Book Review: The Given Day by Dennis Lehane
Lehane hasn't written a book in five years. The Given Day is his return to fiction.
It is a big book, both in length (700 pages) and scope. Set in late 1918-1919, the book follows two men, one Irish Boston cop Danny Coughlin and a black man from Tulsa Luther Laurence. The book explores race, baseball, the Boston Police Strike, terrorism, love, and a whole mess of other topics.
It is a huge book, and it is beautifully written. I could not put it down.
The major complaint about this book, I feel, is going to be the amount of coincidences that drive the plot along. The first of this coincidences I found rather jarring, but as I moved along I realized that this is a Dickensian novel. Lehane seems to be giving his best Dickens impression, coincidences and all.
A wonderful novel that is at once a crime story, a love story, and a political thriller. Historical fiction at it's finest.
The prologue is one of the best baseball short stories I've ever read.
It is a big book, both in length (700 pages) and scope. Set in late 1918-1919, the book follows two men, one Irish Boston cop Danny Coughlin and a black man from Tulsa Luther Laurence. The book explores race, baseball, the Boston Police Strike, terrorism, love, and a whole mess of other topics.
It is a huge book, and it is beautifully written. I could not put it down.
The major complaint about this book, I feel, is going to be the amount of coincidences that drive the plot along. The first of this coincidences I found rather jarring, but as I moved along I realized that this is a Dickensian novel. Lehane seems to be giving his best Dickens impression, coincidences and all.
A wonderful novel that is at once a crime story, a love story, and a political thriller. Historical fiction at it's finest.
The prologue is one of the best baseball short stories I've ever read.
Labels: Book Reviews, The Given Day
posted by Dave White at 12:31 PM
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