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by Dennis Lehane<\/p>\n![\"16557549.JPG\"](\"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/16557549.JPG\")
There are many good books, there are many (although fewer) GREAT books, and there are only a handful of what I call “perfect” books. I can think of many great books that are not “perfect”. Their lack of perfection does not take away from their greatness, and as a matter of fact their blatant imperfections are part of their greatness. But a perfect book is rare, indeed. <\/p>\n
Mystic River<\/i> is a perfect book.<\/p>\n
It’s not just the plot, and the way it flows, and the way it moves on inevitably to its horrible conclusion. It’s not just the characters, who are uniformly well-drawn, these people are alive. It’s not the larger themes of redemption, suffering, and ambition. although those are rock-solid in the way they are drawn by Lehane. It’s a perfect book because of the writing itself. <\/p>\n
Lehane is a hugely popular writer. My dad loves him, and while Lehane has obviously had a fine writing career, Mystic River<\/i> feels different than his other books. He’s made a leap in his talent here. He’s gone to another level. Read his other books, they’re fine, read Mystic River<\/i>, and it’s like night and day.<\/p>\n
Because the plot is really what people talk about when they talk about Mystic River<\/i>, the elegance of his prose might go unnoticed.<\/p>\n
Here is the first paragraph of the book. This is what I mean by “perfect”:<\/p>\n
When Sean Devine and Jimmy Marcus were kids, their fathers worked together at the Coleman Candy plant and carried the stench of warm chocolate back home with them. It became a permanent character of their clothes, the beds they slept in, the vinyl backs of their car seats. Sean’s kitchen smelled like a Fudgsicle, his bathroom like a Coleman Chew-Chew bar. By the time they were eleven, Sean and Jimmy had developed a hatred of sweets so total that they took their coffee black for the rest of their lives and never ate dessert.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
That is my kind of writing. Spare, but also detailed and evocative. Sensory. Personal. The men they will become already haunts the two young boys. The haunting is in the writing. It’s also noticeable that Dave Boyle is not included in the first paragraph, which I am sure is deliberate. Lehane is a commanding<\/i> writer, and a paragraph like that commands<\/i> your attention. It is not a description<\/i>. It is an entire world<\/i>. <\/p>\n
And the last paragraph is equally magnificent. Terrible. But not bleak. The hope that peace will come in the next life. Not this life, certainly, it’s far too late for that, but in the next.<\/p>\n
The entire book is filled with writing like that.<\/p>\n
I’m not going to post any of the more obvious excerpts (although the bit about the boys looking in the back of the car, and noticing it’s dirty is incredible) – but post an excerpt having to do with Annabeth, the wife of Jimmy, the ex-con. Too bad Laura Linney played her in the film. That wasn’t right at ALL. You know who would have been spectacular? And I’m not just saying that cause she’s my cousin. But Kerry O’Malley <\/a>would be so so awesome as Annabeth. She would have knocked that part out of the park.<\/p>\n
A woman who is not silly or warm in any way, and yet not uptight or prissy. She’s all about family and tribe, but she’s not innately hostile to outsiders. She also is the kind of women that men love. She’s probably a tiger in the sack. She exudes sexual confidence, yet it is contained, fiercely, in monogamy and marriage. But she also inspires fear in men. Maybe they want to dissemble when they’re around her, hide a bit … they desperately need her approval, they wish she would be more WARM. Nope. Annabeth don’t play that game. She respects strength. But she’s not a ball-breaker. She makes men want to be honest. She thinks dishonesty and smallness is unforgivable. Or no – not unforgivable. It’s just that she would grow bored with someone who was consistently small and petty, who refused to be honest not only with her but with himself. She wouldn’t give a person like that the time of day. You gonna throw polite bullshit at me when I ask you a direct open question? You bore me. Next.<\/i> You wouldn’t get a second chance with Annabeth. She sizes you up, makes her assessment, and that’ll be that. And she’ll be right. So don’t try to lie to her.<\/p>\n
People could find that off-putting, scary. Watch how she deals with Sean in this scene! Watch how she talks to him, and how she sees<\/i>. Not everybody can look at a near-stranger and see what is really<\/i> going on with that person, and also want to talk about that subtext. Small talk is not in Annabeth’s DNA.<\/p>\n
And then, of course, there’s Annabeth’s Lady Macbeth moment at the end of the book (which completely did not work in the film) but in the book it all makes sense. A terrible sense.)<\/p>\n
Listen to this dialogue here. It’s damn good.<\/p>\n
Sean, the cop, sits on the porch with Annabeth – wife of Jimmy, his childhood friend. He has moved away from the old’ hood – so he doesn’t really know Annabeth that well. He sits there, and this is his first real un-official encounter with her. She is formidable – but in a very specific Boston-type way – hard to explain. But she is a Boston woman, through and through. Yup. Lehane gets it so right.<\/p>\n
If you haven’t read Mystic River<\/i>, I cannot recommend it highly enough.<\/p>\n