Set in Boston at the end of the First World War, New York Times bestselling author Dennis Lehane’s long-awaited eighth novel unflinchingly captures the political and social unrest of a nation caught at the crossroads between past and future. Filled with a cast of unforgettable characters more richly drawn than any Lehane has ever created, The Given Day tells the story of two families--one black, one white--swept up in a maelstrom of revolutionaries and anarchists, immigrants and ward bosses, Brahmins and ordinary citizens, all engaged in a battle for survival and power. Beat cop Danny Coughlin, the son of one of the city’s most beloved and powerful police captains, joins a burgeoning union movement and the hunt for violent radicals. Luther Laurence, on the run after a deadly confrontation with a crime boss in Tulsa, works for the Coughlin family and tries desperately to find his way home to his pregnant wife.Here, too, are some of the most influential figures of the era--Babe Ruth; Eugene O’Neill; leftist activist Jack Reed; NAACP founder W. E. B. DuBois; Mitchell Palmer, Woodrow Wilson’s ruthless Red-chasing attorney general; cunning Massachusetts governor Calvin Coolidge; and an ambitious young Department of Justice lawyer named John Hoover.
Coursing through some of the pivotal events of the time--including the Spanish Influenza pandemic--and culminating in the Boston Police Strike of 1919, The Given Day explores the crippling violence and irrepressible exuberance of a country at war with, and in the thrall of, itself. As Danny, Luther, and those around them struggle to define themselves in increasingly turbulent times, they gradually find family in one another and, together, ride a rising storm of hardship, deprivation, and hope that will change all their lives.
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The Given Day is very different from what I usually read and I was excited to jump into a almost new genre to me. Since I read A Dangerous Fortune by Ken Follet I haven't touched anything epic wise because I still think Follett's work is the non plus ultra for me but this one proved I don't have to be shy. :-)
I found myself diving into American history surviving the great influenza, the strike of the Boston police officers in 1919, where riots cash with the National Guardsman and witnessing the Boston molasses disaster. All the while reading about the two main characters Luther Laurence and Danny Coughlin.
Both men very different from each other:
Danny, the aspiring police officer eager to become the legend his father is, raised in a "good" home , his father a successful police officer himself, wants to step into his father's shoes and works undercover at "unions" who recruits immigrants.
Luther, raised poorly but with a hand for baseball who has to leave his pregnant wife and flea to Boston because he shot two men in self-defense.
Both men, very different from each other, one white one black, start a friendship when Luther begins working in Danny's fathers house. Overshadowed with the resentment between the two cultures, Danny doesn't care much and Luther doesn't like Danny at first.
In the end both characters most certainly wouldn't have survived without each other in a time were racism, distrust, prejudice and hatred were daily business to an extend were people killed each other and fought for their rights with their own hands and blood.
Lehane embedded history so nicely that it captivates the reader to do some research about mentioned people like political figures at that time.
It is almost unbelievable that 700 pages only cover such a short period of time but nonetheless a time where so much happened that changed the nation.
Beautifully crafted and worth every single minute spent in the lives of Luther and Danny.
Rating:
Visit Dennis Lehane.
Hardcover: 720 pages
Publisher: William Morrow (September 23, 2008)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0688163181
ISBN-13: 978-0688163181
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