Review - The Given Day by Dennis Lehane

The Given Day

by Dennis Lehane

702 pages

On sale September 23, 2008

I received The Given Day by Dennis Lehane through Library Thing’s Early Reviewers. I was really excited because Dennis Lehane is the author of Mystic River, and while I didn’t read the book, I thought the movie was incredible.

Last Saturday, Dave and I rented the movie Gone Baby Gone, not knowing it was based on a book by Dennis Lehane. When I realized who had written the book, I was stoked! After watching that film, I wanted to immediately go to Borders and buy every single book Mr. Lehane has ever written. Wow. I was blown away by the dialogue (you’ll see a theme with that), the storyline, the moral dilemma…everything, really.

Getting back to The Given Day…this opens in late 1918 with a scene featuring Babe Ruth stumbling upon a group of “coloreds” playing baseball. Amazed by their abilities, he stops to watch and is soon joined by other teammates who challenge these black men to a game. When it becomes clear that the black men will beat the professional baseball players, Ruth’s teammates start cheating, intentionally calling a runner safe when he was clearly out. This game is indicative of the rest of the story…rules can be changed on the whim of one person, depending on who has the power.

I don’t even know how I’m going to tell you about this book. There is SO MUCH going on, and yet it’s easy to keep everything straight. I have NO IDEA how the author pulled this off, and even though the Cast of Characters is listed at the beginning of the book (’cause there’s a buttload of peeps in this book), I only had to reference it once. Because The Dude is THAT GOOD at telling a story.

SO, there’s this guy, Danny Coughlin, and he’s a copper with the Boston Police Department. The poor cops haven’t had a raise since 1903…it’s now 1918, and the year before saw 76% inflation. Cops were below poverty level and protecting this lame town that won’t even pay cops enough to feed their kids. And Danny…oh, Danny. He fell in love with Nora, who is Danny’s parents servant (for lack of a better word), but when he found out she still had a husband back in Ireland, he dropped her like a hot potato, ’cause being with a married woman isn’t respectable. It’s slightly more complicated and Danny’s kind of a doofus to dump her without hearing her out but oh well the damage is done. In the meantime, Danny’s attending all these meetings, some for anarchists that the police are trying to infiltrate, some for the coppers who are thinking of forming a union and he gets all caught up with the union bidness…his life is crazy complicated.

And that’s only part of the story!

Then there’s this other guy, Luther, who has a wife that’s preggers and he’s not really into THAT ’cause he’s young and dumb and still wants to have fun, and he has a friend who’s REALLY dumb and gets involved in drugs and owes this big guy lots of money and eventually this big guy comes to collect…and there’s lots of blood spilled and it ain’t pretty. Luther goes home and tells his wife and she tells him to get the hell out, which he does, and ends up in Boston. In Boston, his path intersects with Danny’s ’cause he works for Danny’s parents.

SO, in amongst all this is: the Spanish Influenza pandemic, corrupt people from very high up to regular ol’ Joes, nice decent people, Babe Ruth’s story, and real history about the Boston Police Department strike.

What kicked ass about this novel? The dialogue. The freaking dialogue. I don’t know if Dennis Lehane records himself talking or what, but he makes his dialogue so real, so gritty, that I would just like to know how he does it.

And the story! Oh, the story, in it’s amazing complicatedness, is so easy to follow and so packed. Dennis Lehane gives John Steinbeck a run for his money.

And yet there’s so much to talk about: the strike, human nature, right and wrong. What can I say other than: LOVED IT LOVED IT LOVED IT.

Rating: 98 out of 100

Has anyone else read any other books by Dennis Lehane? What did you think?

I Got to Meet Meg Waite Clayton!

SQQUUUEEEE!!! Last week Meg Waite Clayton came to a bookstore in the city I live in and I just so happened to be available that night. Lucky me!

My friend came with me and I was actually kind of nervous! I was going to meet the woman who’d written my favorite book this year: The Wednesday Sisters.

How cute is she?!

This is how it went:

We walked into the bookstore and I saw her in the cafe. I poked my friend in the ribs and in a loud whisper said, “That’s her!”

We walked around the store until it was time for Meg to talk. The first thing she did was promote other books. She had the nicest things to say about Michelle Richmond. I really want to read everything Michelle Richmond has written after what Meg had to say.

Then, THEN, she asked who was there because of Library Thing. Three of us raised our hands, and when I said my name, she recognized me! EEE!! And THEN she proceeded to talk about my blog! And how much she liked it! It’s amazing I didn’t fall out of my chair at that point.

We got to hear her read part of a chapter from the book. And people got to ask questions when she was done and I just felt so enraptured.

One thing she mentioned that I found very interesting is that it took her about 10 years to get a book published. She thought this was a long time, but apparently it normally takes authors even longer than that! I guess writing isn’t as glamorous as I thought.

I waited for everyone to leave before asking her to autograph my books. I got to gush about how much I loved the book, and I’m even embarassed that I got a little choked up. WHEN DID I TURN INTO MY MOTHER, crying at everything??

And then she bought me this:

It says, “A clean house is a sign of a wasted life.” The mug I have is a little taller and more tapered. But she bought it for me because it reminded her of my blog. My friend said she’s been to a bunch of author appearances and has NEVER seen an author buy someone anything!

No matter how many authors I go see, I’m sure this will always be my favorite.

Which author have you seen that was your favorite?

Go Check Me Out!

I did a guest post for Reading Group Guides today! You can find it HERE. I’d love it if you went and read it.

And because I have no shame, I did a video to enter the quilt giveaway that Dana at Old Red Barn Co. is doing. It’s actually up on youtube, but I refuse to link to it here. But I will link to where Dana’s posted it. My video is the last one in the post.

Vacation Spots - Booking Through Thursday

This week’s Booking Through Thursday question is:

Do you buy books while on vacation/holiday?

Do you have favorite bookstores that you only get to visit while away on a trip?

What/Where are they?

I don’t normally buy books when I’m on vacation as I tend to have a plethora at my fingertips at home, so I make sure to bring more than enough to read on a vacation.

And I don’t have any favorite bookstores that I only get to visit while away on a trip. I think that speaks mostly to the fact that I don’t take a lot of vacations.

BUT, I do hope to visit Powell’s someday. I’ve heard this is the BEST BOOKSTORE EVER. True?

How many books do you normally pack for a vacation? I always take at least two, even if I’m gone for just a weekend. You can imagine what it’s like if I’m gone for longer than two days!

Review - An Arsonist’s Guide to Writers’ Homes In New England

An Arsonist’s Guide to Writers’ Homes in New England

by Brock Clarke

303 pages

2007

Two people in my book group agreed that this would be a good book to read and discuss. It’s definitely not a book I would have picked up on my own, but the enthusiasm with which my friend talked about this book and the idea that a book group encourages you to read something that you wouldn’t have otherwise read made me interested to read this.

An Arsonist’s Guide to Writers’ Homes in New England (AAGTWHINE) (after I was reading the book and realized I wasn’t taking a fancy to it I found it funny that the anagram of this book has the word “whine” in it) is about a man, Sam Pulsifer, who accidentally set fire to Emily Dickenson’s home and inadvertently killed two people at the age of 18. He goes to jail for ten years, and shortly after he is released, other writers’ homes start being the targets of arson. That is the premise.

None of the characters were sympathetic. Sam might not be the sharpest knife in the drawer, but the other arsons are slightly smarter and Sam just walks into each arson situation, vaguely aware that it’s probably not a good idea, but unable or unwilling to extricate himself. He doesn’t elicit any sympathy from the reader, as he knowingly makes poor decisions. For example, Sam, not having told his wife about his past, at one point lets her believe that he is cheating on her rather than tell her the truth about what he did as a dumb teenager. His thought that she will ultimately forgive him does not come to pass.

It’s not just Sam who is frustrating: his parents are both liars and drunks; citizens write to Sam asking that he burn down other writers’ homes for lame reasons; Sam’s wife hooks up with another guy shortly after she kicks Sam out for “cheating” on her…and claims she likes this guy because what they have in common is that Sam hurt both of them. Everyone in this book is annoying, petty, and generally not that intelligent.

The author’s writing can be verbose at times in his descriptions. It got to the point where I could skip whole pages once I had a sense of the setting and go right for the dialogue. I hate to do that but there was no other way I was going to finish this book.

When we discussed this at our book club meeting, most everyone didn’t like the book. Some of us even went so far as to say we really didn’t like the book. The person who recommended it, though, had really put a lot of thought into what the author was driving at. I felt guilty for not finding a deeper level in this book, and my friend’s analysis of some of the passages made me appreciate the story and themes a lot more, though that doesn’t change how I feel about this book.

Rating: 65 out of 100

Has anyone else read this book? I have this feeling in my gut that this post is somewhat like speaking into a void…