A RETURN TO SHUTTER ISLAND

As part of Patti Abbot’s Friday Book Project, I thought I’d talk a little about a favorite book of mine. It was a novel that really divided opinion. Using a British term, this novel is what we would term a ‘Marmite’ read. Some readers hated it, while others loved it. I think it’s time to revaluate it, rediscover it and understand the horrors of the reality we may live in. Reality is something that troubles me, and yes this book is Existential with a capital E.

Considering all the hullabaloo about Dennis Lehane’s ‘The Given Day’; let’s consider the book he published five years ago, the one before his Boston historical opus. This book was originally optioned for film by Wolfgang Petersen, but is now currently in production from Martin Scorsese and Leonardo DiCaprio and re-titled ‘Ashcliffe’.

I am of course referring to “sHUTteR iSLaNd” by Dennis Lehane a novel that still haunts me and one that I nominated as one of my Favourite reads in January Magazine’s best of 2003 selection.

When Shutter Island’s release was announced in late 2002; I got very excited as I just love thrillers set in mental institutions, featuring the deranged. A great deal of my fascination with all things mental is due to my father being an psychiatrist [now retired]. My father is always amused at my fascination with Dr Hannibal Lecter, and the works of Thomas Harris. ‘Shutter Island’ looked like such a work that would appeal to my taste for thrillers featuring the mentally ill and deranged.

I recall that the US release by Morrow was planned for Easter 2003, while the UK publishers Transworld would not be releasing it until the autumn of the same year. I managed to organise a copy of a US Proof from my contact at Morrow [Lehane’s editor]; but by a fluke, another US contact of mine had somehow got a photocopy of Lehane’s manuscript [!] and as he owed me a huge favour airmailed it to me.

So as the Easter weekend approached I recall vividly that due to work constraints I was only able to have a few days off. My wife had decided to take to take our kids to Ireland to stay with her parents for a month [due to the stresses of a work project that had me away from home]. I prayed that one of the copies of Shutter Island would arrive for me to enjoy during my solitude over the Easter weekend. I needed the break from my day-job. So on the Wednesday night I took my wife and kids to the airport and returned home late. I was off work the following day, so I got up really early and brewed coffee and sat by my front door and awaited the postman. I reckoned by my calculations that at least one of the two copies of Shutter Island would arrive Thursday. I was worried as Friday was a public holiday, so there would be no post. I knew I’d drive myself demented for two days if the book didn’t arrive Thursday. When the doorbell rang, I sprang to attention and greeted the postman as if he were Lehane himself. Thanking the postman I grabbed the package and tore it open. Contained was a Xerox of Lehane’s manuscript. While I brewed coffee, I stared at the unbound pages and ran my fingers over the words as if it were the Rosetta Stone.

Then I sprawled onto my sofa and balanced the manuscript on my stomach and started to read it placing the spent-pages on the ground as I found myself lost within this very dark tale was just so hypnotic. When I finished I realized I had been crying. The plot featured the collapse of a marriage, and the ensuing madness that happens when people lose their minds. There were children also involved at the crux of the tale; and as a father myself [missing my wife and kids who were away], Lehane’s tale really upset me. The empty house was eerily quiet, with just me and this dangerous book and the thoughts it brought into my mind. The following day I wrote a review and emailed it to out. On the Saturday morning, the postman came with the Morrow proof copy of ‘Shutter Island’ and so what’s a man to do, but I read it again and again it made my head spin.

If you’ve yet to go to Shutter Island – here’s a guide -

Like the Hurricane that batters the island that gives this book its name, I feel battered and bruised by the complexity and ambition of this deeply disturbing novel. It starts simply enough with two US Marshals arriving on Shutter Island, an institution for the criminally insane off the coast of Boston. They have been assigned to find a missing inmate - a mysterious woman who murdered her children and was incarcerated for life at the facility. During their surreal investigation, it becomes difficult to distinguish the staff from the inmates. Rumours of mind control experiments with drugs as well as surgery abound, while all around a hurricane is gathering to smash at the facility. The journey that the two Marshals endure takes them right to the core of Shutter Island. They have to face up to the latent dark truths that lie waiting for them, hidden at the very top of the lighthouse which acts as a sentinel watching over the proceedings like an all-seeing eye.

Shutter Island is simply spoken my best read this year. This is all the more staggering in a year that has given us pure excellence from the crime/mystery genre. It is just amazing how Lehane snaps back the boundaries by combining the mystery genre with the sinister and paranoid world of Philip K Dick, and the whole question of reality, madness and evil. It is also deeply moving and written with a hallucinogenic almost hypnotic style. The structure of the novel is at times scary, at times worrying, and at times close to bringing you to tears, such is the beauty of his words. It is difficult to summarise the plot any further due to the problem of giving away the end.

The astute will listen to the crazy whispers that nibble at your earlobe throughout the book, but then the ending rips off your ear like the teeth of Mike Tyson. A robust and intricately structured story, full of insight and compassion about the dark side of the human dream, and a book that will really divide Lehane fans like a cleaver. Highly recommended for those who like challenge

One of the treats of Bouchercon Baltimore was finally meeting Dennis Lehane. I took time to thank him for all the pleasure and insight his work has given me over the years. I naturally told him how totally brilliant I consider ‘Shutter Island’. It was a magical moment. He recalled my letters I sent when he started out on his Patrick and Angie series in the 1990’s. The reason why he remembered my letters were the British stamps and my requests for signed bookplates [I mailed him each time a new book came out].

Afterward I was shaking and I remarked to fellow Boston thriller-writer Chris Mooney “I hope he doesn’t think I’m some kindda nut, like one of his characters from Shutter Island?” as I was conscious of gushing like a fan-boy. Mooney laughed, and replied “Ali, Lehane knows who you are.” In that moment I was completely Gone, Baby Gone.

Christian De Meter adapts Lehane's sHuTtEr iSLaNd

As a comic book fan and Thriller reader, I was blown-away by last years ‘THE HUNTER’ a graphic novel adaptation by Darwyn Cooke and the late Donald Westlake based on Richard Stark’s novel of the same name, and the one that introduced the iconic Parker.

Now Geoff Boucher at the LA Times provides a review for the long awaited graphic novel adaptation of Dennis Lehane’s incredible Shutter Island from Christian De Metter -

The graphic novel is religiously (and gruesomely) faithful to Lehane’s novel and with good reason — it would be hard to tamper with the circuitry of such a meticulously crafted mystery. The visual demands and page-count realities of the new medium required some tough choices, but De Metter has handled them deftly. The plot of the original novel was purposely confounding in certain dark corners and here those shadowy places are ambiguous in a different but still satisfying way. The climatic sequences of the book in its original form possessed a powerful and satisfying click as they fell into place and, under De Metter's watch, the dread and revelation remain intact.

The story, set in 1954, presents a U.S. marshal and widower named Teddy Daniels who, with his new partner, is dispatched to an island with one dominant landmark: Ashecliffe Hospital, a fortress-like mental institution that is missing one of its mass murderers. A hurricane hits and the entire island becomes a wind-lashed prison where the simple case of an escapee deepens into a surreal puzzle. Daniels, who arrived on Shutter Island with his own inner demons, soon wonders what is real and who can be trusted.

Like Darwyn Cooke’s retro-crime masterpiece “The Hunter,” which was the best graphic novel of 2009, “Shutter Island” finds that less is more when it comes to the color palette; crime and punishment, it seems, are best presented in shades of iodine yellow and drowning-victim blue. There are only a few slashes of bright colors in the 128-page “Shutter” graphic novel and they are carefully placed to deepen the dream-time quality of Lehane’s carefully constructed nightmare.

Read Geoff Boucher’s review at the L A Times Here

As a fan of Lehane’s gothic masterpiece I just ordered it from Amazon and been advised the sucker is en route to my door.

The LA Times also features Dennis Lehane speaking about his reaction to the newly released graphic novel version of sHuTtEr iSLaNd -

You can watch the Dennis Lehane video at the LA Times - Here

So with the Shutter Island Film coming shortly, and now this graphic novel – I am very excited as sHuTteR iSLaNd is one of my all time favourite novels – period! and it's a period peice to boot.

Read More here from Brand X and the L A Times [via Tokyo Pop] who premiered the Dennis Lehane video - Thanks Guys

Dennis Lehane’s sHutTEr iSlAnD

As the excitement mounts for the film version of Dennis Lehane’s sHutTEr iSlAnD a new trailer has been released, and a big follower of Lehane’s work here’s some interesting videos relating to Lehane and Shutter Island.

I was fortunate to interview Lehane on one of his rare trips to London, and found him a most modest and insightful writer.

Enjoy -
ShUtTeR iSLaNd Trailer # 3



ShUtTeR iSLaNd Trailer # 2



ShUtTeR iSLaNd Trailer # 1



Emily Mortimer interview about Shutter Island



Dennis Lehane on The Late Show



Dennis Lehane interview



Dennis Lehane and Tess Gerritsen with Selina Walker in London

Part 1



Part 2



Part 3



Dr Lehane please arise



Lehane Reads from The Given Day

Lehane opens up on sHuTteR iSLaNd

I consider Shutter Island one of the greatest gothic thrillers written in the last ten years, and was somewhat dismayed to read that the film release has been delayed until 2010. Dennis is a busy guy, working on a sequel to Gone, Baby, Gone [the original novel was filmed to much acclaim by Ben Affleck]. Now he’s on the road talking about the PB release of The Given Day as well as the Akashic Books collection Boston Noir that he edited.

I was delighted to read this comprehensive two part interview with Dennis Lehane from Peter Keough of The Boston Phoenix, from which these interesting nuggets are revealed –

PK: I think a big reason Boston is becoming such a setting for this type of movie is clearly your success in film. What do you think is cinematic about your books? You look at them and they're very dense in terms of characters' psychology and the writing is very fine, it doesn't seem the kind of thing that would translate immediately into movies.

DL: You know, I totally agree with you. I've written one original plot in my life and that was "Shutter Island" and even that is wearing it-the homage is on its sleeve-I'm not a real strong, I'm not an original plot guy. You know, "Mystic River" is the plot of an old 1930s RKO movie, so I don't know what started it, what originally brought people to work. I know now, and I flavor them up, and so I produce a laundry list and everybody's like, "Ooh that could be a good movie, could get an Academy Award out of that." I think the success of my movies is very clear on what it is and it is to me. There were no extra cooks in the kitchen and in each case I had sort of auteur theory in play and you had Clint Eastwood, Brian Helgeland, that's "Mystic River," that's it, end of story. "Gone Baby Gone" was Ben Affleck and Aaron Stockard, end of story, the Weinstein brothers left them alone and Martin Scorsese comes in and he's a 500 pound gorilla and he says "This is what I want to do," so none of my films have a lot of fingerprints on them.

PK: What's the story with "Shutter Island?" It's been postponed until February; is that something we should worry about? I was disappointed to hear that it wasn't coming out in November.

DL: No, you shouldn't worry about it, I can say this without ego because I had zero to do with the production of that film, I mean I'm an executive producer, yeah, you know, but I had zero-my fingers are not anywhere near that outside of the book and so I can say having seen the film that it's brilliant. I think the story that they put in the press is mostly true which is that they didn't have the money, the market and in a year in which very solid films, like "Public Enemies" and "State of Play" clearly under-performed, I think everybody's scared. So they said, they want to go back, they decided let's have a really good marketing plan before we pull the trigger on this.

Read more here Part 1 and Part 2 of Dennis Lehane being interviewed by Peter Keough of The Boston Phoenix

Photo Dennis Lehane, Selina Walker and Tess Gerritsen in London taken from Rap Sheet Report Part 1 and Part 2 © 2009 Ali Karim

Shedding Light on sHuTtEr iSlAnD's Ending........

I know I am completely obsessed by Dennis Lehane’s novel sHuTteR iSlAnD as well as the Martin Scorcese film adaptation [and Christian De Metter’s Graphic Novel]. I am glad that despite everyone saying how close the film followed Lehane’s narrative, there was [in my opinion] a major difference – one contained in the very last line that Teddy Daniels / Danny Laedis / Leonardo DiCaprio utters at the conclusion. I’m very glad that it’s not just me that has deliberated the intrinsic significance in those lines added by the screenwriter Laeta Kalogridis.

And for those who didn’t get it -

David Cox at The Guardian also deliberates the significance of the ending and twists at the end of both novel and film

SPOILER ALERT – PROCEED AT YOUR PERIL

Shutter Island is no impenetrable art-house enigma: it's an old-fashioned noirish thriller that ends with a massive plot twist. As such, you might have thought it would have been easy to understand. In fact, since the film was released in March, the blogosphere's been awash with debate about what actually happens in the final scene.

Martin Scorsese's film is based on a best-selling novel by Dennis Lehane. The book's protagonist, Teddy Daniels, who's apparently a US marshal, turns out to be Andrew Laeddis, a demented killer. He's a patient in a mental hospital who's been encouraged by his psychiatrist to act out his delusion in the hope that this will dispel it. The role play fails: after a brief recovery, Andrew relapses into insanity and is therefore taken off to be lobotomised.

The film's been described as faithful to the book, and many cinemagoers seem to have assumed that it's telling the same story. Leonardo DiCaprio's Teddy does indeed turn out to be Andrew. However, before he falls into the clutches of the lobotomists, he utters a line that isn't in the book. "This place makes me wonder," he asks, "which would be worse – to live as a monster, or to die as a good man?"

For some, this is to be seen as no more than the rambling of a madman. Others, however, take it as meaning that Andrew's only faking his relapse. His unusual treatment's made him aware of the terrible thing he's done: guilt has therefore engulfed him, and he's deliberately getting himself lobotomised to escape it.

These two versions of what the film means could hardly be more at odds. Yet Scorsese hasn't chosen to indicate which is the right one. Nor has DiCaprio. Perhaps the latter isn't sure himself.

He found his role traumatising, and told an interviewer: "I remember saying to Marty, 'I have no idea where I am or what I'm doing.'"

Lehane is credited as one of the film's executive producers, so you might think he at least would know what's going on. Sadly, even he doesn't seem wholly certain: he explains that he stayed out of the scripting process. When pushed, he tries to reconcile DiCaprio's gnomic inquiry with his own original story. "Personally, I think he has a momentary flash," he suggests. "To me that's all it is. It's just one moment of sanity mixed in the midst of all the other delusions."

Cox speaks to Scorsese's psychiatric adviser, Professor James Gilligan of New York University, who gives the backdrop of 1950’s America and the Psychiatric Institutions that sHuTtEr iSlAnD is carved from.

Read the full piece here

And don’t forget Dennis Lehane is one of the special guests as next years Theakstons Old Peculiar Crime Writing Festival – in 2011 in Harrogate England.

Dennis Lehane talks to MovieWeb

A great interview with Dennis Lehane coinciding with the DVD release of Shutter Island is presented at MovieWeb -

This is the first film that you are on board with as a producer. Can you talk about that experience working with everyone on the film?

Dennis Lehane: Oh, it was great. I just wanted to be involved as a producer because, at that point, I didn't have Shutter Island for several years and gotten it back, gotten the rights back, and I wanted to protect this a little bit. I wanted to be involved with really good people and I wanted to have conversations with those really good people about talent and that was sort of the limit of my contribution to things. The secret of my success is refusing to get involved with anybody who doesn't have a certain level of quality. I just won't do it. I have no problem walking away and leaving a bunch of money on the table. It doesn't bother me.

There was a quote from you that I read where you said that you wouldn't want to adapt one of your own novels because it would be like operating on one of your own children. What is the process for finding a screenwriter for one of your books? Is it like finding a spouse for one of your kids then?

Dennis Lehane: No, I think it's more like finding a really good contractor to work on your house. They're going to be in your shit for a few months (Laughs) and it probably could be aggravating unless you go with someone you really respect. The process started with, when Clint Eastwood and I chose Brian Helgeland for Mystic River, we were 100% in agreement on. We chose him based on what he had done with L.A. Confidential, which was just an unadaptable book and he adapted it. Once you see the gifts on display with really great adapters, just step out of the way, is my feeling. I am not a really good adapter. I think I am a good novelist and I think I'm a good teleplay writer and I think I'm even a decent screenwriter, but I'm not a good adapter. It's a different skill set, it's a different art form and the people who are good at it, man, all you do is sit back and take your hat off. I don't know what else to say about them. They're just a different breed.

Helgeland is one of the best. His adaptations are usually phenomenal.

Dennis Lehane: Oh, yeah. And Laeta Kalogridis killed this, Shutter Island. She just nailed it. I could see in Ben Affleck and Aaron Stockard's script for Gone Baby Gone, the same thing. They just got it, whatever it is that I couldn't have gotten. I couldn't do it with my own work. I probably could do it with somebody else's, because you have perspective but when I try to do my own work, I just lack perspective.I saw one of the DVD clips and you were talking about how when Leonardo DiCaprio came in, he was asking you all these questions about the character that even you couldn't answer.

What was it like to work with someone who is such an immersive actor like Leonardo is?

Dennis Lehane: Well, for the writer, a lot of times, we've kind of moved on and he's living in that present tense because he's playing the character. When he's asking me those questions, it was about five years after I had written the character, it was like, 'Wow. If only it was five years ago,' you know what I mean? Or maybe I just should've read my own damn book before I came to meet him. Yeah, he had that same kind of - him and Sean Penn have this real uncanny intelligence, in terms of their characters. I can't describe it, you just have to see it. You see the results on the screen, so it's not that hard to believe.

Click Here to read more from MovieWeb

Photo (c) 2009 A Karim

Dennis Lehane goes to War

Is there no media outlet left for the talent of Dennis Lehane to explore?

First we have his best-selling novels, film adaptations from Clint Eastwood’s Mystic River, Ben Affleck’s Gone Baby Gone and this year’s Shutter Island from Martin Scorcese as well as the Graphic Novel from Christian De Metter.

Now it seems, Dennis Lehane is grabbing a joy-stick and heading into computer game territory with Film Director Sam Raimi – according to Entertainment and Showbiz -

Meanwhile news comes to us that [Sam] Raimi is planning to kickstart another franchise: “The World of Warcraft” written by novelist Dennis Lehane, whose novels Mystic River and Shutter Island has already being transformed into celluloid screen.

So the change in crew means there will be no sequels to Spiderman 3 but now we are going for a prequel ride, hope the new movie comes up with the same magic and action, though fans will be sad for the departure of the old team who have taken the webslinger franchise to a new height and so is Columbia Pictures President Matt Tolmach as he said: “This is a bittersweet moment for us because while it is hard to imagine Spider-Man in anyone else’s hands, I know that this was a day that was inevitable.”

Read More here and from The Film Stage Here it seems that Sam Raimi has cancelled plans for Spiderman IV, and got to know Dennis Lehane following his purchase of the rights to The Given Day.

Photo © 2008 Roger Ellory with Dennis Lehane at Bouchercon Baltimore

Trapped in Inception, Marienbad & Morel’s Invention

It’s amusing how patterns form around the paths that our conscious, as well as our subconscious mind weaves when we think about specific things in detail. I spend a huge amount of my day ‘thinking’ as well as ‘reading’. Recently I spent time with my friend Roger Jon Ellory at the Harrogate Crime-Writing Festival. At one point we discussed why we [and many others] read so many books, be it fiction, fact or combinations of both, such as Roger’s CIA / Serial Killer conspiracy thriller A Simple Act of Violence. Roger’s answer was “Because in the inquisitive, is a need to try and understand what reality is actually about?” Good answer I thought – because at my core I am an analytical chemist, and someone who just loves detective stories, so that would explain the inquisitive part of my nature. The problem then is something that has bothered me for sometime, and something that Martin Rees [Lord Rees of Ludlow, astronomer royal and master of Trinity College, Cambridge] summed up disturbingly at his stint presenting the 2010 BBC Reith Lectures –

Some of the greatest mysteries of the universe may never be resolved because they are beyond human comprehension, according to Lord Rees, president of the Royal Society.

Rees suggests that the inherent intellectual limitations of humanity mean we may never resolve questions such as the existence of parallel universes, the cause of the big bang, or the nature of our own consciousness.

He even compares humanity to fish, which swim through the oceans without any idea of the properties of the water in which they spend their lives.

“Just as a fish may be barely aware of the medium in which it lives and swims, so the microstructure of empty space could be far too complex for unaided human brains.”

Rees’s thesis could prove highly provocative to other scientists, especially those who have devoted their careers to understanding such mysteries.

Read More from The Times Archive

That is a depressing thought, that perhaps we will never truly comprehend what existence is actually all about, but then again the more you read, the more mysterious existence becomes. It still does not put me off trying to decipher what I see around me. I know at times I can get obsessed when an idea, piece of art, or an image engages. And that neatly sits right at the core of a film that has lead me along a surreal path this week.

With my family away in Dublin, I took some time on Saturday to spend with my elderly parents. Later that day, I took myself off to the cinema to view Christopher Nolan’s INCEPTION. To say that the film blew my socks off is an understatement.



If you peruse my Facebook page you can see exactly how deep this particular rabbit hole of mine really is. While viewing INCEPTION, I was reminded of the imagery of the 1961 Alain Resnais and Alain Robbe-Grillet’s impenetrable French New Wave Existentialist classic ‘Last Year at Marienbad’. When I got home and searched the internet, I found I was not alone to see the connection –

Like Alain Resnais’ aggressive mind loop, “Last Year at Marienbad,” “Inception” revolves around memories of a past love, which may or may not be “true.” Memory is fallible, dreams are malleable. Charmingly, Nolan has said he’d only ever seen that feat of bold parallel editing after completing this James Bond-scaled movie, but he felt all the other films that had been influenced by “Marienbad” had influenced him. What other influences rest lightly on Nolan’s shoulders?

Though Nolan stated that –

"Everyone was accusing me of ripping it off, but I actually never got around to seeing it. Funnily enough, I saw it and I’m like, Oh, wow. There are bits of “Inception” that people are going to think I ripped that straight out of 'Last Year at Marienbad.' Basically, what it means is, I’m ripping off the movies that ripped off “Last Year at Marienbad,” without having seen the original. It’s that much a source of ideas, really, about the relationships between dream and memory and so forth, which is very much what 'Inception' deals with. But we have way more explosions."



The idea had been seeded in my mind, and so I followed it back in time. The curious thing was that [apart from ‘Last Year at Marienbad’] I had also admired Alain Resnais’ startling documentary ‘Night and Fog’ [original title ‘Nuit et brouillard’] due to my interest in modern history and my curiosity about the [limitless] depths of man’s inhumanity to man. While tracking back Resnais’ writer on Marienbad - Alain Robbe-Grillet, I soon discovered that Grillet appears to have been influenced [or even inspired] by an obscure quasi-SF novel ‘The Invention of Morel’ by Adolfo Bioy Casares. This little known novel has been referenced by the writers of the TV Series ‘Lost’. I quickly found this slim novella / novel remains in print and is available, so I quickly ordered it. If you want to follow me down this rabbit hole - the introduction can be downloaded as a .pdf here. I strongly recommend this slim mind-flipping little book.



Then the really weird coincidence appeared, considering my enthusiasm from Inception, Last Year at Marienbad, The Invention of Morel, Lost – while researching I discovered that Alain Resnais directed a film with Marienbad star Delphine Seyrig, entitled “Muriel ou le temps d'un retour”, literally translated as “Muriel, or the Time of a Return”. This film was released in 1963 as ‘Muriel’ in the UK and US. The peculiar aspect is that my wife of 20 years is named Muriel; and I was born in 1963, the same year that Resnais’ film ‘Muriel’ was released – spooky!



OK – I admit I have read far too much Philip K Dick but when one gets trapped in the riddle that is Marienbad, perhaps it does things to one’s mind, but then again, like Leonardo DiCaprio’s screen wives in Shutter Island and Inception, perhaps reality is more mysterious than the alarming views of existence that these films present.

But to prove that I haven’t lost my sense of humour and that my sanity remains intact – click here for an amusing spoiler from Inception that has done the rounds on Twitter – Warning click if you’ve seen Inception [especially the last frame].

I strongly recommend the films Inception, Last Year at Marienbad as well as Shutter Island, if you like mind-bending movies, as well as the weird novella / novel ‘The Invention of Morel’ by Adolfo Bioy Casares, but a warning - they do mess up your mind. As we may be fish swimming in a reality we don’t comprehend, that’s to be expected I guess, according to Lord Rees of Ludlow.



But don’t worry, you’re probably dreaming.

Dennis Lehane - The British Interview

Today in Britain's Telegraph Magazine is an insightful interview and feature article on Dennis Lehane by British Journalist and writer Richard Grant, interspaced with some great photographs of Lehane in Boston by Jens Umbach. The interview was recorded in Lehane's home city prior to his UK visit next month. In the article Lehane is very candid about his writing, the films of his work, how amazed he is by his good fortune, how his sales were helped by Bill Clinton, as well as Stephen King and the debt he owes them.

Left - Boston Writers Chris Mooney and Dennis Lehane at Bouchercon Baltimore 2008 © Ali Karim

To obtain a full copy of the Telegraph Magazine’s Dennis Lehane feature article click here

It is a real pity that this feature is not available online, so for followers of Dennis Lehane and his work, I have transcribed some of the key points from the article / interview which gives tremendous insight into this hugely important writer.

“It took me five years to write ‘The Given Day’ and I never want to go through that again. I swear to God. A year of research. Then three years writing a first draft which I hated and totally missed the mark. I had to rip out the entire centre of the book and re-do it. That took another year and lots more fear and self-doubt. Welcome to the job you know. That’s what they pay you for.”

Lehane talks extensively about why during his childhood he recalls the Boston Police strike and how it stayed with him -

“I had a good sense of all that, but I really grew up in 1940’s Ireland. My Father had 17 brothers and sisters, my mother had 13, and a lot of them were in Boston when I was a kid. It was very much a village feeling and a verbal culture. They would all get together every Friday and Saturday night and tell stories, and when they started singing, you knew they were drunk. It was great. Looking back, I can see how all the right ingredients to create a writer were there.”

Grant’s feature indicates that Lehane started writing with what he describes as ‘crazy focus’. He had been bored by journalism so –

“Finally I decided to pursue this writing thing and I got a scholarship to this small college in St. Petersburg. My parents really wanted me to be a lawyer or something, but they really gave me their unequivocal support. So off I went. I was 20.”

He adds amusingly –

“I was not going [to] be serving beers at the bar, like, ‘Hey, fucking Hemmingway, bring me a beer’. I wrote way more than anybody I knew, I threw it all out; I was attached to nothing because all I cared about was learning how to get better. I mean, I wanted to drink and get laid too, like anyone else, but on top of that was this intense feeling that I must get good at this, and then maybe I could publish.”

Lehane talks a little about the strength of his feelings when it comes to child abuse, which is a theme in many of his novels –

“I’ll break it down for you. I grew up in a pretty violent town at a pretty violent time. I’m a guy who will hit you back if you hit me. I will hit you as hard as I can and not apologise. But I do not have the gift or curse of fury. I saw friends who could not be pulled off, could not be reasoned with, could not be stopped. Gradually, as a kid, I began to make the connection, oh, he comes from a shit home. Then I got into social work at college. I worked with physically and sexually abused kids, and even beyond their horrendous stories I started seeing these kids who were victims of rape. And I started to think, how many people on Death Row were sexually abused? I bet it’s over 90 per cent. Because it adds one extra level of rage that the rest of us cannot even fathom.”

Not surprisingly, Grant who describes Lehane’s politics as ‘left of Canada’ on most social and political issues, is hardcore right-wing when it comes to Paedophilia. Lehane states his views and pulls no punches –

“First offence: Life in prison, no possibility of parole. I’ll give you steaks. I’ll give you a wide-screen TV, I’ll give you whatever you want in there, but you have lost your privileges to play in our sand-box. The risk to society is too great. These kids, their lives are over at 12. Statistically, they will lead marginalised lives with marginalised jobs, and they have a much, much higher likelihood of doing it to someone else. Paedophilia is a contagion. It gets passed on and it spreads and people who say it can be fixed have no knowledge of it.”

He adds “I’m without empathy for the disease. I don’t want to punish or hurt paedophiles, and after Mystic River I told myself that I’ll never write another book that hinges on paedophilia. I’ve said what I have to say. Now I’m done. Let’s talk about something else. In fact let’s get some lunch.”

Grant and Lehane continue the interview an Italian Restaurant.

Lehane orders Linguini and Clams and talks about getting an agent on the strength of ‘A Drink Before The War’ while still in college, and his agent sold it as he was graduating with a masters degree. Lehane returned to Boston writing his second novel Darkness, Take My Hand while being a valet parker and limousine driver. During that time Lehane got a further two-book contract and stated -

“It was just enough money to survive on if I carried on living like a student. It allowed me to write Gone, Baby, Gone, which was my first real success. Bill Clinton was filmed getting off Airforce One, in a heavily repeated clip, with the book [Gone, Baby, Gone] under his arm. That was a big spike in sales and name recognition. Two years later, Stephen King gave me some love, and that was the next benchmark in my career. I can’t say enough about Stephen King. Ask any writer. He is one of the most generous human beings out there. He’s gone to bat for the most obscure writers. He’s helped this writers’ conference I run down in St. Pete. What he has done to give back to the world of writing is titanic”.

I remember reading that Stephen King stated at the time - “In the miserably hot summer of 1999...the superb detective novels of Dennis Lehane--became a kind of lifeline for me.” And this line was used as a cover blurb on 'Prayers for Rain'.

Lehane talks about his biggest hit to date – Mystic River -

“It’s the most depressing book I ever wrote, in which everybody loses and you don’t even get any satisfaction finding out who the killer is. That’s the hit? Clint Eastwood wants to make into a movie? It doesn’t make any sense. I can only put it down to luck.” He continues “You can’t fall into that collective dream that people fall into when they watch a movie. If you’ve created it, you know it’s a fake. You’re watching artifice. Some of it is amazing artifice but the suspension of disbelief never happens. I just sit there feeling weird and I have to take it on faith when people tell me it’s good.”

Although writing a play Coronado, he talks at length about his work on ‘The Wire’ –

“My buddy George Pelecanos was writing episodes and he persuaded me to give them a call. They had to hold my hand a little bit at first. If you’re a novelist, you want to write great dialogue, and David Simon [the creator of The Wire] says the greatest piece of dialogue is in The Wild Bunch when William Holden says “Let’s go.” If everything that came before is working, that’s all you need to say, and anything more gets in the way. It took a while to understand that and it’s hard on a writers ego. We want to write a memorable line like, “What we have here is a failure to communicate,” not, “Let’s go”.

The article concludes explaining that Lehane is currently writing a TV series [of his own creation] as well as working on a new Patrick Kenzie and Angela Gennaro mystery thriller [his first after a ten year hiatus on the series that made his name]. And after all the struggles to produce ‘The Given Day’, he has now decided that it will be the start of a trilogy. He wants to follow the families through prohibition, the great depression and beyond. Despite all the problems he faced while writing ‘The Given Day’, Lehane states-

“You’ve got to go into these things feeling positive, and right now I feel great. I know all the steps in front of me. This time there will be no lying on the couch in a ball thinking ‘How the fuck am I going to get them out of 1918’”

Buy ‘The Given Day’ here

To obtain a copy of the Telegraph Magazine’s Dennis Lehane featured interview by Richard Grant click here

Two other excellent and insightful interviews with Dennis Lehane from a few years back are available from January Magazine, firstly an exchange with Linda Richards where Lehane talks about Mystic River here and Karen Anderson’s interview about Prayers for Rain here

If you’ve not read Dennis Lehane – you are in for a huge treat so here’s his backlist -

The Given Day
Coronado
Shutter Island
Mystic River
Prayers for Rain
Gone, Baby, Gone
Sacred
Darkness, Take My Hand
A Drink Before the War

Note that Dennis Lehane is making a rare London appearance [with fellow NYT bestseller Tess Gerritsen] at Borders Charing Cross Road, London on Thursday 12th February 2009 at 1830 hours – More Details

And don’t forget the movie ‘Ashecliffe’ is due for release this year based on his novel ‘Shutter Island '

Lehane on your chest

Is the cold weather getting you down?

Is Global warming not working?

Is the 'credit crunch' disrupting your clothing purchases?

Fear not because Dennis Lehane has the solution as reported by The Boston Globe -

Dennis Lehane has found a novel way to raise funds for a cause he believes in. The best-selling scribe has joined with Protect.org to produce T-shirts featuring fictional names and places from his books. For instance, there's a T advertising Kenzie & Gennaro Investigations from "Gone Baby Gone," Ashecliffe Hospital from "Shutter Island," and Hurley's Drive-In from "Mystic River." Lehane's the latest author to work with Protect.org, a political lobby focused on protecting children from abuse and exploitation. Other authors involved include authors Andrew Vachss, Joe R. Lansdale, and Nick Hornby.

Read More

True Detective Obsession

This feature contains spoilers – read with caution

With only a few minor issues, I consider TRUE DETECTIVE to be a ‘picture perfect’ crime thriller; combining existential philosophy, gothic horror, and serial killers into a tale of troubled men, investigating a very troubling series of killings along Louisiana’s coast in a post-Hurricane Katrina world.

The genesis of TRUE DETECTIVE comes from literature professor and writer Nic Pizzolatto who took a big risk in life, something that must be admired. Nic wrote a novel entitled GALVESTON a few years ago. It was critically acclaimed including praise from Shutter Island’s Dennis Lehane. The problem was it didn’t sell well, and was not published in the UK, but is now available as an ebook from Little Brown for Kindle and other platforms. As a debut novel, Galveston is an excellent crime-thriller, but also very dark and a perfect antidote for those suffering from withdrawal symptoms due to the end of TRUE DETECTIVE.

Following Pizzolatto’s disappointment that his debut novel Galveston didn’t sell well, his literary agent mentioned that a colleague asked ‘can this writer, craft a screenplay?’ Pizzolatto stepped up to the plate, resigned from his academic tenure and packed his family up and headed off to Los Angeles. He managed to get a job writing screenplays for the US remake of the Danish TV thriller THE KILLING [for AMC] and speculatively worked on his own original screenplay TRUE DETECTIVE. The submitted scripts provoked a bidding war, due to the unusual nature of the narrative structure, with HBO winning out against AMC and many others.

If you’ve read GALVESTON or watched TRUE DETECTIVE you’ll realise that Pizzolatto was influenced by Vince Gilligan’s BREAKING BAD. However what makes TRUE DETECTIVE a “game changer” in terms of TV crime-fiction, is its background in the gothic, and the weird. It is far from a conventional serial killer drama, for it combines existential philosophy, and ponders upon the true nature of consciousness and reality, referencing writers such as Arthur Schopenhauer, Emil Cioran, Immanuel Kant, Friedrich Nietzsche, Albert Camus, Jean-Paul Sartre among others – with the cosmic horror of Thomas Ligotti, Laird Barron, John Langan, Simon Strantzas and especially Howard Philips Lovecraft and the curious collection of stories THE KING IN YELLOW by Robert W. Chambers. During my teenage years, I was [and remain] an avid reader of the subgenre, ‘weird fiction / cosmic horror’ from writers such as Robert Bloch, HP Lovecraft, Clark Ashton Smith, August Derleth, William Hope Hodgson, Ambrose Bierce amongst many, many others.

The Wall Street Journal and I09 were the first, to realise that there was more to TRUE DETECTIVE than just a TV Cop show, as the influence of ‘cosmic horror’ was very evident -

This is a detective show, but the echoes of the bleak tradition of weird fiction don’t stop with Ligotti or Lovecraft. We learn in “True Detective” that the murder victim, Dora Lange, had said she had met a “king,” and that she kept a diary in which she mentioned “the Yellow King” and “Carcosa.” These come from Robert Chambers’ 1895 collection of weird stories, “The King in Yellow,” in which several of the stories are connected by a fictional play, about the titular ruler, which drives to insanity whoever reads it. (Chambers, likewise, took Carcosa from an Ambrose Bierce short story.) Chambers’ writing inspired Lovecraft’s work on what came to be known as the “Cthulhu Mythos.” Lovecraft even co-opted parts of Chambers’ mythology to include in his monstrous pantheon of “gods” and otherworldly locations.

Read More Here

I often joke that my eccentricity [and my interest in the existential nature of reality] is related to having read Robert W Chamber’s 1895 collection of weird stories [collected as THE KING IN YELLOW] as a teenager. Some of these peculiar stories reference a forbidden [and fictional] play THE KING IN YELLOW; that if read, makes the reader insane, such is the disturbing content of the narrative.

The KING IN YELLOW was a huge influence on HP Lovecraft on crafting his “Cthulhu Mythos.” Lovecraft referenced his own forbidden [and fictional] work the dreaded book “The Necronomicon”.  It was first mentioned in Lovecraft's 1924 short story "The Hound", written in 1922, though its purported author, the "Mad Arab" Abdul Alhazred, had been quoted a year earlier in Lovecraft's "The Nameless City". Among other things, the work contains an account of the ‘Old Ones’, their history, and the means for summoning them.

Apart from the weirdness, TRUE DETECTIVE features stunning visuals, an amazing title sequence [featuring the cult band HANDSOME FAMILY track ‘Far from any Road’], eclectic soundtrack, outstanding acting performances, edge of seat narrative and cinematography that takes your breath away, like the single-shot 6 minute sequence of the attack at the stash house in the “Projects” with Ginger and The Iron Crusaders that closes episode 4 – click here to view but have the Valium handy as it will shred your nerves.

Much has been written about the Rust Cohle character, played magnificently by Matthew McConaughey and his nihilism / pessimism about the human condition. It is obvious that Cohle has read, and is an advocate of Thomas Ligotti’s non-fiction philosophical work THE CONSPIRACY AGAINST THE HUMAN RACE.

When interviewed by the Wall Street Journal, Pizzolatto stated -

I read “The Conspiracy Against the Human Race” and found it incredibly powerful writing. For me as a reader, it was less impactful as philosophy than as one writer’s ultimate confessional: an absolute horror story, where the self is the monster. In episode one [of "True Detective"] there are two lines in particular (and it would have been nothing to re-word them) that were specifically phrased in such a way as to signal Ligotti admirers. Which, of course, you got.

The philosophy Cohle promotes in the show’s earliest episodes is a kind of anti-natalist nihilism, and in that regard all cats should be unbagged: “Confessions of an Antinatalist,” “Nihil Unbound,” “In the Dust of this Planet,” “Better to Have Never Been,” and lots of Cioran were all on the reading list.

This is before I came out to Hollywood, but I knew that in my next work I would have a detective who was (or thought he was) a nihilist. I’d already been reading E.M. Cioran for years and consider him one of my all-time favorite and, oddly, most nourishing writers. As an aphorist, Cioran has no rivals other than perhaps Nietzsche, and many of his philosophies are echoed by Ligotti. But Ligotti is far more disturbing than Cioran, who is actually very funny. In exploring these philosophies, nobody I’ve read has expressed the idea of humanity as aberration more powerfully than Cioran and Ligotti.

Read the full interview with Nick Pizzalotta here

Having read Thomas Ligotti’s THE CONSPIRACY AGAINST THE HUMAN RACE, I found it most enlightening, but must issue a warning – it should not be read by anyone suffering from clinical depression, because it reveals much about our plight as beings with a “deep consciousness” which is a blessing as well as a curse, because from our consciousness springs what we term Mortality Salience [or ‘Terror Management’]; as well as living and being aware that the random universe we inhabit is far from benign in nature. It also examines strategies to cope with the deep consciousness we’re bestowed with.

Such is the acclaim for Nic Pizzolatto’s work that HBO have given the green light for a second season, though it will feature different characters and a different storyline. Some viewers were so wrapped up in the ‘weirdness’ that they were perturbed at what they considered a ‘routine serial-killer’ riff in the conclusion. Perhaps they expected Childress and the Tuttles to reveal themselves bestowed with tentacles and originating from an alien dimension? I however was not disappointed as Rustin Cohle’s flashbacks such as the flashing lights when he was driving, the birds making the spiral or the universe opening above Carcosa to me was enough to indicate the ‘weirdness’ or if you prefer, the residual effect of drug use when he was an undercover police operative.

I have only two minor issues with TRUE DETECTIVE, and they are minor when contrasted against the 8 hour ride, and both relate to the last episode.

[a] When Martin Hart is asking one of the black cops if he’d like the call when they uncover the killer, the black cop address Hart “..hey white man….” This piece of dialogue was jarring and totally out of context. But this is minor when compared to every other line of dialogue from Pizzolatto, so forgiven.

[b] The clue of the ‘green ears’ and the paint was a little too stretched in logic for me in tracing Childress’ abode Carcosa, but again a minor point.

Two other observations that bother some viewers [but not me] where –

[a] Not all the loose ends were wrapped up, like the influential Tuttle family seemingly getting off the hook. But hey, welcome to reality, life is rarely wrapped up neatly in a bow, and yes the rich and powerful often get away from their evil deeds, sometimes.

[b] Some people couldn't cope with the complexity of the story, the time zones, the density of the narrative, the sexual imagery, all making it hard work to watch the show. This for me was actually a major plus point. I love narratives that provoke thought, not just a mindless array of action and explosions, and narratives that make the reader / viewer work for their entertainment, gaining enlightenment on the way. 

Though Nick Pizzolatto seems to realise, that it was perhaps the weirdness in TRUE DETECTIVE that lured and obsessed many of the viewers; me included as he stated in this interview when the show closed -

I don't know where you are in working on season 2, but has any of the reaction to this season informed what you're doing with the next? 

Nic Pizzolatto: It's informed exactly one thing. It's that I realize I need to keep being strange. Don't play the next one straight.

Can you tell me anything at all about season 2? 

Nic Pizzolatto: Okay. This is really early, but I'll tell you (it's about) hard women, bad men and the secret occult history of the United States transportation system.

Finally, you wrote this entire thing in a vacuum, as someone relatively new to television, not knowing how it was received. And the show comes on, and people go nuts about it, they are penning raves, coming up with elaborate theories about the Yellow King and Lovecraft and everything else. How did it feel to see your creation being received in all of these ways? 

Nic Pizzolatto: I felt like, look, it's all good, and I really mean that. To me, that is what it means to connect and resonate with people. It means that they are going to project onto the work. There's never been anything I didn't love that I didn't connect with on a personal level because to some degree, I projected upon it. That said, I think I've made clear that my only interest in the Chambers stuff (Robert W. Chambers wrote "The King in Yellow") is as a story that has a place in American myth. And it's a story about a story that drives people into madness. That was mainly it. Beyond that, I'm interested in the atmosphere of cosmic horror, but that's about all I have to say about weird fiction. I did feel the perception was tilted more towards weird fiction than perhaps it should have been. For instance, if someone needs a book to read along with season 1 of "True Detective," I would recommend the King James Old Testament. I wouldn't tell anyone to go buy Robert Chambers. It's not that great a book. Joseph Conrad and William Faulkner I think are in there far more than Chambers or Lovecraft. But again, I guess I hope that these 8 chapters, once the totality of it is evident, it might provoke a re-evaluation. But if it doesn't, I'm very happy with the reaction we've had. It couldn't have been better. I'm just surprised by it. I remember talking to you three months ago and having to convince you: "This just sounds like every other show," "I know, I know." And now my wife read a comment the other day that said I live out in the desert, and I run some kind of cult. (laughs) I don't know what I can say about that. I think this show answers everything it told you to ask. The questions it didn't tell you to ask are questions best left to one's self.

Read more here about Nic’s thoughts now that season one of TRUE DETECTIVE has run its course, burning itself into our psyche and what lies ahead in season two.

The series concluded with a wonderfully melancholic song ‘THE ANGRY RIVER’, specially commissioned for the series, which HBO released as a video, which choreographs the dark lyrics of T Bone Burnett to some startling imagery.

Though we must issue a ‘spoiler warning’ in case you haven’t seen TRUE DETECTIVE [and are waiting for the DVD release] as the video contains elements spliced from all of the 8 episodes.

THE ANGRY RIVER by “The Hat” [featuring Father John Misty & S. I. Istwa)]

Music by T Bone Burnett, Rhiannon Giddens and Gabe Witcher
Lyrics by T Bone Burnett
Produced by T Bone Burnett

Dennis Lehane on film adaptations

The Edmonton Journal has a fascinating article on authors and their feelings about film adaptations of their work with insight from Dennis Lehane –

When author Anne Rice heard that Tom Cruise had been cast as Lestat in the 1994 film version of Interview with the Vampire, she went ballistic, complaining that he was "no more my Vampire Lestat than Edward G. Robinson is Rhett Butler."

It's to Rice's credit that she ate crow after seeing Cruise's performance in the finished film, to the extent of buying a two-page advertisement in Daily Variety, praising his work and apologizing for her earlier diatribe.

However, bestselling author Dennis Lehane is still annoyed about Rice's behaviour. He wrote Shutter Island, and has no complaints about Martin Scorsese's hit film version. Two of his other novels -- Mystic River and Gone Baby Gone -- also became critically acclaimed films, and again Lehane was hugely supportive of what directors Clint Eastwood and Ben Affleck did to those two books.

"What I hate, I truly hate -- and I always did, way before I became a published author -- is someone who runs out in front of cameras, talking about how unhappy they were about adaptations of their works," Lehane says. He cites Rice's notorious complaint about Cruise playing Lestat. "Like we're talking about a character of Hamlet's level!" he adds with a snort.
"We're talking about a vampire who ends up in a rock 'n' roll band in the second book, if I remember right. This is not Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, (so) shut up! It reminds me of the guy coming out of the whorehouse, complaining he didn't feel loved."

Lehane has his allies. Nicholas Sparks, whose love stories are a continuing gold mine for Hollywood, doesn't complain. In fact, he sometimes finds the result an improvement. Mario Puzo had the good grace to admit that his bestseller, The Godfather, had been elevated to a work of art by director Francis Ford Coppola.

Read the Full Piece Here

But let’s leave the last word to Lehane -

Lehane was recently asked whether selling screen rights to a book is like giving a child up for adoption. His reply was succinct: "No, it's like giving it up to a babysitter. That's exactly what it is."

People are constantly asking him for his opinion on what Hollywood "did" to one of his novels. He figures Hollywood hasn't done anything; "my books are still there." He figures authors who complain aren't drawing the proper distinction.

"A book is an apple, and a movie is a giraffe," he says whimsically. "They don't have much more in common than that. They have basic similar narrative DNA, but they're two separate entities. I have no problem looking at Jaws, the book, and Jaws, the movie, L.A. Confidential, the book, and L.A. Confidential, the movie. They're two different entities and two different beasts."

Photo (c) 2010 Paramount Pictures