![]() ![]() Jules’ question goes unanswered, Mary Pat is the kind of person who lives only in the moment these days, a cigarette and a beer at a time, maybe a plate of pot roast down at the bar, but other than that? She can’t imagine a life where anyone has the answers to such existential questions. Jules is about to enter her senior year of high school, while Mary Pat is a hard 42 - her son, Noel, overdosed after coming home from Vietnam her first husband, a small-time gangster, had to be declared dead her most recent husband left her due to her capacity for hatred - and both are suffused with a troubling mixture of rage and yearning. It’s the summer of 1974, the city lighted to pop as it awaits the desegregation of its public schools through court-mandated busing. The two women are walking the streets of Southie, the Boston neighborhood Lehane has often examined. ![]() If you buy books linked on our site, The Times may earn a commission from, whose fees support independent bookstores.Įarly on in “ Small Mercies,” which may be Dennis Lehane’s final novel if one is to believe his recent interviews, 17-year-old Jules asks her mother, Mary Pat Fennessy, “You ever wonder if there’s some different place?” ![]()
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