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The Given Day

by Dennis Lehane (Goodreads Author)

3.97 of 5 stars 3.97 · rating details · 9,244 ratings · 1,662 reviews

Set in Boston at the end of the First World War, New York Times best-selling 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.

The Given Day tells the story of two families—one black, one white—swept up in a maelstrom of revolutionaries and anarchists, immigr...more

Hardcover, 704 pages

Published September 23rd 2008 by William Morrow (first published 2008)

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Oct 03, 2012 Kemper rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: 2012-reread, crime-mystery, historical-fiction, politics

Imagine an America where the wealthy people in power rule a system in which they are free to reap enormous profits through unregulated businesses while every privilege that society can offer is given to them. These titans of capitalism underpay their employees for hard labor that lasts at least twelve hours a day in unsafe conditions with no overtime or benefits. If any of these workers dare complain, then the government will happily label them as dangerous socialist terrorists who threaten the...more Imagine an America where the wealthy people in power rule a system in which they are free to reap enormous profits through unregulated businesses while every privilege that society can offer is given to them. These titans of capitalism underpay their employees for hard labor that lasts at least twelve hours a day in unsafe conditions with no overtime or benefits. If any of these workers dare complain, then the government will happily label them as dangerous socialist terrorists who threaten the American way of life and do anything within its power to crush any attempts to organize the labor.

Ah, it’s enough to make a right wing conservative weep with joy.

Danny Coughlin is a Boston patrolman at the end of World War I. Since his father is a legendary and politically connected police captain, it seems like Danny’s got a bright future ahead of him with the department. Danny’s father and some other power brokers offer him a chance to make detective by going undercover in various subversive groups, including the social club of the Boston Police Department which is looking more and more like a union.

Danny doesn’t want to cause problems for his fellow police men who have been shafted by the city. Working a minimum of almost 80 hours a week at a wage below the poverty level and forced to pay for their own uniforms and equipment, the men of the BPD literally can’t feed their families but when their grievances are brought up, the men in charge insist that the cops are vital government personnel and therefore can’t strike so they can safely be told to go fuck themselves. When the men complain about this treatment, the politicians are shocked and insist that anybody who wants to make enough money to buy his kids some food is nothing but a damn Bolshevik. Danny eventually finds an actual danger to the public in the form of a bomb happy anarchist, but his superiors continue to be more concerned with those who might force change on the economic system.

Meanwhile, a black man named Luther Laurence, who is on the run following a messy incident with a local kingpin in Tulsa, is trying to lay low in Boston and ends up working for Danny’s family. Luther has a hard enough time just working around the racism that runs through all aspects of life, but things get worse when he runs afoul of a psychotic police crony of Danny’s father. Danny and Luther eventually strike up a friendship that defies the odds as they get caught up in the conflict between the old world and the changes being forced upon it.

Lehane’s books have often a crime oriented social component to it, and it seems like his time working for HBO’s The Wire encouraged him to add a depth and complexity to his work in this historical fiction. This is the story of a bygone era, but it seems familiar since the tactics employed by the powerful are still in use. One of their favorites is getting half of the working class to turn on itself by claiming that anyone who questions the fairness of the economic system is an American hating socialist as well as probably being a secret terrorist. Meet the new boss, same as the old boss.

The only parts that really didn’t work for me were the interludes with Babe Ruth. It seems like Lehane was trying to point out some things regarding a common guy who could barely read becoming rich and famous as a city ripped itself apart while refusing to pay its police a living wage, but those segments just didn’t seem to sync up with the other action.

Still, it’s one of Lehane’s best and most ambitious books yet.
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Aug 17, 2008 Dave rated it 5 of 5 stars

Lehane hasn't written a book in five years. The Given Day is his return to fiction.

It is a big book, both in length (700 pages) and scope. Set in late 1918-1919, the book follows two men, one Irish Boston cop Danny Coughlin and a black man from Tulsa Luther Laurence. The book explores race, baseball, the Boston Police Strike, terrorism, love, and a whole mess of other topics.

It is a huge book, and it is beautifully written. I could not put it down.

The major complaint about this book, I feel, is...more

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Apr 05, 2013 Kat rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: slow-burner

Surprise, surprise!

I have read Dennis Lehane before, and he's most famously known as a mystery and crime writer. Not as much for historical fiction, which this novel should be labeled as. I had expected something completely different, but it was a pleasant surprise.

It takes place in 1919 and largely revolves around the Boston police strike as well as some of its key people. Not being familiar with this event on beforehand I found this story very captivating. Lehane cleverly introduces us to the...more

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Feb 09, 2009 Kathleen Gilroy rated it 2 of 5 stars

I awaited fervently for my turn at the library for this book and was pretty gravely disappointed. It begins with great promise -- the period in time in Boston's history where the end of WWI, the outbreak of the great influenza epidemic, violent terrorism, and the formation of labor unions all intersect to create huge social upheaval. But I just can't finish, despite how piqued my interest is about this period of history. The writing was often wooden; the characterizations are stock and flat; I d...more

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Sep 15, 2008 Will Byrnes rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: lehane, mystery-and-spy-fiction

Lehane is a wonderful writer. Mystic River was his opus magnus, and his Boston hard-boileds are quite good. This novel is his attempt to break out into a larger literary world. Set in the period around World War I, Lehane offers us a sense of the times, and they are not pretty. The two primary characters are Danny Coughlin, a Boston cop in a long tradition, and Luther Laurence, a poor black. There is much in here about the condition of the working man, and it is startling, even to someone who ha...more Lehane is a wonderful writer. Mystic River was his opus magnus, and his Boston hard-boileds are quite good. This novel is his attempt to break out into a larger literary world. Set in the period around World War I, Lehane offers us a sense of the times, and they are not pretty. The two primary characters are Danny Coughlin, a Boston cop in a long tradition, and Luther Laurence, a poor black. There is much in here about the condition of the working man, and it is startling, even to someone who has read quite a bit about the struggle of labor for decent treatment. Things were much worse than I’d imagined. This is a sweeping effort, as Lehane projects himself through a Dickensian lens, covering geography from Boston to Ohio to Tulsa, from Babe Ruth to the governor of Massachusetts to the lowliest criminal element. Lehane has done his homework and offers considerable information about the time. Two incidents stand out. One was the collapse of a vast molasses container that resulted in a flood of the stuff with waves 15 feet high. The other, his burning of Atlanta scene, is how the citizens of Boston react to the police strike. He offers us as well a sense of the political turmoil of the time, the Palmer raids, the fear of Bolshevists, anarchists and immigrants, and how those fears were stoked for political gain. Sound familiar? Lehane is particularly eager not to present his book as being political, and there are many readers who will not see what is right in front of them, but this novel keeps a sharp eye on contemporary events.

This is not Lehane’ best book. That would be Mystic River. But it is an ambitious one. Coming in at slightly over 700 fast-reading pages, it is by far his largest. And he writes about a much wider swath of humanity than he has before. I would say that overall he succeeds in the attempt. This is a very good book, engaging, with believable, well-drawn characters, insight into the complexities of familial relationships, sensitivity to the cultural environment of that age, and with a critical, politically aware eye.

There are several scenes in which Babe Ruth figures. While these scenes are fine, with one being outstanding (the contract negotiation), they could have been omitted without damaging the overall story.

Lehane is an excellent story teller and he plies his trade here quite well. Where the book falls short of the rare air occupied by books like Serena is in his hesitation to incorporate grander imagery into his work. He tells his story, with many intense scenes, many interesting and memorable events, but not the metaphorical, mythological ear of a Ron Rash or a Michael Ondaatje. This keeps the reins on his work. I expect that in future the reins will be loosened and he will produce work in this new Dickensian vein that might be remembered as long as the work of his hero.

This is a terrific book. Read it.
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Oct 06, 2008 Laurie rated it 3 of 5 stars

This book had so much going for it, I couldn't put it down...at least for the first 400 pages. But then I started to feel the characters were being manipulated from the outside, not operating from internal truths, and there were quite a few anachronistic conversations and unbelievavle relationships between African Americans and whites (given the time period, 1919).

I'd recommend it for the history and the exciting read, but in the end I think it couldn've been stronger. I think, secretly, Lehane...more

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Feb 27, 2011 switterbug (Betsey) rated it 5 of 5 stars

I frequently experience a letdown after reading the choice new releases that publishers and literary critics push and bookstores parade as the greatest novel of the decade. So I was wary but seduced, anyway, to buy Lehane's book--by Boston, by the Red Sox, by themes of racial injustice and social unrest, by the parallels to contemporary issues, and by Lehane's accomplishment with Mystic River.

I was impressed by Lehane's ambitious genre-crossing. The quality of this book is sufficiently steep th...more I frequently experience a letdown after reading the choice new releases that publishers and literary critics push and bookstores parade as the greatest novel of the decade. So I was wary but seduced, anyway, to buy Lehane's book--by Boston, by the Red Sox, by themes of racial injustice and social unrest, by the parallels to contemporary issues, and by Lehane's accomplishment with Mystic River.

I was impressed by Lehane's ambitious genre-crossing. The quality of this book is sufficiently steep that the minor flaws are forgivable. This resonant story with memorable, marrow-deep characters did not fade away after the final page.

Amazon provides an exuberant introduction to this novel, so my desire is to share my response to reading it rather than retelling the events. And there are teeming, cataclysmic events that vitalize the story.

Danny Coughlin and Luther Laurence, the two main protagonists, are portrayed with virile consciousness and psychological intensity. I see them, feel them, hear them, smell them-- until I am breathing them. They are nervy and knuckled. They are not merely the broad strokes that you sometimes get in a period piece of sprawling, epic proportions (although there are a few Rocky-esque contours). They are not secondary to advancing the plot. Danny and Luther drive the story as the story also fuels them. And there is enough brio to keep them elastic and passionate. Danny's father, Thomas Coughlin (police captain), is especially interesting. He is a mixture of confident swagger, moral ambiguity, and tragedy--the closest of the characters to a literary one. He is the most unpredictable and enigmatic and keeps you changing your mind about him until the end of the novel.

Although there is some sentimentality to the story and main characters, I did not feel short-changed. Although the author is transparent about his political views, he makes them tactile and combative in detail and luster.

The background and landscape become character, also. It breathes and belches with dust, dirt, steel, mortar, sky, and water. The potent imagery adds dramatic tension and texture to the story without dragging it down. Individuals struggle to harness their environment and reconcile with its impersonal but cruel nature. Lehane intertwines the landscape as extended metaphor and foreshadowing as well as time, place, and temperament. His descriptions give a fierce undercurrent to a subdued atmosphere and tone--there is never just one sustained note (another problem with some period pieces).

Some reviewers cite stilted dialogue with too much exposition. I did not experience that to any significant extent. There were some moments near the beginning of the novel that were a bit awkward, but once the momentum got going and the characters were well-oiled, the story became fluid and powerful. There is a curve in historical fiction where readers adjust to the author's chosen prose style and narrative flow. This is not a perfect novel--some of the architecture of it can strain believability and it waxes sentimental. And yet it is exhilarating, consistently engrossing. It never got musty or flat--it remained plump and invigorating. Its visceral engagement kept it at a 5-star excellence. Like Steinbeck's East of Eden, it is flawed and overflowing and exciting.

This is an intelligent page-turner--also a thriller, a drama, a period piece, and family saga. It is fiery and wet, tempestuous and fierce. And a gift on any given day.(less)

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Oct 29, 2012 Marleen rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: favorites

I've read this book for the first time in Sept-Oct. of 2011 (see review hereafter). This time around I've listened to the Audio version (audible.com) and the impact of the story is the same: this is and remains an amazing narrative of a specific tumultuous time in the city of Boston. A huge round of applause for Michael Boatman who did a fantastic job bringing to life so flawlessly the many different characters that are featured. He did a great job with all the accents!

1st review:
The minute I re...more I've read this book for the first time in Sept-Oct. of 2011 (see review hereafter). This time around I've listened to the Audio version (audible.com) and the impact of the story is the same: this is and remains an amazing narrative of a specific tumultuous time in the city of Boston. A huge round of applause for Michael Boatman who did a fantastic job bringing to life so flawlessly the many different characters that are featured. He did a great job with all the accents!

1st review:
The minute I read other reviews of this book, I couldn’t wait to read it. So after work I hurried to the local library. I knew I had to read it. And boy, am I thrilled I did!
This book is a dazzling historical read about what the city of Boston went through in 1918-1919: Spanish Influenza (the grippe), social unrest (anarchists, Bolsheviks...) and the horrible working conditions of so many laborers and workers, but especially of the Boston Police Department. Two young men are pivotal characters: Danny, a beat cop, rebelling against his strong police captain father, and a young African-American, Luther, who hooks up with the wrong crowd in Tulsa, finds himself in quite a bit of trouble and ends up ‘in hiding” in Boston. I truly enjoyed Luther and Danny’s friendship that forms through the pages. There are around 20 other important characters, all multi-layered and craftily fleshed out, some so obviously mean and vicious (Eddie McKenna, commissioner Curtis, mayor Peeters to only name a few), and then some good-hearted and genuine people like the Giddreaux, and sweet young Joe. It’s sad to say that the scale of bad people tips the good one. Beyond any doubt, Luther was my favorite character; flawed, compassionate, strong, and loyal.

When I start a new book I’m always looking to be fully immersed into a new world or to be swept away into a big new adventure, and certainly, that’s what I experienced here – Dennis Lehane is a good story-teller and writer – imagery of early 20th century metropolitan life are painted in a strong and bold language, and the meditation on the historical and cultural reality that is Boston it is absolutely superb. This is an exceptional book offering us a vivid tale of the struggle and the sacrifice of the generations that precede us in order to give us the good life we have today. My only minor point of criticism would be the length of the book. There’s so much information! And it’s absolutely very interesting. Still, trimming a few scenes here and there would’ve have made the reading experience even more blissful and enrapturing.
Overall a stunning read.

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Jul 20, 2010 Carmen rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: favorites

I'm a sucker for epics, especially family-dramas that come with "cast of characters" or "family tree" sections, so I was bound to love this 700-page tome.

The Given Day completely immerses you in a pivotal moment in history, giving you the sights, sounds, and tensions of early-1900's Boston, a city struggling to recover from World War I and all of its residual effects. The characters are richly drawn out and their struggles are very human. The historical details were well researched, and the time...more

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Jan 30, 2009 Margaret rated it 5 of 5 stars

After five years’ silence, The Bard of South Boston swings for the fences with this sprawling, brawling entry in the Epic American Novel sweepstakes, and for me he hits a home run. Although it shares the same home turf as his earlier work (Mystic River, Gone Baby Gone), this novel is a period piece, set just after World War I in an America I hadn’t realized was so similar to the one we’ve been living in for the last few years: grappling with the effects of a devastating war, the exact reasons fo...more After five years’ silence, The Bard of South Boston swings for the fences with this sprawling, brawling entry in the Epic American Novel sweepstakes, and for me he hits a home run. Although it shares the same home turf as his earlier work (Mystic River, Gone Baby Gone), this novel is a period piece, set just after World War I in an America I hadn’t realized was so similar to the one we’ve been living in for the last few years: grappling with the effects of a devastating war, the exact reasons for which had been forgotten, if indeed they’d ever really been known; terrified by the threat of foreign anarchists bombing public buildings and killing civilians, with the presumed aim of destroying democracy and the American Way Of Life; and mercilessly manipulated by corrupt and greedy politicians exploiting the country’s fear and xenophobia to preserve their own wealth and power. Sound familiar?

In Boston, half the city is struggling uneasily to evolve with the changing times, the other half fighting equally hard to maintain the status quo, and Lehane wraps his arms round it all, juggling three story lines that at first go forward separately, only occasionally kissing past each other like billiard balls, and then eventually sweep together in the rising tide of events. We follow the various journeys of Danny Coughlin, latest in a long line of Boston Irish cops, trying to reconcile family pride and public service with his personal ideals and deep sense of individual morality; African-American Luther Laurence, a gifted baseball player who’ll never be allowed to play the game because of his race, a good man who spends most of the novel trying to fight his way back from one devastating misjudgement; and, appearing at intervals in chapters that stand apart from the rest of the book and yet reflect on its main narrative action, Babe Ruth, an oversized innocent caring only for baseball and made immune somehow by his purity of purpose to the currents of change raging all around him.

The way that Lehane combines fictional characters with non-fictional ones (J Edgar Hoover, Jack Reed, W.E.B. DuBois) and imagined narrative with historical event (the flu epidemic of 1918, the Boston Policemen’s Strike, the Molasses Disaster) is reminiscent of Ragtime. But where Doctorow approaches his story in elegiac mood, as a kind of poet-academic, Lehane’s two-fisted, blood-in-the-eye prose pulses with passion and testosterone – although he can be poetic as well after his own fashion, especially when writing about baseball, as he does in the book’s almost painfully beautiful prologue about an unexpected pick-up game played in a field on a summer afternoon in Ohio. (A soundly hit ball “climbs the sky like it had hands and knees.”) Simply the best novel I’ve read in a long long time, with vivid, vital characters, a rich and immediate sense of place, and a raw, you-are-there energy that makes it a compulsive, compelling and absolutely satisfying read.

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Jul 29, 2008 Mike rated it 4 of 5 stars Recommends it for: most everyone....

7/26/08: I'm half-done, and half in love. Oh, it's a realistic love, of warts as well as wonders, but I admit: I'm a sucker for a book so fully invested in exploring the deep rifts and crimes of class and race in America.

Lehane's novel opens with a baseball game, inviting comparisons to DeLillo, and his prior work in detective fiction clued us earlier to his fondness for Hammett and Chandler. But his real roots in this book run through the social realism of the early-twentieth-century. No postm...more 7/26/08: I'm half-done, and half in love. Oh, it's a realistic love, of warts as well as wonders, but I admit: I'm a sucker for a book so fully invested in exploring the deep rifts and crimes of class and race in America.

Lehane's novel opens with a baseball game, inviting comparisons to DeLillo, and his prior work in detective fiction clued us earlier to his fondness for Hammett and Chandler. But his real roots in this book run through the social realism of the early-twentieth-century. No postmodern games, no ironic detachment--no, Lehane, like Pietro di Donato and Michael Gold, wears his heart on his sleeve, has fire in his eye, is willing to embrace a cliche or a clumsy bit of exposition to see the story through. If the plotting gets a bit hamfisted, the footwork occasionally a little leaden, the characterization a bit too big-screen, reach back and embrace the pleasures of that genre -- these are tools more than symptoms, and the novel's punches still connect furiously and frequently: it moves and is moving in equal doses.

And now and again, besides his gift for ripping action sequences and sweeping social context, Lehane unleashes some fantastic, over-the-top lines that sweep me up again and again:

--a boxer watches an opponent on his last legs, "notic[ing] how childlike his expression had become, as if he'd just hatched."

--a baseball "soared straight at" a player "and then went lazy in the blue sky, like a duck deciding to swim the backstroke..."

Ah me. Really damn good stuff, so far, and I can't imagine it tanking.

FINISHED REVIEW:
It didn't tank. I think I hit above on most of the elements which worked throughout for me, so I'll just add a couple more thoughts:

--as with the social realist works referenced, there are moments that seem ham-handedly plotted, the kind of ex machina coincidences that make me cringe (literally a page or two after a character is mentioned for the first time, the secret of his existence revealed, he walks out of a storm to interrupt a dinner party). The sincerity, the melodrama of such moments -- the operatic over-the-top "sweep" of many instances will probably drive some readers crazy, and made even this reader slow down, fall out of the rush of plot and ideas and energy.

--But such moments are few, and as often as they put the brakes on, equally often they were bound up in the book's many, many pleasures. This book's just a hair over 700 pages long, yet I flew through it, and there's little empty padding--it's not big out of mere ambition to be big, but out of a real and achieved sense of historical, political, and familial sweep. I enjoyed the hell out of my read, despite those twinges.

I'll close with an admission of my shameless appreciation for the novel's politics, and of its aesthetic decisions: at times I kind of wish it were more like The Wire, more sophisticated in its sweep and detail, more grounded in more far-reaching social examination, more subtle in its depiction of character. But how many people saw that show? And, instead, we get a big, popular, page-turning, and populist fiction which defines the necessity of unions, which details the longstanding historical crimes of poverty and race? Which exploits the many, many associations between the anti-anarchist furor of 1918 and the current state of American politics (while carefully drawing the lines between capital and the politics of fear)? We should have more fiction like this. (less)

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Mar 04, 2009 Runakiko rated it 4 of 5 stars

I'm from Massachusetts so I expect I would like this book more than people who aren't from this neck of the woods. Lehane does a really good job of taking you back to 1918-19 so as to give you a very good sense of what it was like to live in those times. There is not a lot of action, but you become absorbed in the times as if you were there and could smell the smells, and feel the grimey environment of yesteryear.

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Jun 30, 2008 Sara rated it 5 of 5 stars Recommends it for: anyone

Recommended to Sara by: I picked it up at Book Expo

A masterful and sprawling epic, I found this novel to be extremely engaging and delicately crafted. Dennis Lehane was one of my favorite authors prior to reading this, so I might be a bit biased, but I believe it's his best work to date and, more importantly, a truly remarkable read. Lehane's breadth of knowledge on the subject (I'm being intentionally cryptic, I don't want to spoil anyone) is impressive, to say the least and you'll be hooked until the very last sentence.

It's a family epic that...more

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Mar 21, 2009 Tony rated it 4 of 5 stars

This sweeping historical novel covers a very particular time and place: Boston in the era just after World War I. The Irish are consolidating their power and taking control of the city, the Italian and Slavic immigrants are the new pariahs - and blacks, well, they are scorned by everyone. The great influenza epidemic of 1918, the Boston Police strike of 1919, "Boshevik" workers groups, and the resentment of the old guard Beacon Hill Brahmins toward the Irish ascendency - all combine to create fe...more

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Feb 27, 2009 Tony rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: fiction-mainstream

Lehane, Dennis. THE GIVEN DAY. (2008). *****. Be prepared to spend a few nights with this novel from Lehane. It is a long, long book. When you have finished it, however, you will realize that you have just read Lehane’s best bool. It is the story of an Irish policeman in Boston in the year 1919. It is also the story of a black man on the run from the law who ends up in Boston as a servant to the policeman’s family on Beacon Hill. 1919 was a turbulent year, and Lehane uses all of the history to s...more

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Feb 05, 2009 Bookmarks Magazine added it

Lehane illustrates impressive versatility at crossing genres in this grand historical novel. Still, while the most enthusiastic reviewers compared Given Day to the best by Doctorow and Dreiser, more cited it as a sweeping

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Jan 11, 2009 Banafsheh Serov rated it 5 of 5 stars

The Given Day is in that class of books my husband affectionately refers to as ‘widow makers’. Once I started reading this book, I was quickly immersed in the story and the rest of the world simply dissolved. The Given Day documents a time of violence and struggle for workers rights which saw the birth of the union movement. Against this historical and political landscape, Lehane writes a powerful and moving family epic with sharp and well researched narrative and surprising cameo use of histori...more The Given Day is in that class of books my husband affectionately refers to as ‘widow makers’. Once I started reading this book, I was quickly immersed in the story and the rest of the world simply dissolved. The Given Day documents a time of violence and struggle for workers rights which saw the birth of the union movement. Against this historical and political landscape, Lehane writes a powerful and moving family epic with sharp and well researched narrative and surprising cameo use of historical figures such as Babe Ruth and J Edgar Hoover as pivotal character points.

Set in Boston in 1919, The Given Day follows the turmoil of events following the return of the WWI war veterans. During this time, the Spanish Influenza, escalating terrorism and the talk of prohibition plagued America. Danny Coughlin, a police officer and the eldest son of one of Boston’s legendary police captains, empathizes with the people’s grievances. Living and working in the predominantly Italian neighbourhoods of the North End, he is faced with the daily assault of the political dissent. He sees first hand the effect of poor working conditions have on those around him. In his own profession, Danny’s pay is below the poverty line and despite long shifts and often dangerous conditions; there is no compensation for his colleagues in the event of injury or disability. When he joins the union, he finds fierce opposition from his father who considers those who join unions as ‘Bolshevik’s and anarchists’ and the stage is set for a showdown between the two.

Another central character in the book is Luther Laurence, a coloured talented baseball player, on the run over a nightclub shooting in Oklahoma. Leaving his wife and unborn child, Luther flees to Boston where he finds employment in the Coughlin household. There he befriends Danny and the Coughlin Irish maid Nora. His troubles however are not far behind as he finds himself once again having to settle scores with old and new enemies.

Lehane’s style is impressive by the way the words leap out of the page with great energy and passion, bringing history alive in their punchy deliverance. I found myself savoring this book, not wanting it to end, and feeling a sharp edge of regret once the end finally came.
This book confirmed Lehane as one of my favourite authors. I can't wait to read more of his books.(less)

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Dec 16, 2008 Lori Eskridge rated it 5 of 5 stars

This is a book that is hard to put down. It is a historical fiction that takes place in 1918 and 1919 mostly in Boston, MA. There is a real person in history in it. Babe Ruth is featured. He played with the Boston Red Sox when they won the world series in 1918. The book deals with class warfare and prejudice. There is an African American man named Luther who first meets Babe Ruth and actually plays baseball with him and other players of the Red Sox. Babe Ruth treated him like an equal when he w...more

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Feb 18, 2013 Cheryl A rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: historical-mystery

Dennis Lehane's opus on Boston during the aftermath of WWI is not an easy read. Not only is it over 700 pages, The Given Day deals with a world that is full of ugliness and hatred.

The novel follows two main characters, Danny Coughlin, a police officer and Luther Laurence, a black man running from troubles in Oklahoma. Danny is the eldest son of Thomas Couglin, a captain in the Boston Police Department and godson of Eddie McKenna, the head of special operations. Danny is sent undercover into the...more

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Jan 05, 2013 Judy rated it 4 of 5 stars

I am giving this 4 stars because of the quailty of Lehane's writing; not because this was a fun or easy read. My goodness but these people suffered from page one to the end of the story; maybe Babe Ruth didn't suffer as much as the main characters, but Oye Vey; what a story. I had no idea about the Boston Police Strike of 1919 and how it propelled Calvin Coolidge to national notice and later to the presidency. I was familiar with the flu epidemic of 1918; my husband and I have grandfathers we ne...more

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Dec 29, 2012 Jim Leffert rated it 5 of 5 stars

Lehane offers an absorbing and affecting historical novel of urban life in the U.S. in 1918 and 1919, taking place primarily in Boston and Tulsa, Oklahoma. It’s one of those stories where you feel a connection to the characters and through their struggles, become aware of larger political, economic, and cultural currents.

Luther Lawrence is a young black man from Ohio, who gravitates toward excitement, who falls in with a gangster in Tulsa. After Luther kills the gangster and injures one of his c...more Lehane offers an absorbing and affecting historical novel of urban life in the U.S. in 1918 and 1919, taking place primarily in Boston and Tulsa, Oklahoma. It’s one of those stories where you feel a connection to the characters and through their struggles, become aware of larger political, economic, and cultural currents.

Luther Lawrence is a young black man from Ohio, who gravitates toward excitement, who falls in with a gangster in Tulsa. After Luther kills the gangster and injures one of his confederates, he flees from Tulsa to Boston, leaving his new, pregnant wife behind.

Danny Coughlin is a young police officer in Boston. Danny is the son of an Irish immigrant who has attained prominence as a captain in the police ranks. Danny’s godfather, a bigoted and corrupt police lieutenant named Eddie McKenna, recruits Danny to spy on the nascent patrolmen’s union. Not surprisingly, Danny identifies with his ill-treated fellow beat cops and becomes a union activist. McKenna also recruits Danny to go underground and gather information about the union activists and anarchist terrorists who are supposedly in cahoots.

Danny and Luther, who has found work as part of Coughlin, Sr.’s domestic staff, come to recognize one another as kindred spirits and become friends. Luther is in danger of being caught and getting sent back to Tulsa, where either death or prison awaits him. Luther’s danger is acute since Eddie McKenna keeps circling around him like a shark. Meanwhile, Danny is in danger because of his underground activities. Moreover, Danny has to choose between respectability and advancement by doing what his father and Eddie want his to do or, alternatively, following his natural sympathies, which make him both a target and, potentially, a loser. Danny and Luther’s struggles are heightened by the polarized atmosphere of the time, when Red-baiting hysteria and union-management clashes are rampant. The U.S. Attorney General, Mitchell Palmer, and his young disciple, J. Edgar Hoover, are scheming to mobilize government forces and popular opinion against the labor activists for their alleged subversive ties.

This rich historical narrative encompasses the tail end of World War I, the deadly 1918 flu epidemic, the latter part of Babe Ruth’s time with the Red Sox (the Sultan of Swat is himself a character in the story), the rise of the NAACP, the 1919 North End molasses storage tank explosion, the onset of Prohibition, and the Boston patrolman’s strike, which was suppressed by the National Guard under the orders of Governor Calvin Coolidge. I promise you that after reading this book, you’ll never see Coolidge the same way again! Danny’s romantic attractions and complications are also part of the story. All in all, I highly recommend this book. A sequel, Live By Night, which tells the story of Danny’s younger brother, Joe, has recently been published.
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Dec 28, 2012 Bobbie Williams rated it 5 of 5 stars

Like all of Dennis Lehanes books.So well written and characters that are brought to life. You will feel as though you know them. I loved it.

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...more

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Dec 01, 2012 Diane rated it 4 of 5 stars

This is a great historical novel about Boston at the end of WWI, 1919. Boston, like much of the rest of the country, suffered from the great influenza, racial strive, labor unrest, revolutionaries, crime, and political corruption. (Wow! What a time and place to be alive!) The story centers on one black and one white family as they try to survive the social turmoil and violence of their lives. The Irish white family make their living with the police department and are caught up in the Boston poli...more

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Nov 20, 2012 Shonna Froebel rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I've been listening to this for a while on my commute (it is 20 CDs!) and enjoying it thoroughly. It is definitely an emotiona read, causing me to feel sadness and rage at various points in the book. The novel follows a couple of characters with depth, with additional appearances by Babe Ruth throughout. The action takes place in 1918 and 1919, mostly in Boston, but also in Ohio and Tulsa, Oklahoma. One of the main characters is Danny Coughlin, a beat cop in Boston. Danny's father is a captain i...more

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Nov 19, 2012 Vanessa Gorman rated it 5 of 5 stars

A beautifully-written story interwoven from threads on race, class, ethnicity, gender, and the power structure of this country, this book is set in 1918-1919 Boston, when being Irish wasn't white enough to be part of the ruling establishment--forget about Italian or Eastern European--and anyone who wanted a living wage and reasonable working conditions was labelled "Red." LeHane follows two main characters, one a black worker and the other an Irish cop, and he also brings in Babe Ruth for a furt...more

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Oct 16, 2012 Pamela rated it 1 of 5 stars Recommends it for: No one at all

Can't believe I'm giving a Lehane book only one star. What's worse, it was so bad I couldn't even finish it. First of all, I am not a baseball fan. I don't like it. Never have. Never will. In addition, I do not think baseball is a metaphor for life. There. That's said.

Perhaps I could have struggled through to the end if I had cared for any of the characters. I did not. I especially didn't care about the main character. It wasn't that I disliked him. It was more that I was entirely apathetic towa...more

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Aug 17, 2012 Steven Langdon rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: super

Dennis Lehane is noted for his hard-edged detective novels, set in working-class Boston, and several of his books that have been turned into fine movies, including "Shutter Island," "Gone, Baby, Gone," and "Mystic River." This book, however, is a much deeper historical novel, set in early twentieth century America, that dissects racism and class conflict with passion, sensitivity and immense insight.

There are two main story lines -- the struggle for survival and dignity of Luther Laurence and hi...more

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Jul 09, 2012 Carl added it

Shelves: american, crime, historical-fiction, literature

Compelling family/national drama written by a master of plot and character. Good and evil aren't really hard to determine in this historical novel, and despite the rich number of characters it's not hard to stay oriented, but there is an appealing amount of complexity. The topics -- racism, justice, the rights of the workingman -- resonate while defying easy answers.

The most interesting subtle undercurrent here, for me, is the relevance of the Modernist moment in this novel that has no other pre...more Compelling family/national drama written by a master of plot and character. Good and evil aren't really hard to determine in this historical novel, and despite the rich number of characters it's not hard to stay oriented, but there is an appealing amount of complexity. The topics -- racism, justice, the rights of the workingman -- resonate while defying easy answers.

The most interesting subtle undercurrent here, for me, is the relevance of the Modernist moment in this novel that has no other pretensions toward philosophy. The second semi-explicit mention of this rang, more than 500 pages into the book, when protagonist Danny Coughlin tells his youngest brother (Joe) about their middle brother -- ambitious, conventional, conformist lawyer Connor -- that "Maybe when [Connor] sees something that confuses him, he feels like he needs an answer right then. And if the answer ain't right in front of him, he grabs onto whatever is and makes it the answer" (509). There's an earlier mention of a similar theme: the suggestion that change into the Modern era is so unsettling that it is profoundly and painfully revolutionary. Another conduit for this idea is the simpleminded character Babe Ruth, baseball's most famous figure, who pops up Forrest-Gump-like throughout the story as a powerful id confused by the world's sudden expectation that human beings have a superego. Even Babe recognizes some key and painful truths, though.

Lehane is not as expert with labor as he is with crime and violence and ethnicity and language and relationships -- point is, he's very good at very many things -- but he does work well with labor as well. Propaganda and the idea of "framing" disputes ("telling a better bedtime story," as a historical character tells Danny on 561) have to be addressed in the story of the Boston Police strike of 1919, and important truths are revealed effectively without seeming too preachy.

But he's more fun when he characterizes ironically. The ineffectual, incestuously pedophilic Mayor Peters (another real person, whose descendants will surely find his portrayal herein to be hideous) is one of many unloveable characters whose twisted views enhance the whole portrait of a Boston in tumult.

The multiple perspectives and excellent action sequences meld vibrant characters and history to make this so appealing.(less)

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Jun 02, 2012 Arwen Miller rated it 3 of 5 stars

Interspersed with short vignettes featuring Babe Ruth, this book is meant to be a wide-ranging portrait of Boston in 1918-19. It encompasses the Spanish Influenza (the book refers to it as "the grippe"), the ongoing labor movement and strikes, the explosion of a molasses factory in Boston, and the Boston policemen's strike and subsequent rioting. However, for all its historical scope, the book remains character-driven. It's just too bad that so many of the characters are flat. There are storylin...more Interspersed with short vignettes featuring Babe Ruth, this book is meant to be a wide-ranging portrait of Boston in 1918-19. It encompasses the Spanish Influenza (the book refers to it as "the grippe"), the ongoing labor movement and strikes, the explosion of a molasses factory in Boston, and the Boston policemen's strike and subsequent rioting. However, for all its historical scope, the book remains character-driven. It's just too bad that so many of the characters are flat. There are storylines that are presented and appear to lead somewhere deeper, but then go nowhere, leaving the reader to wonder why so much significance was given to certain passages that are never referred to again (I feel this may be a device Lehane is using to demonstrate how it's impossible for an individual to encompass/comprehend everything that's happening at a particular moment in history while it's happening, but I still found it frustrating as a reader).

Though Lehane is careful to appear neutral and to present the more complex aspects of the political and social issues he grapples with, it's clear that he means this book as a commentary on issues of the present day. Though some his characters may be conflicted, it's clear that though he recognizes the struggles they face in a rapidly changing world, Lehane himself suffers from no such conflict. He is excellent at showing how rights we now take for granted were fought for, and why it was necessary to do so.

Lehane's characters are both the most fulfilling and most frustrating part of this book. Some are flat cartoons and some suffer through real conflicts of the soul and deepen as they go, but none went as deep as I'd have liked them to. My feelings about certain characters changed throughout the book--in particular police captain Thomas Coughlin, who I alternated between despising, admiring, and feeling sympathy for. The fact that Lehane can make you like a character, then hate them, then sympathize with them, then like them again but still feel circumspect/distrustful about them, is a skill I wanted to see more of. Some characters simply felt like props who existed to move the story forward. From someone who is capable of taking you on an emotional journey with a character, I ed.

Whatever other criticisms I may have, the book was a page-turner. I cared what happened to the characters and wanted to see how things resolved themselves, or if they did. Lehane is good at showing family conflict and power struggles, and masterful at creating the type of suspense that makes you not want to put the book down. Don't come to this book expecting new insights into the human condition, but a fast-moving story, the historical details, and Lehane's wry sense of humor make it well worth the read.(less)

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May 08, 2012 Carl Brush rated it 5 of 5 stars

It was fascinating to me that I would read Richard Price’s Clockers (On which see my recent comments) and Dennis Lehane’s The Given Day (be sure to click on the 3-minute video interview with Lehane on this link) in such close proximity to one another. Lehane illustrates where Richard Price could go if he chose to. Lehane is by and large bound by the territory in and around Boston. Coronado (play and Short story volume), set in small town New Mexico, is a high-quality exception that proves his v...more It was fascinating to me that I would read Richard Price’s Clockers (On which see my recent comments) and Dennis Lehane’s The Given Day (be sure to click on the 3-minute video interview with Lehane on this link) in such close proximity to one another. Lehane illustrates where Richard Price could go if he chose to. Lehane is by and large bound by the territory in and around Boston. Coronado (play and Short story volume), set in small town New Mexico, is a high-quality exception that proves his versatility. But most of his stuff depends on an intense sense of geography, neighborhood, and character of the northeast. Yet, nothing ever stales the way it does--at least for me--with Price, even though both use the mystery form extensively. Lehane has jumped around in time somewhat in the past (Mystic River is set in the fifties), but this time he’s written a genuinehistorical novel in a setting nearly a century past. And he once again demonstrates why he, Louise Erdrich, and Cormac McCarthy are my favorite living American authors.
The focus of the action is the Boston Police Strike of 1920 (which I hadn’t known about) and an Irish family whose lives and fortunes are twined with the department. The tyrannical father is a Captain, the older son, Danny, (our protagonist) a patrolman, one younger brother a lawyer. Amid horrid working conditions (72-hour shifts, requirements to buy their own uniforms, filthy station houses) the officers strive to protect and serve under the yoke of brutal management which constantly breaks promises to increase wages and clean things up. In the course of the novel, we wade through the 1918 flu epidemic, the tensions of WWI, the birth of FBI anti-terrorism (Meet the young and zealous John Hoover), the rising influence of the NAACP, and the birth of modern big league baseball (Babe Ruth is a recurring character.) This may sound like a kitchen sink potpourri, but Lehane manages it all deftly.
In his little video on the Harper Collins site, Lehane calls The Given Day an “epic.” I’m not sure what he means, but it certainly has some scope. Three sons battling a father, who worked his way up from immigrant poverty. A subplot odyssey with Luther Laurence the main black character’s family that goes from Ohio to Oklahoma and back to Boston via Kansas City. There are two men who can’t quite admit they’re in love, realize how intensely they feel a bit late, and try to claw their way back to their women. There’s race, racism, and a glimmer of the possibility of racial reconciliation. Much of the boss-worker, terrorist-civil-rights struggle seems uncomfortably modern. The Patriot Act mentality has been alive and well since the founding of the republic, and it is alive and well in The Given Day.
A short word about language. Lehane uses modern profanity. That is, there’s a lot of “fuck,” where the cursing of the day to my understanding was more liable to be religious than sexual. Furthermore, he uses the modern locution of, for example, “Fuck you doing?” instead of “What the fuck you doing?” I suppose it’s a device that has the effect of keeping the reader involved, and once I got used to it, I gave him a pass. Still bothered me though.
The heart of the book,however, lies not in such devices but in Lehane’s characters--flawed, often flailing, but trying to keep themselves on track toward some version of happiness and virtue even though life makes it hard to keep from going another way. It’s a struggle we all have, though most of us don’t have to suffer so extremely. But we all have it, and The Given Day yanks you in and keeps tugging at you all the way through. It’s one of those books I’m sorry I finished. I’d like to still be reading it. My one disappointment is that I’ve been unsuccessful in finding the meaning of the title. If anyone has an idea let me know. In the meantime, I’m happy to live in the dark about it as long as I have the memory of the book by my side.
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About Dennis Lehane

Dennis Lehane (born Aug 4th, 1966) is an American author. He has written several novels, including the New York Times bestseller Mystic River, which was later made into an Academy Award winning film, also called Mystic River, directed by Clint Eastwood and starring Sean Penn, Tim Robbins, and Kevin Bacon (Lehane can be briefly seen waving from a car in the parade scene at the end of the film). The...more

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A Drink Before the War (Kenzie & Gennaro, #1)

Darkness, Take My Hand (Kenzie & Gennaro, #2)

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“And he hated himself and hated her,too, for the ruin they'd made of each other.” — 80 people liked it

“Your first family is your blood family and you always be true to that. That means something. But there's another family and that's the kind you go out and find. Maybe even by accident sometimes. And they're as much blood as your first family. Maybe more so, because they don't have to look out for you and they don't have to love you. They choose to.” — 36 people liked it

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