Dennis Lehane (Boston, 58 years old) says that in his novels he avoids at all costs writing about two people sitting in a kitchen and talking about their lives. However, it is this room in his Venice, California residence that the best-selling author chooses to discuss his new book, “Coup de Grace” (Salamandra, translation by Aurora Echevarría). It is the fifteenth work from Lehane, who began writing in 1994 and became one of the biggest names in crime fiction and a successful showrunner with Black Bird (Apple TV). Coup de Grace was exceptionally well received in the United States. “It was a very pleasant book to write, but it is not a pleasant book to read. He was exorcising something, he didn't really know what. Until I knew it was anger. I’ve worn them since I was nine years old,” says Lehane.
The novel, set in his native Boston, is one of his most autobiographical works and uses the so-called bus crisis as a backdrop. A district judge ruled in 1974 to end racial segregation in the city's public schools. The school with the most black students sent students to the largest white school. This one did the same thing in reverse. The decision sparked a backlash that raised racial tensions in a working-class town during a hot summer. In the book, the Irish Mafia and its boss, the fearsome and legendary Whitey Bulger, cast their long shadow. Filmed in Santa Monica in 2011, the criminal inspired Jack Nicholson's character in “Departed (2006)” by Martin Scorsese, the director who later brought “Shutter Island” (2010) to the screen based on Lehane's book. The love affair between the author's work and cinema began early, when Clint Eastwood adapted Mystic River in 2003. Today, Lehane believes he is ready to direct after learning from these masters of cinema.
They were nine years old when the bus crisis broke out. What do you remember from back then?
A lot. Nine years old is something very special. I noticed it with my daughters. At this age it is the first major outbreak of narcissism. You begin to see the world and understand that you are part of something bigger. When I started writing this book, the first part of the research was actually fact checking. Did that really happen? Is that how it happened? Much of this could be seen in Eugene Richards' photographs. When I saw it again I said, “Yeah, okay, I saw that.” It was mostly graffiti. I've never forgotten it. They said “KKK.” [las siglas del Ku Klux Klan]”, kill all the n…”, “go back to Africa.” All over the city of Boston, but especially in Dorchester, where I lived…
During one of the protests, he was trapped in a car.
Yes, it was a demonstration, but it felt like it was a riot. My father came home and that was the path we always chose. After crossing a bridge we turned right, but for some reason we didn't. He walked straight ahead and we walked straight into the demonstration. It was huge, taking up nine blocks. We walk right through them all. They hit our car. They burned some images on some poles. Medieval era. It was something from the end of Frankenstein. Crazy and very scary.
Is that your first political memory?
It was. Then I thought, why are we arguing with each other? And I remember one specific idea very well, although I'm sure it wasn't formulated so clearly: People with money were most interested in seeing those without money argue among themselves. When I looked at this problem through this prism, I was able to understand it from multiple angles. On the one hand, there are African-American students who have been denied access to school for nine years in a row. South Boston was at the forefront of blocking any attempts at integration between 1965 and 1974. There were undoubtedly many racist people there. There was also a group that my father was in that knew that this wasn't just another case of us being told what to do, but that we were going to be guinea pigs in a social experiment.
How important was this episode for Boston?
It was big. The seed for this was Ben Affleck. When we were filming Goodbye, Little Girl, Goodbye (2007), we were talking on set. He said to me, “Hey, when is someone going to do something about the busing crisis?” No one can understand Boston if they don't understand this moment. It affected you if you grew up in the city rather than the suburbs. It was a seismic event. It changed so many things… That's why working class white people don't read the Boston Globe. The reason the white working class turned to the Republican Party and Reagan. The reason why so many children ended up in Catholic schools. And the worst thing is that schools are doing worse today. They are more separated.
This has accompanied him since his childhood. When did you know you wanted to write a book about it?
It was in New Orleans. I was directing a television show and hadn't written prose in three or four years. Pressure on production began to increase during Covid times. There were thunderstorms every day that forced us to stop. A merciless heat, a hurricane. Everything that can go wrong. I needed some sense. I started thinking about a woman. I saw this woman beat up a man in a bar. Who is she? I thought. Then I heard the story of a woman from Mexico who had hunted down cartel members who had killed her daughter. I was thinking about this and a film from the 70s that I love: Get Carter. I had been looking for a Boston story for 15 years and thought: What if I took my wife to the summer of 1974?
Were you tempted to use the gangster? Whitey Bulger as a character? There is one that is clearly based on this.
No. I always resisted any job that involved guys like that. I met several. They are given a patina of stature that they do not deserve. They made an entire generation addicted to heroin. You don't fuck Vito Corleone. There is no honor in this story. They are dirty and ambitious guys who have enslaved many to drugs. I'm not at all interested in ennobling them. And above all, they were informants. I come from an area where people don't talk to the police. If you're a rat, you're the worst of the worst.
Portrait of Dennis Lehane.Dan Balilty
In a twist to the script, you and he were drinking at the same bar in Santa Monica.
The night he got caught, he was at Sonny McLean's Irish bar. Everyone was talking about him. It was very strange. A man who knew him and met him often told me that what stood out most about him was the fact that he was the most racist person you could meet. All he talked about was how much he hated black people.
When you spoke about the university busing crisis in 2017, you used the word “black.”
I had no right to use that word when insulting an African American. If he insulted a bright baby who is paying for his education with a mutual fund, I don't care. Let him find a safe place somewhere else. I tried to provide some context. It meant that those old days were not good. Don't tell me about the golden past Fox News sells every day. For white people, of course, it was wonderful. I got carried away and made a mistake, but immediately apologized.
Her character Mary Pat uses this word a lot. Was it a way to digest the episode?
Could be. I think a lot of what I said on stage was lost because I used it. The speech received a five-minute standing ovation, but all that was said was that I used the N-word. Part of me thought they had missed the point. People need to understand how bad things were when people didn't speak in code. It's the same situation today. Nothing has changed. The children of these racists will be racist, but they know how to put it into code. I was very firm with the language. I had a lot of arguments with my editor about it. I told him I wouldn't remove it. That's what people said. I know it because I lived it.
The book came at a time when several rights are being overturned by court decisions in the United States.
It's a terrible moment. It's scary, but I can't say I'm surprised. I've lived with it and know it's always been an undercurrent. There were people who thought that with Obama we had entered a post-racial phase. You are crazy? Race has shaped this country from the beginning. It is the sin that we cannot overcome. I spent a lot of time in the South, where the Civil War was described as a legal conflict between states. They live in complete denial. The Trump years shocked me because of the racism hidden behind a thin veil.
He has described his homeland as Ireland in 1930. Very traditional values. You are the youngest of five children. And two are dedicated to art. What was it like growing up in your house?
Many people assume that my parents were against my becoming a writer. Not at all. They have always supported me. My father was very anti-racist at home, even though he had the basic racism of that generation. He would get angry if the neighbor sold his house to a black family because it would reduce the value of the property. Such things. But I admire him very much. I would say at the table during the busing crisis that there was no reason to hate anyone because of the color of their skin. My father's dream is for me to work for the public service company. When he had published five books, he still told me when the Post would be hiring.
What impact do the characters have on you mentally?
None. No longer. The highlight was Shutter Island and Mystic River. They were two really hard hits. Then I felt like it was harming me. In Mystic River because I had to get into the head of a man who is attracted to children. It was brutal. On Shutter Island I had to put myself in the head of a man who had lost his mind, his mind had broken down because he had done something terrible.
What has changed?
You become professional. At a certain point you no longer need cigarettes or whiskey to finish your drink. In my early years it was a carton of American Spirit and a six-pack of Budweiser beer. So I wrote, but then my mind went to dark places. I didn't understand my psyche very well. And above all, I didn't understand the stories at all. Now I'm older and have worked a lot.
The writer Dennis Lehane with his dog in the garden of his house.Dan Balilty
If the work is easy, you've done something wrong, he once said.
I still believe it. I really enjoyed the book, but I have to say that it took me into some very dark places emotionally. I have often wondered whether I should continue. He told me yes. And again.
Have film and television changed the way you write?
Now I can deal with structures better. My books are somewhat elastic. Mystic River and Shutter Island are more solid. Many end up with a long span. When we made “Goodbye, Little One, Goodbye,” I went back to it, even though I try not to go back to my work. And I thought, “My God, Lehane, how many damn prologues do you need?” It's like three. I wouldn't do that today, I would go straight in. What happens when people who write books and think a lot about the screen, their prose loses its richness. I never want to lose my love for prose.
How do I change? mystical river his life?
Everything has changed. I was at a crime fiction writers' conference around 1998. There I met two people I knew well in an elevator. One told me, “He knows the stores that tell the New York Times about bestsellers. “There is a list.” It's one of the best kept secrets, it's like the recipe for Coca-Cola. At that moment I replied, “Hey, I’ll never write a bestseller. “I’m too dark.” I remember the exact moment I got on the list. I was in Dallas. A woman had my editor on the phone. Here's how I found out. These two people were the first people that came to mind. They must hate me, I thought. The other big event that changed my life was The Wire.
Because?
It was a product of love. They pay us little. We did it because we loved David very much. [Simon, el creador de la serie] and the vision he had. And HBO left us alone. They told us, “Nobody's watching you, so we don't give a fuck.” Nobody watched The Wire until season five. So we worked on perhaps the worst-rated show on television. Then Hollywood called. They asked us to do something and we said, “But we didn't do that on The Wire.” “OK,” they said. They treated us differently than other writers. We became the guys who needed to be given as much freedom as possible.
You didn't want to sell it mystical river To Clint Eastwood.
I thought they would screw it up. I had recently seen something so bad that I thought Hollywood couldn't be trusted with the books. I didn't realize at the time that when you work with Clint Eastwood, you're not working with Hollywood. He's a writer, although he would hate the term. Warner asked to change the ending or they would only give him half the budget. Clint told them, “Okay, but know that I'm going to murder you in the press.” And he took the other 21 million from Village Roadshow. And he killed her in every interview he had. Even with a smile on your lips. “Warner didn’t really believe in this movie,” he said. Even after six Oscar nominations. That's how he convinced me. He told me on the phone that he wouldn't change the ending.
Now he has a book about Boston and the bus crisis. Have you called Ben Affleck yet?
This is mine. Nobody will touch her. I sold the rights to Apple almost immediately. It will be a miniseries. I'm writing all the scripts and will probably direct the episodes as well. There's too much of my life in this book.
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