Dennis Lehane

Dennis Lehane was born and raised in Dorchester, Massachusetts. His novels include A Drink Before the War; Darkness, Take My Hand; Sacred; Gone, Baby, Gone; Prayers for Rain; Mystic River; Shutter Island; The Given Day; and Moonlight Mile.

Before becoming a full-time writer, Lehane worked as a counselor with mentally handicapped and abused children, waited tables, parked cars, drove limos, worked in bookstores, and loaded tractor-trailers. He lives in the Boston, Massachusetts, area.

From his Q & A with Ali Karim for The Rap Sheet:

Ali Karim: Before this month’s excitement over the UK release of Moonlight Mile, you were busy with the U.S. release of the same novel. Can you tell us a little about the American reception both for this book and its returning characters, Patrick Kenzie and Angela Gennaro?

Dennis Lehane: Folks seem to dig it, and we’d had a long break from each other, so it was nice to hang out again. Amanda McCready [from Gone, Baby, Gone] just popped into my head. I’ve always idly wondered what happened to her, so that probably explains why she successfully lobbied for a comeback.

AK: Despite being a family man now, Patrick has not lost any of his “blue-collar” annoyance with the injustices he sees perpetrated around him on a too-frequent basis. Do you find it cathartic in some way to have Patrick provide social context to your fiction?

DL: Patrick has always been my way of looking at the world through a kind of modernized version of my father’s eyes. My father was working class; I’m the son of a working-class [man], but I’m no longer working class myself. It’s very important to me that Patrick remain working class.

AK: I know in your early work, you stated that you didn’t plot heavily. But did you not have to plot more extensively for Moonlight Mile?

DL:...[read on]

Read about Dennis Lehane's five favorite short story collections and his five most important books.

--Marshal Zeringue