Mystic River, 2002
March 21st, 2010Mystic River
by Dennis Lehane
Harper Torch Press
2002
496 pages
Mystic River is a very complicated novel, but complicated in the way real life is complicated. It’s messy and overwhelming, but only because of the pain, struggle, and tragedy it tackles. The writing is actually clean, sharp and strong—expertly conveying the depths of pain and struggle that human lives encounter.
The story begins with a prologue from the lives of three boys—Jimmy, Sean, and Dave. Jimmy’s the bad boy from the wrong side of the tracks, while Sean’s the golden boy, the one things seem to go right for, at least from the outside. And then there’s Dave. I think we all know a Dave, a sort of frumpy-dumpy kid who has good intentions and a good heart, but never seems to fit in anywhere. He might have acquaintances who tolerate him, like Jimmy and Sean do, but he doesn’t really have any close friends…no matter how badly he wants them.
In this first section, Dave is kidnapped by two child molesters pretending to be police officers. The things that happen to Dave are never spelled out, but it’s clear as the book progresses that in the four days before he managed to escape, Dave has been abused terribly. But he’s a poor kid with a crazy mom and no real friends; he doesn’t get counseling or support or any kind of attention. He’s just left to struggle along alone, the best he can. So are Jimmy and Sean, who saw the kidnapping, but have no idea how to deal with their role in it, or with Dave in the years to come.
That’s the set-up, and then the book skips to the three boys’ adulthood. Sean’s a detective with a shattered marriage, Jimmy’s an ex-con with three daughters who has gone straight, and Dave’s a blue-collar worker with a wife and son. In the beginning of the present day, a gruesome tragedy occurs—Jimmy’s daughter is brutally murdered—and the rest of the book is about how each of the three characters deals with that. The murder brings each of them back into each other’s lives in ways none of them could have imagined, and the mystery surrounding the girl’s death affects each of them in ways that only unfold slowly through the course of the book.
The book looks at the relationships between husbands and wives, parents and children, cops and criminals, siblings and old friends. It looks at questions of duty, love, and vengeance. It explores how short we all fall in our efforts to make something of our lives. In fact, sometimes the relationships are so realistic and so complicated, it can make the reader a little depressed. Don’t any relationships work out? Doesn’t anyone ever get anything right? Isn’t anyone happy?
The mystery is extremely compelling, and I’ll only say that things aren’t always as they seem—though the author is never less than honest with us. And the ending, though sad, almost seems as though it’s for the best.
Dennis Lehane writes with a fullness and complexity that compels you to keep reading page after page, even when you’re afraid of what you’re going to find. Every character is relatable and sympathetic, even when they’re doing things we hate. Lehane is uncompromising about the dark depths of human life, yet he doesn’t fall into the traps of nihilism or pretension that so many so-called literary authors do. His story and characters simply are what they are, for better or worse. I recommend that you read Mystic River and experience them for yourself.
