Country: USA
Genre: Drama/Historical
Pages: 702
Dennis Lehane is my favorite writer. His subtle grasp on the darkness of human mind fascinates me to no end. That's why crime fiction suits him so well. The Kenzie-Gennaro novels as well as Mystic River gave noir fiction a new birth on American soil. His works could be labeled as similar to those of Gunnar Staalesen, Stieg Larsson and the Scandinavian school of the new noir. Only, he's better, more visceral. More focused on the realistic effects of violence and trauma on his character. I'm sure you already figured it out by now, I love that guy.
The Given Day is somehow of a break from his winning formula. It's a humble and kind gesture to take a step away from your comfort zone in order to renew your pool of ideas, but does Lehane's new playing field suit him as good as the one who made him famous? The Given Day is the story of two families. The Coughlin, an Irish family with a tradition of excellence in Boston's police department and the Laurence, an African-American family from Columbus. Both families are trying to strive in the American of 1918, at the end of the first World War.
One of the two main protagonist, Danny Coughlin, the son of renowned Captain Thomas Coughlin, patrols the streets of Boston with his partner Steve Coyle. The Boston Police Department is going through a rough patch since the last raise they gave their worker was in 1905, thirteen years before. That places the policeman below the line of poverty. As The Given Day opens, they are scrambling to form a union, which is not well seen by their bosses since the communist movement is at his pinnacle, under the firm tutelage of Lenin, still alive and well at the time.
Danny is in a conflicting situation in regards to his co-workers as he's the son of one of their bosses, Captain Thomas Coughlin, and is asked by him to act as a member of his family before being a member of the police. Thomas asks Danny to be his informant against the communist uprising, disregarding the struggle of the starving policeman.
On the other end of the novel is Luther Laurence, African-American base-ball player who loses his job in an ammo factory because white solider are coming back from the front. He moves to Tulsa with his wife Lila to her Aunt's house in search for a job. Luther ends up working errands for a local mobster, Deacon Broscious, which ends up turning sour very quick. Luther is on the run for the murder of the Deacon and washes up on the East Coast in a family looking for a new "colored" majordome after Avery, who worked for them for the last twenty years, died from a terrible case of flu.
All right, this is a HUGE step aside for Dennis Lehane. An attempt to open a door to a different career direction. Does it work? Yes and no. The Given Day is not a bad novel, far from it. It's highly experimental though and it doesn't live up to his usual (and very high) standard of quality. The issues I have with the novel are minor, but they are a lot, if you pile them up, it's raining the "breakout power" away, if you allow me to use this Donald Maass expression.
My first (and main) issue is with pacing. Lehane is used to patiently craft scenes who overflow with details, symbolism and gut-wretching tension. He sacrifies this knack for pacing here in order to pursue Historical accuracy, which is responsible for the novel's length (702 pages) and numerous lulls. Don't get me wrong, Lehane recreates the communist scare good. Through numerous discussions in between Eddie McKenna, Thomas and Danny Coughlin, you can feel the confusions and paranoia of this era. It's also very dry. There's a lot of talk about communists along those seven hundred pages.
There is also these train-wrecks of base-ball interludes. Babe Ruth is a recurring character. Dennis Lehane retraces (and fictionalizes) the events leading to his trade the New York Yankees. This is another attempt at capturing the spirit of an era that falls completely flat. The adventures of Ruth are too short and not related enough to the rest of the story to be pertinent. They also went to drain some space and some reader focus away.
Those Dennis-Lehane-moments are still there though. Danny Coughlin is a worthy protagonist despite his highly intellectualized struggle. He has his shining moments, who are always linked to his relationship to Nora O'Shea, the Irish maid of the Couglin household, who is in my opinion, the shining star of the novel. She's temperimental but kind and she's sparkling with life. All the other characters love her and so will you. She never takes the center role, but she makes the other characters shine and that's the sign of Lehane's maestria. The delicate, but oh-so-human, balance of emotions. He fins ways to trigger passions and put relevancy to his characters conflicts.
I'm not a bandwagoner. I won't pout Dennis Lehane because of that novel. It's not a bad story. The mechanics of an uprising Boston in those chaotic times are fascinating. It's also very experimental like I said before. Courageous as he always is, Lehane dives head first into uncharted territory and it shows. The whole communist struggle was shabby, but his characters were very strong (they always are). There are apparently two follow-up novels, which I'm going to read. The communist thematics done and dealt with, there are plenty of amazing stories to be told about these characters in the ever inspiring setting of the 1920s. Oh and smile, Patrick Kenzie is back and Moonlight Mile is out on November 2nd.
