The Given Day - Brossura

Dennis Lehane

Brossura

ISBN 10: 0061804304 ISBN 13: 9780061804304

Casa editrice: Harper Collins, New York, 2009

Riassunto

From New York Times bestselling author Dennis Lehane comes the literary publishing event of the year a beautifully written novel of American history, set at the end of the Great War; an unflinching, utterly spectacular family epic that captures the political unrest of a nation dangling between a well-patterned past and an unpredictable future. In a story of families given and families chosen, bonds created and bonds destroyed, THE GIVEN DAY gives voice to the deepest meanings of union the love and friendship that link Danny, Luther, and Nora; the working men that band together to fight for their rights; the personal alliances that drive Boston business and politics; and the teamwork that cinched Red Sox victory in the 1918 World Series. Even the young Babe Ruth America s rising baseball hero and already a near-mythical figure makes several extraordinary appearances throughout Lehane s narrative. Ruth s story also resonates with the personal trajectories of Danny and Luther. All thee men struggle against fierce mechanisms of social control racism, xenophobia, and class warfare; the grind of an unforgiving economy; and the unwieldy expectations and empty promises of those in power.

Culminating in the Boston Police Strike of 1919, THE GIVEN DAY explores the crippling violence of a nation at war with itself. Echoes with today s political climate are unmistakable, particularly as the distinction between intellectual dissension and terrorism continues to narrow by the day. Lehane has crafted a timeless story as much a wonderfully rendered historical portrait as a startling mirror to contemporary American politics. Meticulously researched and expertly plotted, THE GIVEN DAY will transport readers to an unforgettable time and place, where the meek are fighting for every inch of earth, and the logic of sanity has lost its power. As fiercely held convictions and righteous rage spill blood onto Boston s streets, Lehane s characters struggle to build new lives in a crumbling world to find family in each other, and together confront the rising storm of change.

Su questo libro

Recensione:

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)

Home run. . . . Great pulp storytelling. (Time magazine)

[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)

L'autore:

Dennis Lehane was born and raised in Dorchester, Massachusetts. He is the author of A Drink Before the War, which won the Shamus Award for Best First Novel; Darkness, Take My Hand; Sacred; Gone, Baby, Gone; Prayers for Rain; and the New York Times bestsellers Mystic River and Shutter Island.

Mystic River was a finalist for the PEN/Winship Award and won both the Anthony Award and the Barry Award for Best Novel, as well as the Massachusetts Book Award in Fiction given by the Massachusetts Center for the Book. Coronado, a collection of five stories and a play, was published in the fall of 2006 and includes the story Until Gwen, which was adapted for the stage.

Lehane s work has been translated into 22 languages. He holds an MFA from Florida International University and is the writer-in-residence at Eckerd College in St. Petersburg, Florida, where he runs the Writers in Paradise writers conference. Before becoming a full-time writer, Lehane worked as a counselor with mentally handicapped and abused children, waited tables, parked cars, drove limos, worked in bookstores, and loaded tractor-trailers. He lives in the Boston area.

Su questa edizione

• Editore: Harper Collins, New York
• Data di pubblicazione: 2009
• ISBN 10: 0061804304
• ISBN 13: 9780061804304
• Rilegatura: Copertina flessibile
• Numero di pagine: 720