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?Read about Dennis Lehane's five favorite short story collections and his five most important books.
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]
--Marshal Zeringue