Given Day - Couverture souple

Lehane, Dennis

Couverture souple

ISBN 10 : 0061804304 ISBN 13 : 9780061804304

Editeur : William Morrow Paperbacks, 2009

Synopsis

Book by Lehane Dennis

A propos du livre

Revue de presse :

Gut-wrenching force . . . [a] stunning historical novel. . . . [Lehane] has written a majestic, fiery epic that moves him far beyond the confines of the crime genre. Shades of Doctorow and Dreiser surround Mr. Lehane s choice of 1919 as the time for this expansive story. It is not simply the relatively unexplored eventfulness of that year that makes THE GIVEN DAY so far reaching; it s the relentless fierce-terrible nature of the turmoil on parade. . . . Mr. Lehane illustrates with such sweep and agility. . . . Enthralling drama. . . . [A] highly charged atmosphere. . . . Mr. Lehane signals the questions of fairness, conscience, fame, power, and tactical maneuvering that shape his panoramic story. . . . Such insight and intimate familiarity. . . . It s almost possible to forget what Mr. Lehane can ignite when tempers mount, storms gather, and unimaginably savage violence ruptures any veneer of civilized society. Not for nothing are bomb-throwing anarchists at the hears of this rich, intricate story. Once the cauldron boils over, THE GIVEN DAY becomes a wrenchingly suspenseful book. It triggers grim certainty that Mr. Lehane s tenderly drawn players will not survive the events that envelop them. . . . A deeply felt novel of political cowardice and corruption. . . . Mr. Lehane renders [the strike] with staggering fury. The searing precision with which the books describes this devastation is one of its great strengths. . . . But that quiet horror, reminiscent as it is of the best of Mystic River, is by no means this book s sole source of strength. THE GIVEN DAY is a huge, impassioned, intensively researched book that brings history alive by grounding the present in the lessons of the past. --New York Times

[Lehane] brings vividly to life the struggles that the working classes faced in pursuit of decent working conditions and a fair wage. --The New Yorker

Passionate and powerful. . . . That prologue is as fine a piece of writing as you are liable to come across this year, or maybe the next several, and it is also a great curtain-raiser for the latest work from a writer who is becoming, book by book, the foremost chronicler of social class in America. . . . How you talk, where you live, whether you rent or own your home, whom you vote for, where (and if) you work, how much money you have in the bank these are the things that fill up a soul, Lehane suggests. These are the elements that shape a destiny. Not just the color of your skin. Few contemporary American writers understand this the way Lehane does. Race, in many ways, has blinded us to the even stricter imperatives of class. . . . Lehane is trying to get his arms around the origins of modern America, the divide between red states and blue states, the great cultural cleaver that splits the country right down the middle. . . . THE GIVEN DAY is a massive, ambitious novel. --Chicago Tribune

Quatrième de couverture :

Set in Boston at the end of the First World War, New York Times bestselling author Dennis Lehane's long-awaited eighth novel unflinchingly captures the political and social unrest of a nation caught at the crossroads between past and future. Filled with a cast of unforgettable characters more richly drawn than any Lehane has ever created, The Given Day tells the story of two families—one black, one white—swept up in a maelstrom of revolutionaries and anarchists, immigrants and ward bosses, Brahmins and ordinary citizens, all engaged in a battle for survival and power. Beat cop Danny Coughlin, the son of one of the city's most beloved and powerful police captains, joins a burgeoning union movement and the hunt for violent radicals. Luther Laurence, on the run after a deadly confrontation with a crime boss in Tulsa, works for the Coughlin family and tries desperately to find his way home to his pregnant wife.

Here, too, are some of the most influential figures of the era—Babe Ruth; Eugene O'Neill; leftist activist Jack Reed; NAACP founder W. E. B. DuBois; Mitchell Palmer, Woodrow Wilson's ruthless Red-chasing attorney general; cunning Massachusetts governor Calvin Coolidge; and an ambitious young Department of Justice lawyer named John Hoover.

Coursing through some of the pivotal events of the time—including the Spanish Influenza pandemic—and culminating in the Boston Police Strike of 1919, The Given Day explores the crippling violence and irrepressible exuberance of a country at war with, and in the thrall of, itself. As Danny, Luther, and those around them struggle to define themselves in increasingly turbulent times, they gradually find family in one another and, together, ride a rising storm of hardship, deprivation, and hope that will change all their lives.

À propos de cette édition

• Éditeur: William Morrow Paperbacks
• Date d'édition: 2009
• ISBN 10: 0061804304
• ISBN 13: 9780061804304
• Reliure: Poche
• Nombre de pages: 720