Library Director’s NotebookJuly, 2012Dennis Lehane fans know that his novels are hard hitting, often...

Library Director’s Notebook
July, 2012

Dennis Lehane fans know that his novels are hard hitting, often very graphically violent stories of the lives of troubled men and women.  While his book The Given Day also has its share of violence, there is much more to this book than a front seat to a blood bath.

As in so many of Lehane’s stories, the setting is Boston and many of the characters are Irish Americans. The Given Day is set  at the end of World War I, a time of more death, civil unrest and violence than many of us  may remember, since the years immediately after The Great War are often subsumed by the legendary hyperactivity of sex, drinking, and violence known as the Roaring Twenties.

Yet  1918-1919 were plaque years—-the Spanish Influenza—-that claimed many millions of  lives more than the brutal war had done.  In the United States alone, more than 675,000 people lost their lives to the flu, most of them young.  In addition, these last years of the second decade of the 1900’s saw a rise in violence; whether that violence was directed at workers attempting to unionize and strike, or spearheaded by anarchists, intent on violently overthrowing the American government.  In addition there were race riots, not started by Blacks living in overcrowded houses, but by whites storming the black neighborhoods to burn, beat, and murder the residents.

Into this less than ideal world, Lehane  places his less than perfect protagonists,  Danny Coughlin,  the hot tempered but privileged son of one of Boston’s most revered police captains,  and Luther Laurence, a black man with a natural aptitude for baseball and bad choices.  As the complex story unfolds, Luther and Danny find themselves drawn to each other, since each shares a certain dogged hopefulness, despite the harsh world knocking them around.  As friends they save each other in perilous situations, but fate will catch up with both of them, and with those they love.  Each must face heart breaking  choices ; each must confront his deepest fears; and each must live with the consequences of his reckless actions.

If a pandemic, racial violence, anarchy, and social injustice aren’t enough to keep us engrossed, Lehane throws in the historic 1919 strike of the Boston Police and the subsequent rioting in Boston, to keep the pot boiling. There are also some pretty steamy love affairs and an entertaining side story starring the great Babe Ruth himself, when he still played for the Boston Red Sox!  This book should keep readers fully engaged, if only to wonder as the pages flip past, “what in the world is going to happen next?”