I'm just saying there are threads, okay? Threads in our lives. You pull one, and everything else gets affected. Say it rained in Dallas and so Kennedy didn't ride in a convertible. Stalin stayed in the seminary. Say you and me, Sean, say we got in that car with Dave Boyle. A horrible murder is commited in a blue-collar neighborhood of Boston. Dennis Lehane goes far deeper than your regular crime writer into the motives and the conditions that led to the crime. He concentrates on the personalities of the people involved, on the secrets hidden deep under the faces they show to the world and how those secrets bleed into one another and destroy both the victim the perpetrator. To find the murderer, Lehane follows and unravels threads more than twenty-five years old, introducing three young boys forming an unlikely friendship (the parents are from wide apart social classes). Sean Devine is self-assured and a little arrogant, basking in his parents relative affluence; Jimmy Marcus is impulsive and dangerous, a product of a dysfunctional family; Dave Boyle is needy and fawning, annoying in his clinging to the other two boys. The friendship is cut short when a couple of strangers impersonating police officers kidnap Dave. Dave eventually escapes the child molesters (all this is part of the prologue, so no spoilers yet), but neither him nor the other two boys will ever forget the moment that Fate struck and changed their destiny. Because decades later, the beautiful, innocent daughter of Jimmy Marcus is found dead in a city park. Becasue Sean is the police officer tasked with investigating the murder. And because Dave is among the last persons to see the girl alive, and he is lying about his alibi. The three former friends have grown apart long ago, but the echoes of the childhood trauma is still haunting them and may reflect in the way they deal with the current crime.The novel is not a fast-paced one, preferring instead the police procedural approach of meticulously gathering evidence and interviewing witnesses, taking into account the relationships and the histories of the whole neighborhood. It stands out for me most of all through the powerful evocation of the turmoil and rage visited on the relatives of the victim, the ones who have to deal with the aftermath of the crime, with the funeral arrangements, with the emptiness left behind by the missing girl, with the need to continue living for the sake of spouses and children and friends. And often the worst thing wasn't the victims - they were dead, after all, and beyond any more pain. The worst thing was those who's loved them and survived them. Often the walking dead from now on, shell-shocked, hearts ruptured, stumbling through the remainder of their lives without anything left inside of them but blood and organs, impervious to pain, having learned nothing except that the worst things did, in fact sometimes happen. Still, the novel is not simply a psychological study of trauma and works well enough as a mystery, throwing sufficient doubt about the main suspect to keep the reader guessing until almost the last page. I did get an inkling about the identity of the culprit early on, but it was deftly done, in a blink-and-you-miss-it couple of clues. Anyway, there is more to the story than finding the identity of the murderer. There are the decisions taken by the survivors, mourning walking hand in hand with the thirst for revenge. There is a closure to be found for the car incident from twenty-five years ago. There is the neighborhood that endures and absorbs the pain and learns to go on.It is difficult to explain how each of the three friends dealt with the past without spoiling major events later on, but I will give it a try : Jimmy has chosen the path of a criminal career, cut up short not so much by prison time, but by he need to take care of his orphaned daughter. Sean is struggling with depression, a common hazard in a policeman, aggravated by a separation from his wife. Dave has the worst problems, but is he solely to blame for his schizophrenic condition or is the society who ignored his need for counselling and support partly responsible?I have talked mostly about boys who become men, but the women in the novel are as important and often stronger than their husbands or fathers or boyfriends. They can either raise them above themselves or bury them deeper in trouble. Their suffering is moe keen and more bitter than the men's, who find escape either in drink or in violence. Insecure Celeste Boyle, the absent Lauren Devine and especially rock-hard Annabeth Marcus will stand out and be counted as active players in the unfolding drama.More than the story, I was captivated by the talent of the author to write about the human element of the crime. Fingerprints, blood analysis, balistics, interrogation techniques are all important, but the resolution turns on the personalities and hidden identities of the actors. Jimmy is all about control: Lotta things are in my blood. Doesn't mean they have to come out. Sean is all about his failed marriage and ensuing depression: Lately, though, he's just been tired in general. Tired of people. Tired of books and TV and the nightly news and songs on the radio that sounded exactly like other songs on the radio he'd heard years before and hadn't liked much in the first place. He was tired of his clothes and tired of his hair and tired of other people's clothes and other people's hair. He was tired of wishing things made sense. Tired of office politics and who was screwing who, both figuratively and otherwise. He'd gotten to a point where he was pretty sure he'd heard everything anyone had to say on any given subject and so it seemed he spent his days listening to old recordings of things that hadn't seemed fresh the first time he's heard them. and Dave is all about the fight between the after-effects of his childhood trauma and his efforts to lead a normal family life. Unaware, then, how short futures could be. How quick they could disappear, leave you with nothing but a long-ass present that held no surprises, no reason for hope, nothing but days that bled into one another with so little impact that another year was over and the calendar page in the kitchen was still stuck on March. These passages I have selected give, I hope an idea of the empathy and involvement with the subject demonstrated by Lehane, and also showcase his strong, evocative prose. the author. I was not aware of his biographical details, and actually wondered why is the novel titled "Mystic River"? Turns out Lehane grew up in a similar neighborhood of Boston as the one described in the novel, and that the place has as much to do with the shaping of the destinies of the three friends as the event from their childhood. The social separation between the poor Flats and the affluent Point, the criminal traditions of the Irish and Italian gangs operating in the city, the mostly Catholic upbringing of the majority of the inhabitants, the recent gentrification trend that brings in yuppies from the suburbs and pushes the old tenants out into even more insalubrious parts of the city - all of these factors are reflected in the hearts and soul of the locals. You came back here because you'd built this village, you knew its dangers and its pleasures, and most important, nothing that happened here surprised you. There was a logic to the corruption and the bloodbaths and the bar fights and the stickball games and the Saturday-morning lovemaking. No one else saw the logic, and that was the point. No one else was welcome here. I have recently read a comment about how many genre books are similar in style and content and have limited appeal outside a circle of dedicated fans. But that we also keep reading them, digging through the drudge in the hope that one day we will come across a true gem, a story so well written and so moving that it will transcend genre limitations and touch directly the core of our beings, of our beliefs and our dreams. Dennis Lehane did this for me with "Mystic River" and I will go back to his other novels, hoping they are at least as good as the first one I tried.
Just before picking this book up - my first Lehane (it won't be my last) - I came across a quote by him illuminating the working-class, blue-collar nature of noir: In Greek tragedy, they fall from great heights. In noir, they fall from the curb. I love this quote. It slices right to the heart of who we are reading about, and even why we are reading about them. In Mystic River, Lehane is shooting from both barrels; he intuitively knows who he is writing about and where -- the gritty, depressed, working-class neighborhoods of South Boston and the largely white, blue-collar families who live there. These are residents bound to one another when not by blood, then by loyalties forged from childhood friendships and the kinship that comes from growing up in the same neighborhood. A shared history, a sense of community, no matter how co-dependent, damaging or predatory. Lehane's characters are so vivid and three-dimensional they sigh and bleed across the pages. But you won't love them. They are beyond flawed, and you could even argue beyond redemption. Lehane is not writing about beauty and love or hope and healing. Lehane is painting a portrait of despair and guilt. His characters are damaged goods in many ways, with painful histories that have consumed them with a slow-burning rage. The love Jimmy Marcus has for his eldest daughter Katie is primal, almost animalistic in its fierceness. When a savage beating and shooting violently rips her away from him, Jimmy vows to see her killer brought to justice, one way or another. Who could have killed Katie Marcus? Nineteen years old, sweet and non-threatening, a good friend, a loving sister, working part-time in her father's neighborhood corner store. When Jimmy's childhood friend Sean is brought in to lead the investigation, there are more questions than answers to be found. It doesn't take long however, before Sean and his senior partner Whitey begin looking hard at Dave Boyle - another childhood friend from the neighborhood with dark secrets of his own. The handling of the mystery here, the construction, the pacing, the clues and final reveal, it's all flawlessly done. My only regret reading this novel is that I had seen the film first. While already knowing who killed Katie did not diminish my enjoyment, I can only imagine the sheer thrill this book delivers at the moment of climax if you didn't know. I found the women in this story to be at least as interesting as the men, if not more so. (view spoiler)[While I could sympathize with Celeste's confusion and doubt about Dave, I questioned her motives for going to Jimmy with her suspicions. Why go to the father? Why not the police? What did she think was going to happen? She knew the rules of the neighborhood. Did she really imagine Jimmy would not act, unequivocally and ruthlessly? She signed Dave's death warrant the moment she decided to tell Jimmy what she thought she knew. She got her husband killed and unraveled her own life, perhaps even her own sanity, in one careless impulse. Jimmy's wife Annabeth is ruthless in her own way, thinking only of her own family and status in the neighborhood. Her acceptance of Jimmy's violence, her pride in it, is practically sociopathic. Her husband won't find the cure for cancer, but dammit, he looks after his own. He does what needs to be done, like a King that rules over his realm. Her support is icky but oh so very real. Her disdain of Celeste's weakness, and her betrayal of her husband, more revealing of character than any other act or a thousand words. (hide spoiler)]
What do You think about Mystic River (2001)?
Whoo, Mystic River is good, so good I stayed in the bath extra long to finish the last 50 pages, I didn’t care how cold the water grew, I turned on the water as hot as it could go, which wasn’t very hot because I’d run all the hot water out, with my toe, and read this fucker to the last word. Mystic River was a blast, like a really fucking good, layered detective movie, except the movie version didn’t come close to catching the book’s nuances.Lehane’s novel centers on the relationships between three kids who take different paths after sharing a tragic circumstance involving the abduction of the trio’s weakest link. The setting, a working class neighborhood gentrifying as real estate prices rise, is a character in its own right; I’m from one of these neighborhoods and hold a fierce pride of place and a strong bond with the kids (now in their forties) with whom I grew up. The unwritten rules, the intrinsic sense of terra firma, course through Mystic River as its own vibrant mythology. Lehane is at his best when he digs deep into the hopelessness and creates hope (not, like, you’re gonna move to the suburbs hope, more like a stubborn survivalism) by removing artifice. After you wipe off your mind’s mascara you can deal (or not deal) with whatever’s tearing you down. Some choose “better” strategies than others, of course, but there’s a deep sense of redemption amongst the darkness. Don’t let me paint Mystic River as a feel-good story, though, as it sure as hell isn’t. The characters are murky and complex. I’d go with five stars except for an unnecessary subplot involving one character’s ex-wife and the fact I figured out the criminal angle about halfway through the novel. That said, I’d enthusiastically recommend Mystic River. Great fuckin’ read.
—RandomAnthony
Once upon a time, three boys were fighting in the street when two men claiming to be plainclothes cops show up. One kid gets in the car, the others stay put, and their lives will never be the same. Decades later, Dave Boyle, the kid who got into the car, is accused of killing the daughter of Jimmy Marcus, one of the other boys, and the third boy has grown up to be Sean Devine, the cop in charge of the case. Did Boyle do it? And if he didn't, can Sean find the real killer?Yeah, 2013 was supposed to be the year of Dennis Lehane for me. It probably would have been had I not discovered George Pelecanos. However, I'm back aboard the Lehane Train now and quite pleased.While Mystic River is normally classified as a thriller, it's so much more than that, an exploration of growing up and what a traumatic childhood event can blossom into. Mystic River is the tale of three Boston boys who grew up to be very different Boston men. Dave Boyle has drifted from job to job, never quite managing to bury his abduction experience. Jimmy Marcus is a former career criminal who has gone straight and become a family man. And Sean Devine is a cop with a wife he hasn't seen in over a year and a child he's not sure is his.From the beginning, Lehane kept the waters sufficiently muddy to hold my interest. While I knew I was supposed to assume Dave Boyle killed Katie Marcus, Lehane had me changing my opinion quite a few times. None of the three leads are very simple characters. Dave's got his childhood baggage but still tries to be the best husband and father he can be. Jimmy was once a criminal and is still a hard man but is a loving family man. Sean is a supercop but his marriage is in ruins and he's coming off a suspension for something very petty.Once Sean is on the case, the book becomes very hard to put down, like it's been duct-taped to your hands. The mystery, unlike a lot of them these days, is solvable and I guessed who the killer was about 75% of the way through, even though I got the motive wrong. The writing is everything I came to expect from the Kenzie and Gennaro series and then some. I think this is the book where Dennis Lehane went from "Good Thriller Writer" to simply "Great Writer."Five stars. I suppose I'll track down the movie now.
—Dan Schwent
Steeped as it is in such uplifting topics as childhood sex abuse; repressed pedophilic desire; betrayal; broken friendships; broken people; doomed love; the pain of loss; brutal, senseless murder; the stifling nature of the stoic, emotionally-contained masculine ideal; and tragically misguided attempts at retribution and revenge, Mystic River is an enjoyable and deeply satisfying read. Dennis Lehane paints a vivid, beautifully romantic-yet-depressing portrait of various lives in an economically depressed (fictitious) Boston neighborhood on the cusp of gentrification. Lehane's just a terrific, pretense-free writer. His descriptions and dialogue are graceful and memorable and his characters -- the primary and peripheral -- are as nuanced and developed as can be expected in a 400 page novel that seeks to describe so many.My only regret is having seen the movie first. For me, it's actually a toss up as to which is better (heresy, I know). Despite written physical descriptions to the contrary, I steadfastly maintained mental images of the characters as they appeared in the movie because they were, you know, better (Sean Penn as a blond? I don't think so). At other times, the written dialogue failed to resonate the way the edited spoken dialogue had. On the flip side, the novel's third person narrative allowed for a much greater development of characters' inner experiences and as a result, certain motivations were much clearer and significantly more disturbing.
—Lesley
