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Mystic River

karin January 20, 2004
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Read Time:1 Minute, 39 Second

Dennis Lehane earns his good book

reviews. This is powerful, effective and muscular writing, if there is such a thing. He

doesn’t waste much time. Every sentence is there for a reason, only necessary

characters are introduced to tell their stories, only the scenes that move the story

forward are described.

Here are all the essential qualities of the best

novels: great characters, evocative settings, honest dialogue, and an inevitable, tragic

story. Three boys are playing together when one is kidnapped. Years later, the three

are reunited in another tragedy. Compelling readers to finish such a story is not easily

accomplished. It helps that the worst moments happen without witnesses — no readers, no

audience watching. We read and watch the resolutions, the effects of such events.

There’s no glory here in the violence; there’s only a deepening sense of foreboding. We

learn the most in the aftermath. Will the characters survive or crumble?



Admission: I saw the movie (read the review) first, but

both are effective and quality projects. They just tell the story in different

mediums.

Interesting to note that some of the best dialogue and the most

powerful moments on screen are taken almost verbatim from the book. If screenwriters made

changes, they are few. Why mess with the original stuff when it’s this good? When

Lehane describes people, you see and hear them, when he draws you a picture of the

neighborhood you are there. Here’s part of the opening

paragraph:

“When Sean Devine and Jimmy Marcus were kids, their fathers

worked together at the Coleman Candy plant and carried the stench of warm chocolate back

home with them. It became a permanent character of their clothes, the beds they slept

in, the vinyl backs of their car seats…By the time they were eleven, Sean and Jimmy had

developed a hatred of sweets so total that they took their coffee black for the rest of

their lives and never ate dessert.”

More books, please, Mr. Lehane.

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