In many of Lehane's novels, noir is not only something tied to crime it's also something akin to a filter that shows the characters' realities. It's not enough to redeem her - there is no redemption here, for anyone - but it's enough to show readers how sometimes racism was more like an inherited trait rather than a conscious decision. However, there are moments in which Mary Pat begins to see how everything she thought she knew about Black people might not be true. Set against the tumultuous months of manifestations, constant anger, violence, anti-government sentiment, and rampant racism that marked Boston's desegregation of its public schools, this novel cuts to the heart of the problem and offers a scathing look at a how race was seen by many Southie residents.īetween the constant racist discourse and endless racial slurs, Small Mercies is a difficult read.
Small Mercies is the story of a desperate mother trying to find her daughter and getting in trouble with the mob in the process, but it's also much more than that. But there's no stopping a worried mother from finding out what happened to her daughter, the only thing she had left in this world. Mary Pat and Marty know each other, so he explains why Mary Pat needs to be a good neighbor and let things go. Marty doesn't want the attention Southie is getting because of the manifestations against desegregation, and Mary Pat is making things worse by asking too many questions in her desperate search for her missing daughter. Unfortunately, Mary Pat's desperate search puts her in the crosshairs of Marty Butler, the head of Southie's Irish mob. But as Mary Pat asks around and starts learning about what Jules was up to and where she was the last time anyone saw her, she learns they might actually be linked. These two events seem unconnected at first. That same night, a young Black man is found dead on the subway train tracks and no one knows what happened to him. One night Jules goes out with her boyfriend and a friend and never comes back home. Her ex-husband left her, her son overdosed on heroin after returning from Vietnam, and her teenage daughter Jules is running around with a boyfriend Mary Pat hates. Mary Pat has lived her entire life in Southie, in Boston's mostly Irish-American housing projects.
In the sweltering summer of 1974, Mary Pat Fennessy is trying to get by and keep the bill collectors at bay. Dennis Lehane's Small Mercies may take place in Boston's Southie neighborhood in 1974 - but the topics it deals with are incredibly timely.Īt once a crime novel, a deep, unflinching look at racism, and a heart-wrenching story about a mother who has lost everything, this narrative delves into life in the projects at a time when the city of Boston struggled with the desegregation of its public school system - and a lot residents were showing their worst side.
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