The Guardian published an interesting interview with crime novelist Dennis Lehane this morning. Lehane may be best known as the author of Mystic River, the screen adapation of which was directed by Clint Eastwood and which went on to be nominated for 6 Academy Awards, winning in two categories (Best Actor and Best Supporting Actor). But Lehane's novels have been widely honored elsewhere. His first book, A Drink Before the War, which he says in the interview was originally written in three weeks but rewritten "a score of times", won the Shamus Award in 1995 for Best First P.I. Novel. He has also won the Nero Award for Sacred, the Dilys Award and Barry Award for Gone, Baby, Gone (which was also made into a movie), and the Anthony Award, Dilys Award, and Barry Award for Mystic River. One of his more recent novels, Shutter Island, has also been adapted for the screen and is in post-production; the release date for the film is currently October 2009.
Lehane admits that by writing crime fiction he risked being hemmed in as a genre writer. His latest effort, The Given Day, is anything but. A historical novel of epic proportions, weighing in at over 700 pages, Lehane says he spent five years writing it. "I feel like if this bombs, God: it's going to be my Heaven's Gate, my Waterworld." His heart, he says, is finally "exposed".
The Lehane interview ends with a story in which a homeless men saves his life, an incident that reinforced his moral outlook; the generosity that infuses his work. "It's true," he says, of the men who saved him, and it stands just as well for his characters. "There is nothing better than the least of us."
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