Think of the best leather briefcase you’ve ever owned. Maybe it’s one your Mom or Dad carried. It’s leather, it’s worn, but so well made. It’s not fashionable and it’s not even really useful for your purposes, but you keep it and cherish it because, well, it’s quality.
Think about the last time you had a drink at the bar. The bartender saw you were alone. Not despondent or sad, just alone. And she makes you an old fashioned with really excellent whiskey. And it’s ok to be alone.
Think about your favorite old jeans. Think about the last time you kissed the love of your life with deep meaning.
That’s the rush of feeling I get when reading A Drink Before the War by Dennis Lehane.
It’s the first book in a detective series (referred to as the Kenzie-Gennaro series) and I can’t believe I waited so long in life to discover Lehane’s writing. I highlighted the first paragraph and then realized I’d have to watch myself or I’d highlight the entire book.
Here’s the opening paragraph:
“The bar at the Ritz-Carlton looks out on the Public Gardens and requires a tie. I’ve looked out on the Public Gardens from other vantage points before, without a tie, and never felt at a loss, but maybe the Ritz knows something I don’t.”
This might seem slight and insignificant to some, and some might say it’s overwritten, but I love this kind of smooth, vaguely sarcastic style from the point of view of a self-aware narrator. I hear a little saxophone in the background when I’m reading it. Or maybe one of those modern jazz film soundtracks from the sixties. Think Duke Ellington’s Anatomy of a Murder score or the tribal percussion rifts in Jerry Goldsmith’s Planet of the Apes score.
I love you Raymond Chandler, and I adore you Dashiell Hammett, and James M. Cain you’re just the best, Elmore Leonard you’re the master…But Lehane’s words flow over the page like caramel laced with bourbon. (Oh please. Really?) I read a sentence and I hate to leave it for the next one. It’s the smooth, effortless description of a scene. The characters come to life so vibrantly that you can smell them.
Lehane wasn’t completely unknown to me. I’d seen the movies Shutter Island and Mystic River, both from his novels of the same name. But the movie that got me was Gone Baby Gone, Ben Affleck’s directorial debut. Love that movie. Casey Affleck is perfectly cast as detective-for-hire Patrick Kenzie. He wears him like a second skin – he’s that good in the role.
And the Tom Hardy-James Gandolfini film, The Drop from a Lehane short story. This is a film with elegant, slow pacing, a measured reveal and just the right amount of foreshadowing and dread.
Here is the complete Kenzie-Gennaro Series in order:
1. A Drink Before the War published 1994
2. Darkness, Take My Hand published 1996
3. Sacred published 1997
4. Gone, Baby, Gone published 1998
5. Prayers for Rain published 1999
6. Moonlight Mile published 2010
I’ve read books 1 – 5. Why haven’t I read Moonlight Mile which is waiting patiently in my Kindle? Because then the series will be over and I won’t be able to look forward to another delightful adventure with Patrick Kenzie. I’ll let you know when I read it. But I warn you: I may re-read the other five before I read the last one.
Lehane is currently listed as a producer for the very good HBO version of Stephen King’s The Outsider. But I really wish he was producing an HBO series based on his Kenzie-Gennaro books. Now THAT would be worth watching. Apparently a pilot for a series based on the books was passed on by both Fox and NBC. Maybe his connection with HBO on The Outsider will help. I can dream.
Forced Perspective 