The Given Day: A Novel | Dennis Lehane | The Boston Police strike, 1919

The Given Day: A Novel | Dennis Lehane | Wonderful historical fiction

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The Given Day: A N...

	The Given Day: A Novel Dennis Lehane William Morrow, 2008 - 720 pages average customer review:based on 39 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

Set in Boston at the end of the First World War, New York Times bestselling author Dennis Lehane's long-awaited eighth novel unflinchingly captures the political and social unrest of a nation caught at the crossroads between past and future. Filled with a cast of unforgettable characters more richly drawn than any Lehane has ever created, The Given Day tells the story of two families?one black, one white?swept up in a maelstrom of revolutionaries and anarchists, immigrants and ward bosses, Brahmins and ordinary citizens, all engaged in a battle for survival and power. Beat cop Danny Coughlin, the son of one of the city's most beloved and powerful police captains, joins a burgeoning union movement and the hunt for violent radicals. Luther Laurence, on the run after a deadly confrontation with a crime boss in Tulsa, works for the Coughlin family and tries desperately to find his way home to his pregnant wife.

Here, too, are some of the most influential figures of the era?Babe Ruth; Eugene O'Neill; leftist activist Jack Reed; NAACP founder W. E. B. DuBois; Mitchell Palmer, Woodrow Wilson's ruthless Red-chasing attorney general; cunning Massachusetts governor Calvin Coolidge; and an ambitious young Department of Justice lawyer named John Hoover.

Coursing through some of the pivotal events of the time?including the Spanish Influenza pandemic?and culminating in the Boston Police Strike of 1919, The Given Day explores the crippling violence and irrepressible exuberance of a country at war with, and in the thrall of, itself. As Danny, Luther, and those around them struggle to define themselves in increasingly turbulent times, they gradually find family in one another and, together, ride a rising storm of hardship, deprivation, and hope that will change all their lives.

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The Boston Police strike, 1919

I have been an avid Dennis Lehane fan since reading "A Drink Before the War" when it was first published. His characters and sense of place were excellent, and I only regret that he has not written any more of the detective series. That said, however, I must admit that he is constantly stretching his craft, getting into new and different genres. This latest book is a historical novel taking place in Boston during the years 1917 to 1919, and which culminates in the police strike of 1919, which brought Calvin Coolidge to national attention. (Coolidge, I should mention, does not come off very well in this book.) Once again, Lehane's touch for believeable characters is wonderful, and his knowledge of Boston arcana is tremendous, for it is evident that he really loves his city (as I do, from visitig it many times). We follow two story threads, one concerning an Irish Catholic family of policemen, and one concerning a black fugitive from "justice" who ends up working for this family. There are also many cameo appearances by historical figures, and Babe Ruth plays a part in many parts of the book. Even though I think this book could have been shortened a bit, it did not detract fropm the quality of the writing and the interest in the plot this writing generated. Lehane is quickly becoming one of the acknowledged leading writers of our time, and it's a recognition that is well deserved.

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Wonderful historical fiction

I love visiting Boston and thoroughly enjoyed this novel about post-World War I Bean Town. Very interesting introduction to the history of the times told in a great story. I really enjoyed this book and would highly recommend it.

Boston in 1919 was more than just Babe Ruth hitting home runs...

Any novel that begins with Babe Ruth getting drunk and stealing hats is going to grab my attention, but I actually picked up Dennis Lehane's "Any Given Day" without knowing anything about it beyond the name of the author. I am another one of those who came to Dennis Lehane's writing through the film versions of his works. When I learned that "Gone Baby Gone" and "Mystic River" were both adapted from Lehane's books, and that the former was the fourth in a series of, to date, five Kenzie-Gennaro novels (like him, love her), I went out and ordered the series. That was enough to move Lehane into the small but select category of authors whose books I pick up when they come out in hardcover.

"The Given Day" is a historical novel covering a two year period with the year 1919 in the middle. Gidge Ruth dominates the book's prologue, but the two star crossed characters are Luther Laurence, a black baseball player we first meet playing a pickup game against Ruth, and Danny Coughlin, a white Boston police officer . It seems strange that the paths of Luther and Danny should meet, but events conspire to form an unlikely friendship. Meanwhile, there are anarchists stirring up trouble in the streets of Boston , an influenza epidemic, and a police force unable to live on pre-World War wages. Boston has not seen such a fertile ground for ferment since the days of the American Revolution. Ultimately, "The Given Day" is an epic novel writ small, more comparable to E. L. Doctorow's "Ragtime" than, say, Leo Tolstoy's "War and Peace." Granted, the 1919 Boston Police Strike is not on a par with Napoleon's invasion of Russia, but there are so many threads related the transformation of the United States in the 20th century that you can see how our today is connected to these particular yesterdays.

While reading this novel I consistently found myself wanting more, not so much in terms of the story continuing on past the end point, which is a constant complaint with most compelling narratives, but more in terms of wanting more details as the story went along. Babe Ruth figures large in this response because he is the historical figure who is featured most prominently in the tale. This is because he is the character situated at the tipping point in what is happening when money and labor in the novel, and there is a sense that as Babe Ruth goes, so goes the nation. More than any other character he represents the future (when we talk about important sports figures in American history there are Babe Ruth and Jackie Robinson on the top plateau and nobody else comes close in importance). But while I definitely agree with the privileged position Ruth plays in the narrative, I still wish that some of the other historical figures--which run the gamut from Red Sox owner Harry Frazee and Department of Justice lawyer John Hoover to former General Motors president James Jackson Storrow and Massachusetts governor Calvin Coolidge--were more than transient characters walking in and out of the story.

Yes, I know that Lehane's choices in this regards are all legitimate, but I ended up wanting more because of what the author was doing with Ruth, specifically in chapter twenty-four. That is the first chapter in the section "Babe Ruth and the White Baseball," which I thought could have stood alone as a short story. The chapter begins with a molasses tank exploding in Boston's North End and concludes with may well have been the longest home run Ruth ever hit, which was in a 1919 spring training game in Tampa, Florida. American League president Ban Johnson was requiring baseball teams to play with white (i.e., clean) baseballs, which is ironic since Ray Chapman would not be killed by a dirty baseball thrown by submariner Carl Mays until the following season. Lehane's eloquence with the metaphor and the way he casually works out the logic of Ruth's plate appearance, make this the standout chapter in the novel and well worth reading just on that score alone and justifies my rounding up on "The Given Day" in the end.

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Bravo Dennis.

I thought this was a great book.. I've enjoyed all his other work....except Corronado. If you like this writer's work....your in for a treat. Hurry up Dennis...and write that next one.

Impressive, but not for all tastes

(Actually four and a half stars.) Dennis Lehane's new novel is an ambitious docudrama of Boston in the period between the first world war and the 1919 police strike. A number of interesting real-life figures are part of the narrative, principally Babe Ruth (who is about to be traded to New York) and such governmental/political figures as J. Edgar Hoover, Calvin Coolidge, Woodrow Wilson, et al. The story concerns the historical events of this period as they impinge upon two principal individuals: a black man from Ohio via Tulsa and an Irish police officer. The events of the period, including the great influenza epidemic and the police strike, are rendered very effectively. The central fictional characters are interesting and engaging and they find themselves at the center of important events in dramatic circumstances. The novel is very long, but it picks up momentum in the second half. Lehane's take on Boston and on the Irish who both afflict and protect it is absolutely pitch perfect and extremely impressive. This is the most 'philosophic' of Lehane's novels, with many trenchant observations and beautiful lines.

Lehane is a very ambidextrous writer, but readers should always be aware that he frequently moves beyond the world of detection and the world of crime fiction and works in other forms and subgenres. The Given Day is crime fiction cum historical fiction and one can already imagine it as a successful miniseries. The characters, however, are not as compelling as those in, e.g., Mystic River and the wider canvas sacrifices depth for breadth. As a meditation on the historical and cultural reality that is Boston it is absolutely superb. I recommend the book highly, but I advise readers that this is a departure for Lehane and will not be for all tastes.

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reviews: page 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8

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