Dennis Lehane, Small Mercies

 

- I've been a long time fan of American crime writer Dennis Lehane. I wrote this about his Joe Coughlin series of three gangster books in 2015:  The series is well worth your time. All the novels are exquisitely plotted, gripping and absorbing on every level, and with all the tension and atmospherics you hope for in a quality read. 

- In his latest novel we're taken back to Boston and its lower class Irish and Black communities in the mid-seventies. The focus this time is on racial tensions, but gangsters still prevail. In 1974 a US district court Judge ruled that busing white and black school students was needed to desegregate Boston’s public schools. The Irish-American community in particular was outraged and protested loudly and violently. They hated 'niggers'. 

- Mary Pat Fennessy is our main character and she's feisty and angry as hell, and everybody knows not to mess with her. Her teenage son died from a drug overdose, and her teenage daughter has gone missing. She lives in the project, part of Southie (South Boston), and works as a hospital aide in a Catholic old folks home. 

- She’s imprisoned in the ugly racism of the time, and she's from an ugly, dumb, always-fighting large family. ‘She can’t blame the coloreds for wanting to escape their shithole, but trading it for her shithole makes no sense’. 

- A young black man is found dead on the subway tracks, and four young whites are suspected, including Mary Pat's daughter. The police get involved, but it's almost impossible for them to get to the truth of what happened. No-one talks. Mary Pat, however, is determined to find out what happened and why her daughter has disappeared. 

- Lehane takes time to build a deeper narrative framework and it pays off in spades, adding richness to a very gritty story. We're immersed in the lives of unlikeable and ugly characters and their vigorous, boisterous conversations. But unfortunately a distinctive tone dominates and to me it becomes a real negative. American goodies and baddies who talk like comic stereotypes. And it’s preachy, as if Lehane can't help himself.