we are back in familiar territory.
It may be 11 years since the last Kenzie-Gennaro outing, but it feels like it was only last year. The dialogue still races along, offering the occasional laugh-out-loud moment. A few characters from the earlier novels assume their usual positions, but instead of corrupt cops this time we have Mordavian gangsters. There is enough substance abuse here to light up the western world. And although most of the children here are not overtly abused, how children are treated by systems, legal and not, comes in for yet another Lehane drive-by. Those on high are offered comparable treatment. His low view of humanity overall is clear, as one does not need to have a badge or tote automatic weapons to be a really, really awful human being in this snark-noir Boston. Fast-paced, engaging, with a hero who tries to do the right thing, and more importantly thinks about what the right thing is, payload in the form of a look at some of the dark side, high and low, this is commercial Lehane on cruise control. No one will mistake Moonlight Mile for Mystic River, Lehane’s masterpiece, or The Given Day, his most ambitious work, but it will entertain, occasionally make you laugh, and shed some light into a dark corner or two.
**spoiler alert** [image] Dennis Lehane - from The Boston Globe - photo by David L. Ryan
In the fifth entry in Dennis Lehane’s Kenzie & Gennaro series,**spoiler alert** [image] Dennis Lehane - from The Boston Globe - photo by David L. Ryan
In the fifth entry in Dennis Lehane’s Kenzie & Gennaro series, Karen Nichols comes to PI Patrick Kenzie when she is being harassed by a known rapist. After Patrick succeeds in suggesting to the fellow that he would survive longer if he left her alone, the situation quiets down. Six weeks later, as he is leaving town for a vacation with fuck-buddy Vanessa, Karen calls Kenzie asking for help. Patrick decides to call her back when he returns from his trip. By then it is too late, as Karen is dead. Driven by guilt, and a conviction that there is something fishy about Karen’s death, Kenzie reunites with Angie to see what lies behind the tragedy. There is much to find, including a sociopath who is trying to extort millions from Karen’s mother and stepfather. He knows their deep, dark secret. He does his dirt by destroying people’s lives. Another wild ride for the cast, including a night-vision-goggle-equipped assault on an abandoned military medical facility in a cranberry swamp. Another in a continuing series of first-rate thrillers from Lehane. As the series continues, however, there is an increasing willingness to perform acts that are clearly outside the law. This is troubling. However, the book remains a good read.
**spoiler alert** When Beatrice McReady approaches PIs Patrick Kenzie and Angela Gennaro to help find her missing niece, Amanda, the prospects do not **spoiler alert** When Beatrice McReady approaches PIs Patrick Kenzie and Angela Gennaro to help find her missing niece, Amanda, the prospects do not look good. But Patrick and Angie work with the local missing child unit, bringing in their regular cast of colorful associates to lend their able and sometimes bloody hands. There are the usual misdirections, cul-de-sacs and things that just do not make sense.
[image] Casey Affleck as Patrick Kenzie and Michelle Monaghan as Angie Gennaro
VERY LARGE (view spoiler)[ Ultimately, it turns out that the missing child cops are involved in taking children from problem homes and placing them with discrete families (including their own) where the children can be raised with love and a decent level of material comfort. This creates issues as Patrick must decide whether to turn in the criminal cops when doing so will mean that children at risk will be returned to awful birth-parents. (hide spoiler)] Beware. Do not read this if you have not already read the book or seen the film!
A typical, well done Kenzie and Gennaro tale. Instead of child abuse, he is doing child neglect as the primary thread, but he manages to focus also on horrific child abuse by a psychotic couple, returning to his favorite crime.
The significance of the title is PI Patrick Kenzie’s love for his partner, Angie. This stands in stark cont[image] Dennis Lehane - image from LA Times
The significance of the title is PI Patrick Kenzie’s love for his partner, Angie. This stands in stark contrast to the unholy relationship between some other characters in this tale. Billionaire Trevor Stone wants the PI pair to track down his daughter. Time is of the essence as the old guy is on death’s door. Adding flavor is that Patrick’s mentor had been hired to find her already and has now gone missing himself. Lehane gives us a nifty look at a Grief Counseling organization that abuses its clients trust then makes them pawns of its criminal desires. It also hooks up with a cult-like religion that features aggressive proselytizers that seem more like gang-bangers. The dynamic duo suffers the usual physical damage, but remain alive. There were a fair number of twists and turns here, more, it seemed, than in the earlier two books. Although I enjoyed the book and would recommend it, I was not as taken as I was with the prior one. Perhaps I am growing a little weary. Child abuse figured in this one as well, but not, ultimately, as a significant factor.
PIs Patrick Kenzie and Angela Gennaro are drawn into a malestron of violence and danger after a shrink[image] Dennis Lehane - image from The-Talks.com
PIs Patrick Kenzie and Angela Gennaro are drawn into a malestron of violence and danger after a shrink passes along a dark tale of stalking and murder reported by a patient. When the patient's son is threatened the game is afoot. It takes a few twists and turns that lead to killer clowns, crimes of the deep past and years of revenge and psychotic control and planning. Ultra violence permeates. Dark and evil with a taste for cruelty almost kills the team and many around them. A hefty body count and considerable reflection result. Why are we in this life? A good read, tough on the sensibilities. Although it retains his humorous touch, this is a darker read than Lehane's first.
A noir touch, complete with nifty madcap dialogue and a dark sense of humor makes this a fun detective tal[image] Dennis Lehane - from Boston Magazine
A noir touch, complete with nifty madcap dialogue and a dark sense of humor makes this a fun detective tale. It begins when two politicians come to PI Patrick Kenzie and employ him and partner Angela Gennaro to retrieve some documents purloined by a cleaning woman. What follows is a large scale gang-war between two of the most notorious lowlifes in Boston, two who share a surprising connection. Depravity, turf, shame, revenge all figure in this dark tale of embarrassing pleasures and public corruption. The PIs are the target of multiple murder attempts, with the usual result, damage but not of a terminal nature. A cast of supporting characters gives this tale a rich ambience, a black columnist, old-time cops, a too-well-armed psycho who happens to be on the side of the angels. Race in Boston is also given considerable attention. This is an excellent book in the tradition of Chandler. It made me eager to read more.
I have read Mystic River, and this is no Mystic River. It is an interesting novel with a fun twist that I found unbelievable. Many think more of it thI have read Mystic River, and this is no Mystic River. It is an interesting novel with a fun twist that I found unbelievable. Many think more of it than I did. I have not seen the film, so can offer no opinion on whether it is better or worse, faithful to the book or not. IMHO, it is LeHane light. feel free to skip it.
[image] image, based on the film, drawn from the site Collider...more
Lehane is a wonderful writer. Mystic River was his opus magnus, and his Boston hard-boileds are quite good. This novel is his attempt to break out intLehane is a wonderful writer. Mystic River was his opus magnus, and his Boston hard-boileds are quite good. This novel is his attempt to break out into a larger literary world. Set in the period around World War I, Lehane offers us a sense of the times, and they are not pretty. The two primary characters are Danny Coughlin, a Boston cop in a long tradition, and Luther Laurence, a poor black. There is much in here about the condition of the working man, and it is startling, even to someone who has read quite a bit about the struggle of labor for decent treatment. Things were much worse than I’d imagined. This is a sweeping effort, as Lehane projects himself through a Dickensian lens, covering geography from Boston to Ohio to Tulsa, from Babe Ruth to the governor of Massachusetts to the lowliest criminal element. Lehane has done his homework and offers considerable information about the time. Two incidents stand out. One was the collapse of a vast molasses container that resulted in a flood of the stuff with waves 15 feet high. The other, his burning of Atlanta scene, is how the citizens of Boston react to the police strike. He offers us as well a sense of the political turmoil of the time, the Palmer raids, the fear of Bolshevists, anarchists and immigrants, and how those fears were stoked for political gain. Sound familiar? Lehane is particularly eager not to present his book as being political, and there are many readers who will not see what is right in front of them, but this novel keeps a sharp eye on contemporary events.
This is not Lehane’ best book. That would be Mystic River. But it is an ambitious one. Coming in at slightly over 700 fast-reading pages, it is by far his largest. And he writes about a much wider swath of humanity than he has before. I would say that overall he succeeds in the attempt. This is a very good book, engaging, with believable, well-drawn characters, insight into the complexities of familial relationships, sensitivity to the cultural environment of that age, and with a critical, politically aware eye.
There are several scenes in which Babe Ruth figures. While these scenes are fine, with one being outstanding (the contract negotiation), they could have been omitted without damaging the overall story.
Lehane is an excellent story teller and he plies his trade here quite well. Where the book falls short of the rare air occupied by books like Serena is in his hesitation to incorporate grander imagery into his work. He tells his story, with many intense scenes, many interesting and memorable events, but not the metaphorical, mythological ear of a Ron Rash or a Michael Ondaatje. This keeps the reins on his work. I expect that in future the reins will be loosened and he will produce work in this new Dickensian vein that might be remembered as long as the work of his hero.
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