Product Description

Danny Coughlin is Boston Police Department royalty and the son of one of the city's most beloved and powerful police captains. His beat is the predominately Italian neighbourhoods of the North End where political dissent is in the air - fresh and intoxicating. On the hunt for hard-line radicals as a favour to his father, Danny is drawn into the ideological fray and finds his loyalties compromised as the police department itself becomes swept up in potentially violent labour strife. Luther Lawrence is on the run. A suspect in a nightclub shooting in Oklahoma, he flees to Boston, leaving his wife behind. He lands a job in the Coughlin household and meets Danny and the family's Irish maid, Nora, who once had a powerful bond. As the mystery of their relationship unravels, Luther finds himself befriending them both even as the turmoil in his own life threatens to overwhelm him. Desperate to return to his wife and child, he must confront the past that has followed him and settle scores with enemies old and new. Set at the end of the Great War, The Given Day is meticulously researched and expertly plotted, it will transport you to an unforgettable time and place.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #142631 in Books
• Published on: 2008-10
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 720 pages

Review
`The acclaimed author of Mystic River has produced a contender for the Big American Novel... not only a powerful, beautifully written novel, but the best kind of history lesson.' --The Daily Mail

Review
'Sprawling, enthralling...Every sentence is a treat, every image vivid.'

Review
`The Given Day is Dennis Lehane's massive, enormously readable new novel..'

Customer Reviews

A Masterpiece!
Once it is known that 'The new Lehane' is in bookstores should be enough to make booklovers rush out to buy a copy. Their money will be well spent, as The Given Day is a work of art. It is much more than just an excellent book, it is fine literature. The Given Day, which takes place primarily in Boston just after WWI, is an epic story of family greed, love, power, hardship, lust, hope and politics. It tells the story of two families -- one white, one black -- swept up in the maelstrom of revolutionaries, anarchists, immigrants, ward bosses, Brahmnins, the Boston police department and ordinary citizens, all engaged in a battle for survival and power. As interesting and powerful as the plot is, Lehane's strongest accomplishment is the cast of unforgettable, true-to-life characters he has created. You'll meet beat-cop Danny Coughlin, Boston Police Department royalty and the son of one of the city's most beloved and powerful police captains. Luther Laurence, a black man on the run after a deadly confrontation with a crime boss who works for the Coughlin family. Nora, the Irish immigrant who was taken in by the Coughlins and is the love of Danny's life, as well as many other very credible multidimensional characters. Lehane does such an excellent job in describing these characters that I felt I was right there alongside them feeling all of their joys and sorrows. In addition, Lehane expertly weaves into the story many real-life influential people of the era -- including Babe Ruth, Eugene O'Neill, leftist Jack Reed, NAACP founder W.E.B. Du Bois, Mitchell Palmer, Massachusetts governor Calvin Coolidge and an ambitious young justice department lawyer named John Hoover. The Given Day is over 700 pages of reading pleasure and a book that I most highly recommend to you. It is a masterpiece of historical fiction!

Lehane at his best
The Given Day

I have read Dennis Lehane's crime fiction for years and was getting a bit impatient waiting for the next title. News of The Given Day upset me a bit. A historical novel not a crime fiction book. Attempts by writers to cross genres usually ends in tears, I thought.

Not this time. This book is a truly amazing piece of work. There are rightful comparisons above to Doctorow, but I would put this one up there with Dos Passos's USA and Steinbeck's Grapes of Wrath. It really is that good.

I'm not going to attempt to review the book. There are strong summaries in all the preceding reviews. I'm just going to say: this will probably be among the top ten books of 2009 and anyone who doesn't make the effort to read it really will be depriving themselves to an extent they don't deserve. Buy it, you'll love it.

A Wise Historical Novel That Comments on Today through the Lens of Yesterday

The Given Day is by far the best novel I've read that was published in 2008. I highly recommend it to anyone who is interested in having a keener understanding of human nature and what our priorities should be. Those who aspire to write great fiction will learn a lot by examining the plot, characterizations, story telling, and mixture of history and fiction in the book. I was formerly convinced that E.L. Doctorow's Ragtime was the best historical novel about the early part of the twentieth century in America. Having read The Given Day, I have to move Ragtime down to number two.

I have not read any of Dennis Lehane's other books so I cannot offer comparisons. I stumbled onto this one when a good friend who knows my taste in fiction recommended that I not miss The Given Day. I'm glad she persuaded me.

Normally, I'm not overjoyed to read a 700 page novel, wishing that a good editor had chopped things down to size. The Given Day is chopped down to size . . . it's just the right size for the story it tells.

There's enough material in this book for eight novels, but Mr. Lehane has brilliantly combined his powerful tale into just one double-length one. I admire that accomplishment very much.

To me, the best part of the book was Mr. Lehane's understanding that America in 1916-1919 was a lot like America in 2001-2008. By showing us a mirror of our past, we can see ourselves more clearly in the present:

--We have international terrorists who like to blow things up with plastic explosive. They had anarchists who like to dynamite symbols of authority.

--They had the influenza that killed millions. We have AIDS that kills tens of millions.

--We had runaway inflation until a few months ago that made most people poorer. They had runaway inflation that left most people below the poverty line.

--They had racism that denied opportunity to African-Americans who didn't organization. We have racism that an African-American was able to overcome by organization to become president-elect.

--Their baseball players had no security. Our baseball players who don't have a long-term contract have no security.

--Their civil servants couldn't strike. Our civil servants often cannot strike.

--Their labor movements were weak. Our labor movements are weak.

--Their politicians used public fears for personal advantage. Our politicians have done the same.

--Their immigrants disliked the newer immigrants. Our immigrants dislike the newer immigrants.

And on and on the comparisons go.

The plot is stunning in the way that Mr. Lehane is able to intertwine three characters to make his points about America in those days: Gidge "Babe" Ruth of the Boston Red Sox, Boston policeman Aiden "Danny" Coughlin, and Luther Laurence, a African-American man who would have played professional baseball if he had lived in the latter part of the 20th century or the 21st. The opening sequence involving Ruth and Lawrence is one of the inventive and interesting openings to a historical novel that I have ever read.

What's it all about? More than anything else this is a historical novel about the Boston Police Strike, an event that people still speak about in hushed tones in our fair city. With few nonstriking police and no immediately military help, Boston became a lawless and dangerous town for two days. After that, it was still touch and go in restoring order. You probably wouldn't want to read a novel about that, and Mr. Lehane has brilliantly given you a novel that also shows what it meant to be Irish in Boston, deal with the deadly influenza epidemic, track down anarchists and subversives, break strikes, form labor unions, earn a living under tough conditions, be mistreated by calculating politicians, and search for the meaning of life.

At the ultimate level, The Given Days asks the question of what our priorities should be in life . . . and the answer is to love others and to cherish our families. If there had been a Biblical element in the story, it would have been easy to see this novel as a Christian allegory with Babe Ruth as Barabbas, Danny Coughlin as John the Baptist, and Luther Lawrence as the Apostle Paul. Perhaps those references were intended to be seen by readers outside the context of religious institutions. I leave it to you to decide for yourselves on that point.

But do read this book. You'll be glad you did. It's a surprisingly fast read for a 700 page novel.