BOOK REVIEW: A Drink Before War by Dennis Lehane (1994)

** Stars

Oh Dennis Lehane. How people like your books. I have to tell you I am a bit on the fence. I'll start with the good, as always, and move onto the other stuff.

Structure of the plot is really good. I enjoyed this in the movie Gone, Bay Gone as well. The false ending that wraps up the current action in a nagging yet continuous manner halfway through the book is great. It makes the third act a lot more interesting and focused. It also helped escalate the “what’s going to happen next” factor as well as show that there is more than one way to skin a cat in terms of plot devices. It shows forethought, care and a genuine interest in the art of storytelling.

As well as being a well-considered plot structure I also liked the compactness of the storyline. It did not seem like you were trying to overreach in this novel, your first published,  that you wrote when you were about 29 years old. Far out, you even one the Shamus Award in 1995 for this one.

You paid homage to genre. There was the damsel in distress who was also a bit of a femme fatale. There were all kinds of bad guys and a blurring between where the law began and where it ended. I enjoyed the headquarters being placed in church. On that note I think you got some good mileage out of that in terms of alluding to the culture of Boston as well as giving us a unique and interesting spin on private-dick conventions.

What else was in the mix? Deadpan, masculine confidence and dialogue. Check. Shoot outs. Check. Anti-heroes. Corruption on the mean streets, protagonist living hard while still possessing an eccentric yet sophisticated automobile. Check. All likeable, all well considered.You are never under any threat of being called pretentious.

And then there is the rest. My fence sitting begins with the way that you portray the key conflicts for all the characters. Fathers and partners feature heavily. I like the idea of males being critiqued but in this book the handling felt inelegant. Very melodramatic and, to be honest, suspension of disbelief was hard to maintain at times. There was for two reasons for this.

The first was that it felt like the mega-phone came out a few times and your protagonist became a badly disguised proxy of your own views. On the one hand I like the anger and discontent. If a writer doesn’t feel strongly about something then the work will suffer. On the flip side, if I wanted to be blasted with a monologue about what is wrong with the world I could turn to any number of co-workers for their war stories. For free. But at least you will not be misunderstood. I got you. You don’t like child abuse (sexual, psychological and physical), spousal abuse, racism and institutional corruption. I’m a bit grey on this one but I think you are also underwhelmed by anyone who wears a tie or a business shirt for their day job?

Maybe this is where my fence sitting lies. Who does like any of that stuff? If you aim at the side of the barn you are going to hit it. I don’t think you are a demagogue. There are enough nuanced moments in the book to demonstrate that you know that the world is a complicated beast. Only thing is that when I reflect on the reading that is the stuff that sticks out. It is very difficult to overlook the grab bag of social injustices you write into the story.

Well, anyway. I will tell you that when I got back into reading as an adult Shutter Island was one of the first books I took on. I am still reading as an adult, years later. Let me say thanks for helping me get back into being a reader. On this book I commend you for knowing what your targets are. Surely this must serve you by-way-of creative restriction in future works? Let me acknowledge the excellent structure of the story and your developed sense of genre convention. It is all in there. Not sure if this book is going to go down as your greatest work. But hey. Like I said, you won an award which is more than most people. I bet if you told me how many copies this has sold I would be further humbled.