Over the past few years Dennis Lehane has become one of my favorite popular authors. He's written books turned into movies Gone Baby Gone, Mystic River & Shutter Island. My friend recommended A Drink Before The War that was the first in a series about a pair of detectives in Dorchester Mass that grabbed my attention quick and was one of those books I couldn't put down. If my memory serves me correctly I believe I stayed up to about 3 am one night to finish it. What I've liked and continue to like about Lahane's writing are his characters, story & pace. Stephen King wrote once that it's rare for an author to have both an excellent story and great prose. That he enjoys a book as long as it has an excellent story and I tend to agree. Not that I'm saying Lahane's work isn't well written because it is but he writes in a simple every man kind of style that I really enjoy especially after reading a lot of literature. This book includes 5 short stories and a play.
Running Out of Dog
Great start to the book. Set in the south this story revolved around two friends. The more charismatic friend had a good job, a girlfriend and an affair with a married woman. His friend was short, ugly, just got an unsavory off the books job & was obsessed with the same married woman his friend was having the affair with. Great story & pace to this one.
ICU
ICU took me until the very end to really understand what was going on. It was about a guy on the run hiding out in ICU waiting rooms at different hospitals for about a month.
Gone Down to Corpus
Fantastic story about a Texas high school football player right after school ended dealing with the prospects of a shitty future as life appears to have peaked young. Him and his friends destroy the home of a teammate who cost them the win in a big game and their opportunity to be recruited to play in college.
Mushrooms
Story of revenge from a girl and her boyfriend over something that happened to her sister.
Until Gwen
This story was turned into the play Coronado. The story is about a boy Bobby who is just getting out of jail after being caught steeling a diamond with his girlfriend Gwen. Bobby's father is a very bad man. After thinking about it I would have liked this story after Coronado as the play added to the story but ultimately the story with Bobby & his dad was almost exactly the same.
Coronado: A Play in Two Acts
The note before the play described that this play was written so that Dennis' actor brother Gerry could play a villain on stage as he was being typecast in all nice guy roles. Bobby's dad is a bastard with very little redeeming qualities and must have been a fun role to play. This story gives background to Bobby's dad and mom as it flashes back and forth between their early relationship, the time of the robbery and current day.
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