Live by Night

May 15, 2013 Will Byrnes rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: books-of-the-year-2012

Updated - May 16, 2013 - see link at bottom

The opening scene of Dennis Lehane’s Prohibition gangster tale, Live by Night has our hero, Joe Coughlin, on a tugboat, in the Gulf of Mexico, fitted for a nice set of cement footwear, while a dozen or so of his least favorite people prepare to help him into a final swim. It is from this moment that we look back over the years to 1926 to find out how Joe came to be in such peril. The first thing we see is Joe and two other petty crooks robbing a speakea...more Updated - May 16, 2013 - see link at bottom

The opening scene of Dennis Lehane’s Prohibition gangster tale, Live by Night has our hero, Joe Coughlin, on a tugboat, in the Gulf of Mexico, fitted for a nice set of cement footwear, while a dozen or so of his least favorite people prepare to help him into a final swim. It is from this moment that we look back over the years to 1926 to find out how Joe came to be in such peril. The first thing we see is Joe and two other petty crooks robbing a speakeasy owned by a Boston gangster. During the course of the event a masked Joe meets Emma Gould in a scene that might someday define the career of some rising young actress.

The Bartolo brothers relieved the card players of their weapons. The pistols made heavy thumps as they tossed them onto a nearby blackjack table, but the girl didn’t even flinch. In her eyes, firelights danced behind the gray. She stepped right up to his gun and said,” And what will the gentleman be having with his robbery this morning?”

With images of young Lauren Bacall as the femme fatale dancing in my head, and only on page 5, I was totally hooked!

The book is a sequel of sorts to Lehane’s ambitious The Given Day, in which the name Coughlin also figured large, but there is no need to read the earlier work to appreciate this one. Lehane wanted to write a novel that echoed the mobster movies he grew up with.

I’ve always absolutely loved the time period. It’s probably my favorite time period in American history. Anything between the two world wars, the clothes, and the cars, and tommyguns. Maybe it was too much exposure to 1920s,1930s gangster movies when I was a kid… It was certainly interesting to me to see the seeds and the growth of what we understand now as the Mafia. This was seen as the end of the independent operator decade. This was fun to look at.

But he ran into a bit of interference after having written a few chapters. Boardwalk Empire machine-gunned onto the scene and that meant Lehane would have to focus on something other than whiskey as his substance Maguffin. Splitting his residence between Boston and Tampa, he had already become familiar with Ybor City, a part of Tampa which was a major entry point for prohibition era rum. The over-the-head lightbulb clicked on and it was off to the races. Rum instead of whiskey. And structurally, he decided to trace a reverse route. The rum entered through Florida and worked its way north. Joe Coughlin begins up north and heads south. Lehane found the era appealing for another reason.

I mean everybody smoked and didn’t know it was bad for them. And it was a time where, I think, there was some sort of ignorance is bliss. You also had a time in which the entire country turned against the law of the land which had to make it fun. Think about how much fun it was to contact a friend and say we’re meeting at the speakeasy tonight. Here’s the password.

Young Joe lands in a Boston jail, where he is befriended by a powerful mob boss, Thomaso Pescatore. Maso wants to leverage his access to Joe to get his dad, Thomas, Deputy Superintendent of the Boston Police, to take care of some things for him. Otherwise, well, he could not guarantee Joe’s safety. Joe becomes a Maso loyalist, demonstrates his value to this new boss and winds up being put in charge of Maso’s crime operation in Ybor City, Florida. That is where the bulk of the story takes place.

This is not some mindless good-guys vs bad-guys shoot-em-up. Lehane is a serious writer and there are larger issues under his microscope here. One is the impact of parents, fathers in particular on their children. Despite his calm demeanor and tasteful trappings, Joe’s father, Thomas, is no paragon of virtue. While he may decry his youngest son’s path it is clear that the rotten apple has not fallen far from a rotten tree. Later in the novel a gangster of some perception and skill presents a son who has inherited all dad’s worst qualities, and none of his better ones. Joe must confront his own feelings about parenthood when he becomes a father. (this will no doubt be addressed in depth in Lehane’s next novel, which will feature Joe and his son in the 1940s) And the sins of another father are visited on his child in horrible ways. A closely related theme is the karma of violence

What I have learned is that violence procreates. And the children your violence produces will return to you as savage, mindless things. You won’t recognize them as yours, but they’ll recognize you. They’ll mark you as deserving of their punishment.

Lehane offers some thematic touchstones along the way. Thomas gives Joe a watch that has special meaning for him. It plays a role in saving Joe’s life, but also serves as a symbol for Joe eventually running out of time. A similar item is the appearance of a Florida panther, which may or may not actually be present at times, and is certainly a phantom at others, carrying concern about mortality.

Joe struggles with his belief system. He is not a stone cold killer, which puts him at a disadvantage with the company he keeps.

He feared this was all there was. Didn’t just fear it. Sitting in that ridiculous chair looking out the window at the yellow windows canted in the black water, he knew it. You didn’t die and go to a better place; this was the better place because you weren’t dead. Heaven wasn’t in the clouds; it was the air in your lungs.

He inquires into the beliefs others have about a life beyond during his journey, and also wonders what might take his place if it turns out there is no god.

“We’re not bad. Maybe we’re not good. I dunno. I just know we’re all scared.”
“Who’s scared?” she said.
“Who isn’t? The whole world. We tell ourselves we believe in this god or that god, this afterlife or that one, and maybe we do, but what we’re all thinking at the same time is, “What if we’re wrong? What if this is it? Well if it is, shit, I better get me a real big house and a real big car and a whole bunch of nice tie pins and pearl-handled walking stick and a—“
She was laughing now.
“—a toilet that washes my ass and my armpits. Because I need one of those.’” He’d been chuckling too, but the chuckles trailed off into the suds. “’but, wait, I believe in God. Just to be safe. But I believe in greed, too. Just to be safe.’”

America has a love-hate relationship with gangsters. On the one hand, we find appealing the image of the slick criminal getting over on, say, bankers. We see them not so much as bleak, soulless, bloody monsters but as outlaws. Joe struggles with the difference between being an outlaw, a romantic self-image, and a gangster, which, to Joe, is an acceptance that he is not a decent person after all.
Another notion, about types of criminality, that comes into play a time or three has just a touch of contemporary resonance.

“You, you buy into all this stuff about good guys and bad guys in the world. A loan shark breaks a guy’s leg for not paying his debt, a banker throws a guy out of his home for the same reason, and you think there’s a difference, like the banker’s just doing his job but the loan shark’s a criminal. I like the loan shark because he doesn’t pretend to be anything else, and I think the banker should be sitting where I’m sitting now. I’m not going to live some life where I pay my fucking taxes and fetch the boss a lemonade at the company picnic and buy life insurance. Get older, get fatter, so I can join a men’s club in Back Bay, smoke cigars with a bunch of assholes in a back room somewhere, talk about my squash game and my kid’s grades. Die at my desk, and they’ll already have scraped my name off the office door before the dirt’s hit the coffin”
“But that’s life,” Danny said
“That’s a life. You want to play by their rules? Go ahead. But I say their rules are bullshit. I say there are no rules but the ones a man makes for himself.”

This view is reinforced in a conversation Joe has with a business partner.

“We’re not our brother’s keeper, Joseph. In fact, it’s an insult to our brother to presume he can’t take care of himself.”

This could be a bit of Ayn Rand pillow whisperings or a 2012 GOP talking point.
Later, Joe is planning a gambling empire and notes again that criminality comes in various forms.

what he saw, clearer than any clear he’d ever known, was that the rich would come in here for the dazzle and the elegance and the chance to risk it all against a rigged game, as rigged as the one they’d been running on the poor for centuries.

Another passage made me think of the banality of evil in Nazi Germany.

Joe was reminded, not for the first time, that for such a violent business, it was filled with a surprising number of regular guys—men who loved their wives, who took their children on Saturday afternoon outings, men who worked on their automobiles and told jokes at the neighborhood lunch counter and worried what their mothers thought of them and went to Church to ask god’s forgiveness for all the terrible things they had to render unto Caesar in order to put food on the table.

In fact, one of the things I loved about this book is how many times a line or a passage summoned broader notions, or the scent of other classics. Here are a few:

Working class men had sons. Successful men had heirs.

We all believe lies that bring us more comfort than the truth.

She had that light about her that turned people into moths

I’ve got nothing against noble people, I’ve just noticed they rarely live past forty.”

“Achievement? Depends on luck—to be born in the right place at the right time and be of the right color. To live long enough to be in the right place at the right time to make one’s fortune. Yes, yes, hard work and talent make up the difference. They are crucial, and you know I’d never argue different. But the foundation of all lives is luck. Good or bad. Luck is life and life is luck. And it’s leaking from the moment it lands in your hand.

The Live by Night motif can be taken a few ways, as living outside the law, as living freely, as in surviving in an id-rich world, on the edge. When Joe was a young crook his boss would say to him. “The people we service? They visit the night. But we live in it. They rent what we own.” In a concrete sense, living by night means criminality, but it could also imply a more generic sense of extremity. But what drives someone to such extremes? And how do the stories we tell about ourselves affect who we are?

Something was getting lost in them, something that was starting to live by day, where the swells lived, where the insurance salesmen and the bankers lived, where the civic meetings were held and the little flags were waved at the Main Street parades, where you sold out the truth of yourself for the story of yourself. …the reality was, he liked the story of himself. Liked it better than the truth of himself. In the truth of himself, he was second class and grubby and always out of step. He still had his Boston accent and didn’t know how to dress right, and he thought too many thoughts that most people would find “funny.” The truth of himself was a scared little boy, mislaid by his parents like reading glasses on a Sunday afternoon, treated to random kindnesses by older brothers who came without notice and departed without warning. The truth of himself was a lonely boy in an empty house, waiting or someone to knock on his bedroom door and ask if he was ok.
The story of himself, on the other hand, was of a gangster prince. A man who had a full-time driver and bodyguard. A man of wealth and stature. A man for whom people abandoned their seats simply because he coveted them

Maybe living by night is being in the dream instead of the reality.

But for all his serious flaws, I found it was possible to relate to Joe, to root for him, even. And Lehane has populated his tale with a colorful array of supporting characters, in varying shades. There is not a lot here by way of damsels in distress. Lehane’s women are not exactly blushing flowers. From the iron-nerved Emma, to a wildly successful evangelical preacher, Loretta, to the elegant Graciela, the women are rich presences in the story. This is a result of the presence in Lehanes’s life, he says, of plenty of very tough women when he was growing up.

On a gut level, it felt to me that a bit of Casablanca DNA seems to run through this story. In this world of low expectations, we can feel some empathy for Joe because he is no sociopath, even though he swims in a shiver of sharks. No, Joe is no Rick, and Emma and Loretta are no freedom fighters, (Graciela actually may be) but having established his dark roots, there is a feeling of potential for hope, for redemption, for maybe a chance to live by day, a desire to do the right thing, that gives the story poignancy. All the great lines certainly helped. I cannot think of a book I have read in recent memory that offered up so many. Ben Affleck is already in negotiations to write, direct and star in the movie. I am not sure I see him in this role, but this could be the beginning of a beautiful film.

So tip back on your panama hat, make sure the ceiling fan is spinning fast enough to cool your sweat before it plunges under your collar, check that the safety for that piece under your jacket is switched on, light up one of those very special Cubans, hoist your Bacardi cocktail and settle back. You're in for a steamin’ good time.

=================================LINKS
The Harper Collins reading group guide and no, I did not look at this before setting fingers to keyboard.

Steve Inskeep (who is usually insufferable) did a nice interview with Lehane on NPR’s Morning Edition. This is the source of the Lehane quotes at the top of the review.

Janet Maslin’s sterling NY Times review “His Days of Crime May End Real Soon”

=================================UPDATES

May 2, 2013 - Live by Night wins the Edgar Award for best novel

The paperback was released on 5/14/13
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May 03, 2013 Lou rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: arc, historical-fiction, mystery-thriller

-May 2013 Awarded Edgar Award for Best Novel-
This tale chronologically tells of the rise of a main protagonist Joe, a cops son, to a position of command of many men who partake in things of an illegal criterion.

Badabing badaboom with nostalgia, a different time in history more godfather like in its climb and battle to keep power but Joe started up with no Kin in-crime, his father was a cop so he had maybe you could say a slight disadvantage to make his name in fireworks but this fact could hold...more -May 2013 Awarded Edgar Award for Best Novel-
This tale chronologically tells of the rise of a main protagonist Joe, a cops son, to a position of command of many men who partake in things of an illegal criterion.

Badabing badaboom with nostalgia, a different time in history more godfather like in its climb and battle to keep power but Joe started up with no Kin in-crime, his father was a cop so he had maybe you could say a slight disadvantage to make his name in fireworks but this fact could hold importance to others. He is a man of love he falls for a few damsels, woman with power and beauty some he losses, some he married. There was one woman whom he felt attraction for and she held quite a memorable role in this story for me she had a cause a fight but under it all she had fallen victim to an enemy more closer that she could acknowledge. Read about her and all the other characters and be immersed.

The bad money and the power these characters had in this tale aided a revolution and helped create jobs in the setting up of plantations and other enterprises in hotter terrains. With the positives it had the down sides that would only be felt for those in the thick of it, the ones at the top of the echelon they are sure to loose in life-expectancy line of matters be it their sole existence or those loved near to them.

Dennis Lehane is a great writer of dialogue, crisp and flowing prose that places you in the story, the scene, the characters shoes. His great storytelling have themes of controversy, from the dark human stain of people and society, past and present from timeline of lives. I find that all his novels so far that I have read have never failed in hooking me in and immersing me in the tale. They also make great movies when adapted to screenplays.

Prohibition, prison, rebellions, FBI, KKK, Edgar Hoover and Roosevelt and all that went on in those turbulent times have important roles in this great historical fiction story that hold some truth in Americas past. From Boston, Florida, and to Cuba with revolutions and shifting of powers a splendid story a must read that will be added on my list of best reads published in 2012.

“When a woman once asked Joe how he could come from such a magnificent home and such a good family and still become a gangster, Joe’s answer was two-pronged: (a) he wasn’t a gangster; he was an outlaw; (b) he came from a magnificent house, not a magnificent home.”

“But the rules apply to all of you, no matter what your colour or creed. Never look a guard in the eyes. Never question a guard’s order. Never cross over the dirt track that runs along the wall. Never touch yourselves or one another in an unwholesome manner. Just do your time like good fish, without complaint or ill will, and we’ll find harmonious accord along the pathway to your restitution.”

“Wonderful.

And, yet, dead was dead. Gone was gone. No edifice, no legacy, no bridge named after you could change that.

You were only guaranteed one life, so you’d better live it.”

“Joe went to the door and Dion opened it and a teenager girl, all breathless energy, stood on the other side. It was the daughter in all the photographs, beautiful and apple-haired, rose gold skin so unblemished it achieved a soft-sun radiance. Joe guessed she was seventeen. Her beauty found his throat, stopped it for a moment, put a catch in the words about to leave his mouth, so all he could manage was a hesitant, “Miss…” yet it wasn’t a beauty that evoked anything carnal in him. It was somehow purer than that. The beauty of Chief Irving Figgis’s daughter wasn’t something you wanted to despoil, it was something you wanted to beatify.”

“Donations paid for this club,” Esteban said smoothly. “Its doors are kept open the same way. When Cubans go out on a Friday night, they want to go to a place where they can dress up, a place that makes them feel like they are back in Havana, a place with style. Pizzazz, yes?” he snapped his fingers. “In here, nobody calls us spics or mud men. We are free to speak our language and sing our songs and recite our poetry.”

“Joe knew what the nod meant-this was why they became outlaws. To live moments the insurance salesman of the world, the truck drivers, and lawyers and bank tellers and carpenters and Realtors would never know. Moments in a world without nets-none to catch you and none to envelop you. Joe looked at Dion and recalled what he’d felt after the first time they’d knocked over that newsstand on Bowdoin Street when they were thirteen years old, We will probably die young.”

“President Roosevelt signed the Cullen-Harrison Act on the morning of March 23, 1933, legalizing the manufacture and sale of beer and wine with an alcohol content no greater than 3.2 percent. By the end of the year, FDR promised, the Eighteenth Amendment to the Constitution would be a memory.”

Visit my webpage for 2 different Craig Ferguson Late Late shows interviewing Dennis Lehane (Funny)>>http://more2read.com/review/live-by-night-by-dennis-lehane/(less)

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Oct 01, 2012 Jeanette rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: america, all-fiction, historical-fiction, av, four-star-fiction

Little Joe Coughlin was only a bit player in The Given Day, but here he gets an entire novel all to himself. It's not necessary to have read The Given Day first. Live By Night makes a fine stand-alone novel.

If you have read The Given Day, it will give you some understanding as to why Joe has chosen a career as a criminal. He was the neglected, often invisible youngest son. He observed how his father and brothers worked hard and lived within the law, and they were not rewarded for their pains. S...more Little Joe Coughlin was only a bit player in The Given Day, but here he gets an entire novel all to himself. It's not necessary to have read The Given Day first. Live By Night makes a fine stand-alone novel.

If you have read The Given Day, it will give you some understanding as to why Joe has chosen a career as a criminal. He was the neglected, often invisible youngest son. He observed how his father and brothers worked hard and lived within the law, and they were not rewarded for their pains. So he turned against the law and lives by the rules of the night.

The Given Day ends a few days before the enforcement of Prohibition will begin. Live By Night picks up about seven years later, in 1926. Joe Coughlin is already deeply entrenched in the life of an outlaw. A bank robbery gone bad leaves him on the lam, and things go downhill from there.

Joe does some time in prison, where he learns how to be an even better hoodlum. When he is released, he needs to be far away from his enemies in Boston. He goes to Tampa, Florida and works for a mobster operation that runs all up and down the East Coast. Florida is where the bulk of the novel takes place, specifically in Ybor City, where the various dark-skinned peoples dwell. Here we see how Joe has turned against his father's prejudices, choosing the company of Cubans and mixed-race people.

There's not really a lot to analyze here in terms of our heroes and villains. Live By Night is essentially just a literary gangster novel. Its historical significance lies in showing the folly of Prohibition. All it did was breed vice and prevent regulation. It encouraged the formation of a new underground economy which became so powerful and well connected that it branched out into even more violent and profitable enterprises.

I suppose I'll be in the minority, but I liked this one better than The Given Day. Live by Night covers a much longer stretch of time in fewer pages and moves along at a nice clip. It takes us up to the end of Prohibition and beyond. The dialogue is especially brilliant. It reveals the "bad guys" in all their complexity, whether fearful or conflicted or tender, and they're often very intelligent. They're not just dumb thugs with big guns and stock phrases like "Go for your heater."

There were a couple of things that kept the book out of the five-star category for me. The first thing is the seven-year gap between the end of The Given Day and the start of Live By Night. We're given very little information about what happened in the interim.

The second weakness is the way Joe's story ends. There's one major event that seems inevitable, and you can see it coming. When it does happen, the scene is clumsy -- more staged than realistic -- and it doesn't evoke the deep feeling it should. The aftermath of that event is rushed, and the close of the story isn't conclusive enough to be satisfying without a promise of more to come.(less)

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Jan 05, 2013 Julie rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: mystery-crime-thriller, historical-fiction, usa-historical, read-2012

There’s an element that bugged the heck out of me all the way through this novel, so let me just get it out of the way and move on, since this was a read I really enjoyed.

Despite the abundance of ideas in Live By Night, ideas which relate to the story’s era and setting: the futility of Prohibition, Jazz Age excess, bootlegging and gangland violence, racism, the Cuban émigré community in Florida - the main character, Joe Coughlin, isn’t given any real purpose or object to pursue. What are the mo...more

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Dec 02, 2012 Karolyn Sherwood rated it 4 of 5 stars

I am a big fan of Dennis Lehane's, but I'm not the target audience for this book. I agree with most of the big reviews of Live By Night: it's a high-level gangster novel, and it is very well-written. But in my opinion the plot is not necessarily fresh, and it never reaches the brilliance of Shutter Island.

Live (rhymes with give) By Night chronicles a good-hearted though misguided young man named Joe Coughlin. Lehane elevates him by making him a non-racist in a time when almost everyone else is d...more

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Nov 04, 2012 Michael rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: 2012, arc, net-galley, historical-fiction, mystery, prohibition, organized-crime

Review originally found on my blog; http://literary-exploration.com/2012/...

While Joe Coughlin is the son of a Boston Police Captain, he has long turned his back of being a moral citizen. Joe has graduated into petty crimes to high paying robberies. But when he robs a speakeasy of a Boston mobster things change for him. When the mobster kills Joe’s love, Emma, he becomes obsessed with seeking revenge. Joe works up the ladder of organised crime till he is in the right position to take his revenge...more Review originally found on my blog; http://literary-exploration.com/2012/...

While Joe Coughlin is the son of a Boston Police Captain, he has long turned his back of being a moral citizen. Joe has graduated into petty crimes to high paying robberies. But when he robs a speakeasy of a Boston mobster things change for him. When the mobster kills Joe’s love, Emma, he becomes obsessed with seeking revenge. Joe works up the ladder of organised crime till he is in the right position to take his revenge. But taking on a rival family is never so simple. This is the basis of Dennis Lehane’s latest crime novel Live by Night.

Most people know I’m a huge fan of pulpish and organised crime novels so I was really interested in checking out this novel. My first attempt of Dennis Lehane with Mystic River didn’t go too well but I was excited to give him another go, simply because the premise of this book sounded really good and the idea of reading a crime novel set in the prohibition era really enthused me. This book started out strong. I really liked Emma the love interestand was very sad to see her get killed off; I was ready to seek revenge too. The revenge aspect and the becoming a powerful mobster were really good but then you get half way through the book and it falls flat. Almost like Dennis Lehane had changed his mind of what type of book this is and switches genre. Without giving too much away I was disappointed with the change in style and although there are some great crime elements later on it just felt a bit odd.

I loved the characters in this book and this was my biggest worry because with Mystic River I felt they were a bit flat and one dimensional. I think it was interesting to hear that Lehane wrote another book called The Given Day which is based around the same family but focuses on a different character; I believe its Joe Coughlin’s brother. Even if they seem to be connected, Live by Night does a great job of developing the characters without having to read the other book.

I’m a little disappointed that this book had so much potential but the last part of the book fell short. Personally I think this book could have ended a lot earlier or cut out the parts that weren’t working. Lehane was trying to develop the characters a bit more in the sections that weren’t working but in my opinion they didn’t help the novel. There are some great elements in this book and overall it was an enjoyable crime novel. I think I will have to check out The Given Day and some more Dennis Lehane novels based on my experience with this one.(less)

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Jan 25, 2013 Melissa rated it 3 of 5 stars

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. This book was fine & dandy & four-stars until the last 50 pages or so, which were a bit of a drag. I've begun to realize that the last 50 pages of most Lehane novels can be a bit of a letdown; with Kenzie & Gennaro novels, so much horrible stuff happens in the middle that a letdown at the end is highly appreciated. Here, not so much. There's a little too much deus ex machina for my taste - Hey Joe, why does your airplane guy have a machine gun now? 100 pages ago you said you wouldn't...more

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Dec 13, 2012 Elizabeth of Silver's Reviews rated it 3 of 5 stars

Prohibition, speakeasies, bank robberies, gangsters, mobsters, jail time, murders....LIVE BY NIGHT has it all. You will follow Joe Coughlin through his life as a privileged child, a gangster, and a mob boss.

Joe Coughlin is the son of Thomas Coughlin....the only problem is that Thomas is the Chief Deputy Superintendent of the Boston Police Department and his son is a criminal. Joe feels he and his buddies are invincible, but he finds out they are not. Joe has committed many robberies in his short...more Prohibition, speakeasies, bank robberies, gangsters, mobsters, jail time, murders....LIVE BY NIGHT has it all. You will follow Joe Coughlin through his life as a privileged child, a gangster, and a mob boss.

Joe Coughlin is the son of Thomas Coughlin....the only problem is that Thomas is the Chief Deputy Superintendent of the Boston Police Department and his son is a criminal. Joe feels he and his buddies are invincible, but he finds out they are not. Joe has committed many robberies in his short life, but the last one did him in....he did jail time for this one. He could have prevented jail time and a beating, but he had to see his "girl" before he left town. He should have just left town....she did him in and caused him trouble until the end.

This book is about the Roaring 20's and life on both sides of the law. It is fast paced and lets you into that time period along with the characters. You will see that you won't know if you are friend or enemy even if you are in with the gang you are a part of. It is true to life and gives insight into how crime works behind the scenes. It is not a pretty read...you will be part of many mob killings and brutal scenes.

The beginning is interesting but the ending is somewhat slow and a bit tedious. It is not one of his better books...sometimes there is too much information, and the scenes seem to drag on. I really lost my interest about half way through the book, but kept reading because I know Mr. Lehane is an outstanding author and kept that in mind as I aimlessly kept turning the pages.

To his credit he has creative titles for each chapter with content that lives up to the chapter's heading. He has expressive, descriptive writing as always that brings that particular event, feelings, or person alive, but it lacks connectivity. At times, I was completely lost. I do have to wonder what he was thinking when he wrote this book....I am disappointed.

Going to rate it a 3/5.

This book was given to me free of charge by the publisher with no compensation in return for an honest review. (less)

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Oct 16, 2012 Kemper rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: 2012, bad-guys-rule, crime-mystery, rum-running, signed-by-author

I think Dennis Lehane may be a big fan of Boardwalk Empire based on this book.

In the mid-1920s, Joe Coughlin is a young man who has turned against his upbringing as the son of a legendary Boston police captain. Joe works for a local gangster and does the occasional robbery on the side. When he falls for the mistress of a rival to his boss, trouble follows, and Joe’s criminal career takes a turn that eventually finds him setting up a huge bootlegging operation in Tampa.

This is an indirect sequel...more

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Aug 13, 2012 Michael rated it 4 of 5 stars

This is my first foray into reading Dennis Lehane. I'm not a mystery reader, generally, nor am I a fan of crime novels OR historical novels. However, with Mr. Lehane on the Board of Trustees where I work, I thought I'd give this a try. Add to that the consistent praise his work gets, I figured I would overcome my usual disinterest for the genre and give it a try.

I was suitably impressed. Dennis is a great writer, and his marvelously detailed and nuanced story of the life of an gangster... oops,...more

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Nov 25, 2012 Caitlin rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This book started with good promise. Joe was an interesting character operating in a vividly described 1920s Boston. His father was chief of police. As you might expect in Lehane novels, Joe was a criminal protagonist.

Lehane does a good job of exploring father/son conflicts, and extends the family theme into Joe's criminal decision making. Unfortunately, the latter two thirds of the book in Tampa read like Hollywood cliche.

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May 23, 2013 JoAnn Ross rated it 5 of 5 stars

Having discovered Dennis Lehane with his Patrick and Angie mysteries, which I love and will miss, he's an auto-buy author for me. Though, I have to admit that I found The Given Day a bit slow in the beginning, so I'd put it down. After reading this sequel, Live By Night, I've given the first story in the trilogy another try and am enjoying it this time around. However, although I plan to write a review when I finish, I can't believe it's going to live up to Live By Night, which, imo, rightfully...more Having discovered Dennis Lehane with his Patrick and Angie mysteries, which I love and will miss, he's an auto-buy author for me. Though, I have to admit that I found The Given Day a bit slow in the beginning, so I'd put it down. After reading this sequel, Live By Night, I've given the first story in the trilogy another try and am enjoying it this time around. However, although I plan to write a review when I finish, I can't believe it's going to live up to Live By Night, which, imo, rightfully won the Edgar for best mystery.

One thing I've always enjoyed about Lehane's characters is that while they're strong, they're also believably nuanced and flawed. Even when they're doing the wrong thing, I find myself caring about them. Joe Coughlin, the son of the deputy superintendent of the Boston Police Department, who choses to be an "outlaw" rather than following in his fathers' and brothers' footsteps, is strong, smart, and decidedly flawed.

Having grown up with my Irish grandfather, who was an Irish bootlegger in New York City, I've always been a sucker for stories set during prohibition. Although I was leery about Lehane moving the story from Boston to Tampa, I'm glad I followed along. This is an epic tale, full of period detail, almost reminding me of the old sagas as we follow Joe's life, loves, sometimes outrageous seeming schemes, achievements, and failures. It's also a history of a colorful, yet violent time in America, and while the book contains a lot of violence, I didn't find any of it gratuitous. One very slight quibble -- as a writer, I understand that beginning the book with Joe on a boat with his feet encased in concrete was a great way to grab readers' attention; yet, as a reader, I found myself waiting for that scene, which, from time to time proved a distraction.

Another thing I enjoy about Lehane's books is the moral ambiguity, which even shows up in his shorter Patrick and Angie stories. (In this way, although they're very different writers, working in different genres, he reminds me of Jodi Picoult, who also plays more with shades of gray than sticking with black and white.) In Live by Night, the theme seems to be can good works come from bad deeds? Does the end ever justify the means?

This is one I'll probably reread while waiting for the next brother's book. Now that I know how Joe's story ends, after highlighting some brilliant phrases, I can go back and take the time to enjoy the actual writing.

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Apr 13, 2013 Noralo rated it 4 of 5 stars

I don't know much about gangster stories, but I thought this one was pretty great. A little too vivid in parts for me, but that's not something I can fault it for. My biggest complaint is how often characters in this book 'read' something in other characters' eyes. Seems to me there are other telling features about humans, and at the same time, I just don't believe in that many telepathic connections. Parts of the book were out-of-control horrific and exciting, others were meaningful reflections...more

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Mar 31, 2013 Kathleen Hagen added it

Shelves: 2013-audio

Live by Night, by Dennis Lehane, Narrated by Jim Frangione, Produced by Harper Audio, Downloaded from audible.com.

This is a historical novel about organized crime, especially “rum running” and gambling, from 1926 through 1935. Joe Coughlin, youngest son of a Boston police captain, has long since turned his back on his conservative upbringing. Now having graduated from a childhood of petty theft to a career in the pay of Boston’s top mobsters, Joe enjoys the spoils, thrills, and notoriety of bein...more

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Mar 15, 2013 Carolee Noury rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: favorites

Disclaimer: I am a huge Lehane fan.

In general, I adore his writing style- the characters are well developed- they breathe, their problems speak to me; his ability to make music out of works in the horrifying, joyful, and fearful moments; and Lehane's voice is unique and consistent.

What I don't like is his tendency to make each book in the K&G series, for sure, have a more psychotic and nauseating "bad guy." It feels like cheap camera tricks in movies- the sense that you have to make it bigg...more Disclaimer: I am a huge Lehane fan.

In general, I adore his writing style- the characters are well developed- they breathe, their problems speak to me; his ability to make music out of works in the horrifying, joyful, and fearful moments; and Lehane's voice is unique and consistent.

What I don't like is his tendency to make each book in the K&G series, for sure, have a more psychotic and nauseating "bad guy." It feels like cheap camera tricks in movies- the sense that you have to make it bigger, no matter the cost... or believability. (In this particular book: at times too gross, gorey, bloody, and killingly depressing- but not at the level where it takes away from my being in love with it.)

I loved this book and quite literally "could not put it down." It's one I know I'd enjoy reading again.

The book blurb: Prohibition has given rise to an endless network of underground distilleries, speakeasies, gangsters, and corrupt cops. Joe Coughlin, the youngest son of a prominent Boston police captain, has long since turned his back on his strict and proper upbringing. Now having graduated from a childhood of petty theft to a career in the pay of the city's most fearsome mobsters, Joe enjoys the spoils, thrills, and notoriety of being an outlaw.

The rest is SPOILER-VILLE (Do not scroll down if you're planning to read this!

I was thrilled when I realized this book was about "little" Joey Coughlin of The Given Day. And what a contrast he is from Danny in this novel. (I was happy to hear from Danny again too- loved TGD).

The basic character plot- the decisions/needs that arise out of the hole Joey's parents created in him as their failed attempt to rekindle a dead marriage many years after their first two sons- was well woven and resounding. Joey demonstrated that well- his need to save women who were falling apart, his need to ignore laws as he chose, but to still recognize the basic good in people- his sense of remorse and need to repray, and ultimately, his rebellion against all things strict and rigid (like papa Thomas.)

I was devastated all through the story knowing, since it's the first sentence, that: ...Joe Coughlin's feet were place in a tub of cement. (while he was on a boat no less. That was a stressful reminder that not all was going to end well. But, seriously, I should know that trend by now.

I loved the characters- the damaged women, the soulless mobsters, the do-gooders wrapped in sins, the family members who didn't measure up, the inmates... some times I loved to hate them, sure, but they were vivid enough to hate.

The story is exciting, sad with plenty of joy mixed in, mysterious, and fascinating.
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Mar 12, 2013 Gloria Feit rated it 4 of 5 stars

There is an old cliché about the prostitute with a heart of gold. This same thought can apply to the main character in this novel, a gangster who is, nonetheless, almost too good to be true. But the book is so well-written and -constructed that it would be a shame to arrive at that conclusion. It is a movingly built tale encased in a reconstruction of a unique period in American history.

Joe Coughlin, the son of the deputy superintendent of the Boston Police Department, probably could have achiev...more

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Mar 04, 2013 Angela Savage rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: crime-fiction

I suspected I'd like Dennis Lehane's Live by Night by when I read the title of the Chapter One, 'A Twelve O'Clock Fella in a Nine O'Clock Town'. With the opening line, 'Some years later, on a tugboat in the Gulf of Mexico, Joe Coughlin's feet were placed in a tub of cement', I was hooked.

Lehane combines an engrossing plot and seamless historical setting with complex, credible characters, expressing it all in hard-boiled poetry.

Live By Night is drama in three acts. Part 1 takes place in Boston be...more

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Feb 01, 2013 Shaun rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: 2013, crime, fiction, library

I'm disappointed because this book wasn't as good as I wanted it to be. It is beautifully written, and was a dream to read however it didn't grab me like I wished it would. The Godfather is one of my all time favourite books, the synopsis of this book sounded amazing and I couldn't wait to read it. I liked the main character of Joe, and enjoyed the first 100 or so pages. Then he went to prison and I enjoyed reading about that too. But then he moved to Tampa, and a few other reviews have said how...more

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Jan 28, 2013 Everyday eBook rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Recommended to Everyday by: Andrew Agudo

In Dennis Lehane's latest novel, Live by Night, we're thrown into Prohibition-era America -- among bootleggers, gangsters, flappers -- and follow a bank robber's struggle to build a life of crime. Joe Coughlan didn't have a gangster's childhood: His father was a police official; his family lived comfortably in a nice house; and he was always smart. He had options, but he also had "nostalgie de la boue." He spent his childhood with the Bartolo brothers, burning newspaper stands for money.

Now, twe...more In Dennis Lehane's latest novel, Live by Night, we're thrown into Prohibition-era America -- among bootleggers, gangsters, flappers -- and follow a bank robber's struggle to build a life of crime. Joe Coughlan didn't have a gangster's childhood: His father was a police official; his family lived comfortably in a nice house; and he was always smart. He had options, but he also had "nostalgie de la boue." He spent his childhood with the Bartolo brothers, burning newspaper stands for money.

Now, twenty-year-old Joe and the Bartolo brothers have graduated to bank and speakeasy robberies. But in Boston's underworld, Joe is still only a child playing dress-up. During a job, he and his partners, with "hats pulled down over their eyes" and "black handkerchiefs" over their mouths, look misplaced. They look funny, more Hollywood-cowboy than Prohibition-gangster. In fact, Joe specifically calls himself an "outlaw," rather than a gangster, because he doesn't have the makeup of a gangster; he doesn't identify with the title; he doesn't fit the mold: the rough background, the stiff-necked character, the affinity for violence.

But this is about to change. A series of events starts the wheel: First, Joe robs a speakeasy owned by mobster-boss Albert White; next, and worse, Joe falls in love with White's mistress; and finally, Joe is set up during a bank job that results in his arrest warrant. So Joe Coughlan must graduate again, this time from outlaw to gangster, just to survive.

In the past, Lehane's novels have made good movies -- Gone, Baby, Gone; Shutter Island; Mystic River -- so it's no surprise that Live by Night reads like another film. From Boston speakeasies to the Charlestown Prison, from Tampa Bay smuggling tunnels to Cuban tobacco fields, Live by Night travels far and wide. Lehane moves swiftly through the years (from 1926-1935), using a traditional genre plot (the rise and fall of a gangster) and traditional genre scenes (gunfights, car chases). But this isn't traditional fare. Lehane gives us fast-action scenes, but he doesn't stop there. He develops characters both honest and unique, placing them against honest and unique antagonists (Ku Klux Klan and the U.S. Navy), pushing their moral and psychological limits, creating a real world for them to populate, one outside of crime. Complementing these pieces is Lehane's eye for detail and his prose -- in particular, his dialogue -- which is smart, tough, and punchy.

In the end, yes, the story is great. But Lehane's originality makes Live by Night less "just another genre page-turner," and more an exceptional novel. And on an interesting cinematic note, it's been recently reported that Live by Night is Ben Affleck's next directorial project.

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Jan 26, 2013 Carl rated it 3 of 5 stars

I thought Shutter Island was fantastic. Not this one, though. Joe, our main character, is the murderer with the heart of gold. We're supposed to like him because he's reluctant to shoot people in the head, though when push comes to shove, he shoots people in the head. Once he takes over as the leader of the pack in Tampa, he's a benevolent dictator. Good whore houses, not bad ones. Clean well-run speak-easies. Basically, a captain of industry who could be eligible for an honorary MBA.

The mystery...more

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Jan 14, 2013 Al rated it 4 of 5 stars

Three and a half stars. Outlaw turned gangster Joe Coughlin survives a harrowing criminal youth in Boston and takes Tampa's rumrunning scene by storm in the late 20s. Catnip for us Hillsborough County residents, as period Ybor City is a major setting of the book.
LBN is largely a typical high-octane thriller, with Coughlin surviving various life-threatening plot devices and engaging in not one, but two, torrid love affairs along the way. What makes it different, and better, than most is Mr. Le...more

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Jan 01, 2013 Randi Reisfeld rated it 3 of 5 stars

I'm a huge Dennis Lehane fan; learned history of WW 1 and the 20s (especially in Boston -- seriously, who knew Calvin Coolidge was govenor? Or was it mayor? Anyway...)in the novel that preceeded Live By Night, called The Given Day. It's one of my favorites, following the foibles, fortunes and f*ups of the Coughlin clan. Dad Thomas is the police chief of Boston -- principled yet corrupt; his off-the-rails wife, and most importantly, three sons, Aiden (aka Danny), Connor and Joe. Book 1, The Given...more

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Dec 12, 2012 Amanda Patterson rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Dennis Lehane could write about a snail race and make it sound thrilling. He doesn’t though. The author of Shutter Island, Mystic River, and A Drink Before the War is back.
Joe Coughlin meets icy beauty, Emma Gould, when he is 19. He is a small time gangster and she is Albert White’s mistress. Joe knows he shouldn’t but he falls in love with her. They start an affair.
It’s 1926 and prohibition is in full swing. Coughlin hates his father, Thomas, who is the Deputy Superintendent of the Boston Poli...more

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Dec 10, 2012 Laurie Bryce rated it 4 of 5 stars Recommends it for: Anyone who likes Boardwalk Empire

Loved it! Even more than his "Given Day" which I read earlier. Supposedly this book is the second in a planned trilogy, with "Given Day" being the first book in the series, but there's not much to connect the two and I liked this one better. So feel free to skip "Given Day" and start here.

I like to read books set in Boston and Lehane of course does that very well. Half of this book takes place in Tampa and Cuba, however. He evokes those settings really well too (and it probably helped that I WA...more

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Dec 06, 2012 Jean rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: general-fiction

If you like Godfather-type books, you'll like this one. This story is the second in a series that started with The Given Day, about an Irish family in Boston after WW I. Joe Coughlin, youngest son of the prominent Boston police captain, has left home to "find his fortune," and the story starts with Joe and two friends (Italian, brothers) being involved in a robbery and shooting. The rest of the story tells what happens after that over about 30 years. Joe is involved with what I guess was "the mo...more

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Nov 28, 2012 Maggard rated it 3 of 5 stars

I thought this was pretty good as I was reading it, but a couple days later I re-read it and found it more insubstantial. I recall quite liking the first book in this series (The Given Day) as a departure from Lehane's usual material, but part of that at least was the (heavy) use of historical figures to elevate the material. There wasn't much of that here, and I also found the expiration of a certain central figure in the first book to be both coincidental (like, literally the same night that s...more

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Nov 21, 2012 Tony rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: fiction-crime-detection

LIVE BY NIGHT. (2012). Dennis Lehane. ****.
This is Lehane’s latest crime novel – the saga of Joe Coughlin. Joe is a young Irishman from the Boston area who wants to get ahead. The quickest way he can find is by becoming ‘somebody’ in the world of crime. He makes the distinction between being a gangster – which he says he is not – to being an outlaw. Early on, he believes that the difference lies in not killing anyone. We first meet Joe when he and his two best friends, Paolo and Dion, decide to...more LIVE BY NIGHT. (2012). Dennis Lehane. ****.
This is Lehane’s latest crime novel – the saga of Joe Coughlin. Joe is a young Irishman from the Boston area who wants to get ahead. The quickest way he can find is by becoming ‘somebody’ in the world of crime. He makes the distinction between being a gangster – which he says he is not – to being an outlaw. Early on, he believes that the difference lies in not killing anyone. We first meet Joe when he and his two best friends, Paolo and Dion, decide to knock over a small bank. It doesn’t go 100% correctly, but it does put him on the road to crime leadership. This is especially appalling to his father, a Boston police captain. Joe is constantly trying to live up to his father’s expectations, but never seems to quite meet them. As Joe progresses up the ladder of crime, he becomes involved with higher and higher levels of crime bosses. Soon he finds himself working for one of the top goons in Boston, who takes him under his wing and acts as his rabbi. All is not as it appears to be, however, as Joe learns that even your most trusted friends in the world of crime can’t really be trusted. He learns this rather quickly when he is sentenced to a term in a particularly rough prison. It is there that he learns the criminal code, and also meets a major crime boss who is also doing prison time. A deal is ultimately cut where Joe is sent down to Florida to take over the rum running business using Tampa as his base. He sets up shop in Ybor, a suburb of Tampa known primarily for its tobacco industry (cigars), and meets a woman who soon becomes the love of his life. He now has to learn how to balance power in the criminal world with a personal life that he never had before. It’s hard to do justice to the plot of this excellent novel in just a short paragraph, but I can recommend it to whose of you who enjoy good writing coupled with a well-researched historical setting during the age of prohibition. Recommended.
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Nov 20, 2012 Margot rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: detective-suspense

The rules of the day don't apply to those who live by night. Hmmm...

Boston criminal elements and prison hierarchy. Prohibition liquor power consolidation in Tampa, and the project management skills of criminal overlords. Cuban exiles, Cuban politics. Racism, and the relative ladder of outcasts. Doing good with bad money. Criminals are just regular guys, after all. And regular guys are criminals with different job titles. We're all corruptible.

A sample:
"You, you buy into all this stuff about goo...more

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Nov 16, 2012 Carl Brush rated it 4 of 5 stars

I’ve long considered Dennis Lehane to be one of the premiere commercial novelists of his generation. Recently, his The Given Day, concerning the Boston police strike of 1919, gave him top creds as a historical novelist as well. Live By Night is right up there with his best.

Joe Coughlin is the son of one of the principals in The Given Day. A higher up in the police department, and the book takes up not long after the strike. The title of Live By Night connects with Joe’s choice of lifestyle. The...more I’ve long considered Dennis Lehane to be one of the premiere commercial novelists of his generation. Recently, his The Given Day, concerning the Boston police strike of 1919, gave him top creds as a historical novelist as well. Live By Night is right up there with his best.

Joe Coughlin is the son of one of the principals in The Given Day. A higher up in the police department, and the book takes up not long after the strike. The title of Live By Night connects with Joe’s choice of lifestyle. The daytime game doesn’t appeal to him. No juice in it. He doesn’t want to call himself a gangster, which somehow connotes a stone cold murderer. He’s and outlaw. It’s a distinction that grows more and more meaningless as the tale draws on. He’s into small time racketeering–sticking up poker games, running protection rackets, stuff like that. Then he falls in love, which messes with his focus and causes his people to lose confidence, Then a bank robbery goes bad because someone ratted and three cops die (not at Joe’s hand, but he is there.) and Joe’s handed a 5-year prison sentence. Prison is, of course, a handy recruiting place for mobsters, and Joe quickly proves himself worthy of the attentions of one of the most powerful. He’s out in two years and sent to Tampa’s Ybor City to turn a faltering organization into a thriving one.

Getting in and out of prison, taking over Ybor, involves a lot of blood and betrayal. Joe proves up to it all, but he has a soft spot–a little guilt, a little regret, an occasional reluctance to pull the trigger. So Lehane gives us a mobster with a heart maybe not 24 karat, but at least gold plated. And that’s what makes this novel not pure noir, but noir with nuance. Ugly as his deeds are, we like him. Maybe because the guys he rubs out are a little meaner than he his, or maybe because the collateral damage gives him pause. At any rate, we’re always pulling for him.

Joe’s brains and feeling lead him to some unexpected places, and you’ll find yourself looking behind the scenes at Cuban politics and Cuban/U.S. politics and Central American politics. Politics and crime, it seems, go hand in hand. Surprise.

Lehane’s usual fine language and deft storytelling turn this into more than just another wiseguys story. It’s a human story about a man who consciously chooses a life of crime and still exacts our sympathy on every page.(less)

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Nov 11, 2012 Stephanie rated it 4 of 5 stars

Dennis Lehane’s latest novel is loosely connected to his epic work “The Given Day,” which was inspired by the Boston police strike of 1919. In “Live By Night” Lehane follows the arc of the career of Joe Coughlin, the son of a prominent Boston police superintendent, as Joe ascends from South Boston punk to Florida crime boss. The first third of the novel, the Boston section, is a feverishly paced mixture of crime and romance when Joe and his gang hold up a poker game and Joe falls for Emma Gould,...more Dennis Lehane’s latest novel is loosely connected to his epic work “The Given Day,” which was inspired by the Boston police strike of 1919. In “Live By Night” Lehane follows the arc of the career of Joe Coughlin, the son of a prominent Boston police superintendent, as Joe ascends from South Boston punk to Florida crime boss. The first third of the novel, the Boston section, is a feverishly paced mixture of crime and romance when Joe and his gang hold up a poker game and Joe falls for Emma Gould, a mobster’s moll with “eyes the color of very cold gin.” Joe is sent to the Charleston slammer, “the worst prison in the Northeast,” after a bank heist goes terribly wrong. While in prison, Joe is given a second chance when he is befriended by a mob boss, Tommeso Pescatore, who arranges for Joe’s early release and sends him packing to Ybor City to control the “liquor coming up from Florida.”

Joe, who has repeatedly reminded his Boston cronies that he is an outlaw not a gangster, goes into full gangster mode in south Florida. Prohibition is in full swing and is creating a class of gangster entrepreneurs, and Joe takes advantage of the ill-conceived law by ridding the town of rivals and recruiting the Cubans who control the sugar and molasses trade by stealing weapons from the US Navy to arm Cuban rebels. He also has an affair with a Cuban woman “with skin the color of brass and long black hair.” The Tampa section is less satisfying then the Boston section as it is filled with individual crime episodes and packed with social commentary, including the rise of unions, race relations, and American foreign policy. There is even a Holy Roller, the daughter of the police chief, a former heroin addict and prostitute who has returned to Florida sheathed in white and is working to block Joe’s attempts to legalize gambling.

Lehane is a master at creating nuanced dialogue and atmosphere –- whether it is the terror of Charleston prison, the bright white humidity of Southern Florida or the sensuous decay of Havana -- with his detailed descriptions of an earlier age. Although not his best work, Lehane packs the book with enough violence, betrayals, treacheries and romance to keep the pages turning.(less)

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