While it is very
predictable, Dennis Lehane’s Live By Night is a book that I thoroughly enjoyed.
It has all the trappings that make him my favorite American writer working
today; prose and dialogue that expounds on everything from way a criminal act
goes down to the very meaning of existence, and never coming off as arrogant or
phony in doing so, and plot lines that create urgency and tension with
realistic scenes of violence and characters who make you feel and live what is
at stake in the pages. This is an indirect sequel to what I feel is Lehane’s
magnum opus The Given Day. I don’t want to say that it is any less than the
other book; it is just a different kind of story entirely. While The Given Day
is almost purely a historical novel, Live By Night is definitely a crime epic
set in the Prohibition Era, which makes this an excellent book for people who
are fans of the show Boardwalk Empire (and shows why he was brought on as a
writer for this previous season. And being a crime epic, this is a much darker
book than The Given Day. The cost of life seems greater, the chances of
survival, of both the body and the soul, are quite slim for all involved. The
focus in this chapter of Lehane’s proposed trilogy is Joe Coughlin, who
survived a bout of malaria in The Given Day, who is all grown up and leading a
life of crime. A stain on the family name according to his father Thomas, a
police commissioner, not just because of his criminal ways; he has fallen in
love with Emma Gould, a squeeze of Albert White, the rival of the boss Joe
works for. In a series of events that begin with a botched robbery, Joe is
almost beaten to death, first by White, than by his vengeful father and a group
of thuggish policeman, and Emma is presumed dead. A prison sent soon follows,
where he is taken under the wing of kingpin Maso Pescatore, and is sent down to
Florida to run his illegal rum operation. From there, he becomes a Scarface
like figure, basically running the town with his love interest Gracelia,
although trouble is never far behind, and the past comes back to try to take
away Joe’s future. This is probably the darkest Lehane has gotten since he
dealt with child abduction in Gone, Baby Gone, featuring a beating that is the
most graphic and stomach turning one I have read in recent memory. It never
glamorizes the lifestyle, and there still remains a nugget of the Joe we met in
The Given Day, who is deeply moral and wants what is best for him and those
that he loves, even though he knows that they are destined for tragedy and
ruin. This is powerful, cinematic book that takes the reader on a journey into
the darkest areas of desire, and it’s one that only Dennis Lehane can provide.
Rating: 5/5
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