Dennis Lehane's "The Given Day"

It might have been a little too early in Dennis Lehane's career to take a swing at THE GREAT AMERICAN NOVEL. But "The Given Day" is all ambition, and the bits that don't come together are still some of the best writing of the year. (The opening scene, in which Babe Ruth's eyes are opened to the possibility of NEGROES PLAYING BASEBALL, is as tense and terse a description of America's racial conflict as you can hope to read anywhere, and worthy of being anthologized as a short story.)
Gidge comes in as a sort of pudgy one-man Greek chorus to bridge the novel's epic expanses. THOSE deal with two musty American cliches that Lehane manages to put some refreshing deodorant on: the Irish cop Danny Coughlin, whose social conscience is stirred by the way his fellow cops are exploited during the Influenza Epidemic of 1919; and Luther Laurence, a black man who's gotten mixed up in sin and gin and is running from some trouble back home in Tulsa. The two of them collide in one of those unlikely friendships that will somehow be heart-warming in the inevitably movie version, (I CANNOT wait for someone like Martin Scorcese to get ahold of this.) Originality is NOT the code word here: This is an interplay that readers will recall from E.L. Doctorow's more succint (and in my opinion superior) "Ragtime".
"Ragtime" has actually been a pebble in the shoes of my imagination for some time: I once wanted to write a series of 10 historical novels tracking 20th century American history decade by decade through popular music, and it was quite bothersome that the first volume was already written for me- either that, or a good excuse for not even starting on the project.
Like in "Ragtime", the white and black threads twist around each other, big set pieces summarize action, and icons of the century drop in for celebrity cameos: here, Babe Ruth, Eugene O'Neill, and J. Edgar Hoover. Except for Ruth, I found the cameos intrusive and little more than concessions to the historical mold, but the main characters, archetypical though they may be, take ahold of you as they struggle with, er, RACISM, TERRORISM FROM SCARY IMMIGRANTS, A CORRUPT LYING LEADERSHIP SPREADING PARANOIA, etc. (When the government falsely blames an accidental explosion on a molasses factory on Bolsheviki, you can hear Lehane chuckling a little too loud.) Danny's plight is one that defines the commonplace American- shit, no, he doesn't like Commies, he hates terrorists, but JESUS, he doesn't want to shut down anybody's right to express dissent, and what the fuck's so wrong with a union protecting the safety and rights of exploited cops? The big climax at the Boston Police Strike of 1919 will look great on film but feels small here, because Lehane is best at one on one confrontations: between Luther and an obese, threatening, Kingpin-like gangster; or Luther and the racist cop Eddie McKenna, whose "good old boy" venom threatens to destroy anything decent it touches; or Danny and his self-righteous, tyrannical boss, an underused villain who made me want to scream at Danny: "Punch the asshole! Just once, Danny, for the Workers of the World!"
I would feel re-miss if I didn't point out that the novel IS a little unwieldy at points, and a few annoying things ticked me off. I may be picking at nits, but Danny is first described as "dark-haired and dark eyed", and then a few pages later we learn he's actually "dark-haired but light eyed." WELL, NOW. Also, two of the villains, Eddie McKenna and ANOTHER "good old boy"-type at the beginning of the novel, use such similar language that it makes you wonder if Lehanne reached into a "Racist Redneck Character Sheet" barrel and pulled the same one out twice. (They both say things like: "Now, boy, some people think that you Negroes have been acting uppity, and that it ain't right. I dont' say I agree or disagree, I'm just saying there are rules in society we gotta obey. So lick my boots before I whip you.")
"The Given Day" is a popular thriller, and I am not making any claims for it as the next Gatsby, but it is literary entertainment at its best, and Lehanne only promises to get better.