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The Given Day: A Novel by Dennis Lehane

Now, in “The Given Day,” Lehane has done something brave and ambitious: He has written a historical novel that unquestionably is his grab for the brass ring, an effort to establish his credentials in literary as well as commercial terms. Immense in length and scope, it is set at the end of World War I, a time when “people were angry, people were shouting, people were dying in trenches and marching outside factories,” and it culminates in one of the most traumatic events in Boston’s history, the policemen’s strike of 1919. Meticulously researched and rich in period detail, it pulls the reader so rapidly through its complex and interesting story that it’s easy to lose sight of its shortcomings. But they are there, and they arise from the uneasy balance Lehane strikes (whether consciously or not) between the conventions of suspense fiction and his larger literary ambitions, as well as from his awkward attempt to connect a famous historical figure of the period to his fictional characters.

Washington Post Book Reviews - THE GIVEN DAY - ArcaMax Publishing.