All the Pieces Matter: The Inside Story of The Wire

by Jonathan Abrams

DENNIS LEHANE (WRITER): Richard is the reason I’m a writer. He’s foundational. No matter how many times we’ve hung out, worked together, chatted each other up, I can never feel comfortable around the guy. It’s fucking embarrassing because I’m a pretty social dude, good at putting people at ease, but Richard must think I need Adderall because I simply can’t chill around him. I was fourteen when I read The Wanderers in the basement of my house in Dorchester, and the world was fundamentally altered between when I picked that book up and when I put it back down. And to follow his writing for my very first teleplay twenty-odd years later—that was just too daunting to contemplate. So, I blocked it out. I read the notes on his episode, saw where he was going with it, and then just put my head down and banged out my ep’.