“A Nail Biter That Carries Serious Moral Gravity”

One of the delights I took away from my Bouchercon Baltimore experience recently was finally meeting Dennis Lehane, who made an impromptu appearance. I even managed to get Lehane to sign my copy of his opus, The Given Day, which I have been looking forward to reading. In addition, I recently enjoyed listening to Lehane read a section of that new historical novel, which is available as an MP3 podcast from The [Boston] Phoenix. As that paper explains,

In The Given Day, Lehane surveys the vortex of chaos that gripped 1919-era Boston--a city rocked by anarchist terrorism, Spanish influenza, World War I, the Great Molasses Flood, and the Boston Police Strike--through the eyes of a black ballplayer and an Irish cop. (It may come as no surprise that this book got snapped up by Hollywood a good three months before it hit bookstore shelves; at the moment, Sam Raimi is set to direct.)

Lehane kicked off his Harvard Square appearance (held in the cozy First Parish Church Parlor Room last Friday) by reading a few tantalizing passages, including his brutal account of the 1916 terrorist bombing of a North End police station. He then turned the floor over to the audience for a lively 40-minute Q&A session. Lehane’s a born storyteller, on the page or off the cuff, and he kept the crowd enthralled with his musings on The Given Day’s deleted Molasses Flood chapter, the historical usage of the word “motherfucker,” and how crime fiction broke out of the literary ghetto.

Click here for the soundtrack from Lehane’s Harvard Square session.