Small Mercies: A Novel

4.5 4.5 out of 5 stars | 21,065 ratings

Price: 22.04

Last update: 11-22-2024


About this item

Instant New York Times Bestseller

“Small Mercies is thought provoking, engaging, enraging, and can’t-put-it-down entertainment.”—Stephen King

The acclaimed New York Times bestselling writer returns with a masterpiece to rival Mystic River—an all-consuming tale of revenge, family love, festering hate, and insidious power, set against one of the most tumultuous episodes in Boston’s history.

In the summer of 1974 a heatwave blankets Boston and Mary Pat Fennessy is trying to stay one step ahead of the bill collectors. Mary Pat has lived her entire life in the housing projects of “Southie,” the Irish American enclave that stubbornly adheres to old tradition and stands proudly apart.

One night Mary Pat’s teenage daughter Jules stays out late and doesn’t come home. That same evening, a young Black man is found dead, struck by a subway train under mysterious circumstances.

The two events seem unconnected. But Mary Pat, propelled by a desperate search for her missing daughter, begins turning over stones best left untouched—asking questions that bother Marty Butler, chieftain of the Irish mob, and the men who work for him, men who don’t take kindly to any threat to their business.

Set against the hot, tumultuous months when the city’s desegregation of its public schools exploded in violence, Small Mercies is a superb thriller, a brutal depiction of criminality and power, and an unflinching portrait of the dark heart of American racism. It is a mesmerizing and wrenching work that only Dennis Lehane could write.


Top reviews from the United States

switterbug/Betsey Van Horn
5.0 out of 5 stars Gripping, authentic period piece
Reviewed in the United States on July 29, 2023
Nothing prepared me for an antihero like middle-aged mother Mary Pat Fennessy in Lehane’s electrifying and turbulent new novel. Lehane put Southie (the mostly Irish part of South Boston) on the literary map in his early crime novels, and in SMALL MERCIES he achieves the pinnacle of his career. You are about to go on one of the wildest rides of your life (sometimes in a car named Bess)! Mary Pat is “built for battle” and will defend her turf and her family with relentless fury.

It’s 1974. It was a hot, steaming, rainless summer in Boston, and temps were high not only in the skies but on the ground, between the white Southies and the Black citizens of Roxbury, both districts under a busing mandate to bring Black students to the all-white South Boston High School, and white students to mostly Black Roxbury. Forget the PC talk, and don’t expect Mary Pat to be the exceptional white woman who embraces desegregation. In fact, she demonstrates her own roots of being brought up by what we would now call racists. The entire South Boston population was on the verge of violence in these weeks before the first day of school.

Something had to give, but was forced busing the answer? Lehane bravely tells a story of the racial divide, without sentimentality, without fear, and with an unstoppable plot. This is an unputdownable novel, not for the faint of heart. Prepare for graphic violence and plenty of moral ambiguity, as Lehane explores this time in history through the eyes of mostly the Southies, Mary Pat as the primary character. It’s the eve of protests, rallies, and riots, and Lehane flawlessly weaves in true pieces of history with his period piece.

No need to cover the plot—that’s for the reader to enjoy as the pages turn. Mary Pat lost a son to an OD after surviving Vietnam. Her daughter, Jules, is seventeen and will be one of the bused students when school begins. Mary Pat has lived in Southie her entire life, she is a solid citizen of the community. Southie is guarded and run by the Irish mob (think Whitey Bulger)—the Butler crew, known as “Southie’s protector.” They will protect you, but you have to submit to their code, their ethos.

This story gets explosive when Mary Pat collides with the mobster crew, while the busing mandate looms in the backdrop. She needs them to help her find her daughter, who failed to come home on a Saturday night. On the same night, a young Black man is found dead on the train tracks of a subway platform. The mob crew want to control Mary Pat’s actions, have her play by their rules, and let me tell you, you don’t want to get on Mary Pat’s bad side, either.

The detective on the case, Bobbie Coyne, is trying to help Mary Pat. He refers to her as broken, but unbreakable. He knows her kind—the fierce Southie woman--but also recognizes that she is unknowable. She is as gritty as this tale, as raw as this story. Recently divorced from her second husband, she takes no prisoners in her quest to find Jules, and she’s scared of nobody.

Racial conflicts, class clashes, and a gripping crime. Lehane spares no bigoted racial slur for the reader in these pages. There were times I could barely stomach these words, but Lehane is from Dorchester, and he knows the genuine language of the time and place. Mary Pat does recognize that her racism is inherited, that there is no “factual” basis for it, except that her parents passed it down to her, and in Southie, it is generational. The language here is not gratuitous, but it doesn’t go down easy. The story peeks at redemption, and Mary Pat nearly vibrates off the page. Once you start, you’re hooked. It’s heroin for readers.
Jason Crouch
4.0 out of 5 stars Swiftly paced thriller
Reviewed in the United States on October 24, 2024
Gritty and fast, but I did have to suspend my disbelief more than usual. The dialogue is believable, though, as are many of the characters. I enjoyed "Mystic River" by this author more, but this is a worthy read, especially because it's pretty short.
Bookaholic
5.0 out of 5 stars Brilliant and devastating
Reviewed in the United States on October 6, 2024
This book should be required reading for every high school child in the USA.
Hate is taught, it’s not born in us, and hate destroys everything it touches.
A beautifully written testament to the love parents have for their children and the many ways it’s expressed. A devastating treatise on how those same parents teach hate and bigotry to the children they love so desperately.
kathy kahoe
5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent
Reviewed in the United States on November 4, 2024
When I started this book, I didn't think I'd like it. But, the more I got into the story, the more I realized what a good story it is, and what good writing was presenting it. I am very impressed with Mr. Lehane''s depth of feeling, conveyed in such a subtle way.
Kiki
4.0 out of 5 stars Skip the audio book
Reviewed in the United States on June 22, 2024
A gripping story that depicts fairly accurately a tumultuous time from my young adulthood in greater Boston. Vintage Lehane. The characters are authentic. I switched back and forth between the ebook and the audio. While Robin Miles is an experienced narrator and I have enjoyed some of her other books, her Boston accent misses the mark to the point where it became a distraction from the story. I heard what sounded like a little Brooklyn and a little Chicago mixed in. All in all, though, a good read.
Terry
5.0 out of 5 stars Dennis Lehane is my Hero
Reviewed in the United States on September 29, 2024
He comes up with the most interesting stories. This is no exception. This one grabbed me from the beginning, as it is a story of an Irish enclave, much like the one my father grew up in in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

The story of a missing 17 year old, who disappeared the night a well loved young man was murdered is chilling.

As Mr. Lehane lets the tension of her disappearance grow with the background of desecration of Bostonʼs public schools, the ugliness of the lives of those within and without the residents of the Commonwealth Public Housing compound shows we are all alike under our skin, dispite the color of our skin.

As he writes to the shocking but inevitable conclusion, one thing becomes very clear. We are all born the same way, naked and screaming. We all end our lives the same way, in death. No matter how we each make our journey between our commonalities, every story is different.

This story of a missing 17 year old and the murder of a young man not much older than she, both children still their mother's baby, proves this commonality.

Not until near the end of the book does the meaning of the title come out. It shows very clearly there can be compassion amidst the ugliness.

Highly recommended by other reviewers, I add my vote to theirs.
Molly
3.0 out of 5 stars Good history, but violence porn
Reviewed in the United States on April 26, 2024
This is the only Lehane novel I’ve read. I was intrigued by reviews because I was well aware of the racist violence in South Boston in 1974-75, and was in a pro- integration march attacked by the racists. I saw the notorious South Boston Defense League, thugs whose dads were rumored to be local cops. The real power came from Louise Day Hicks and ROAR, and from the well heeled mob that would soon grab the governorship. The book is well written and the history is accurate in linking violence to the Irish Mafia, drug traffic, and crooked cops, though this might distract from its deep roots in political power. I should have realized the genre was not for me. This is not gritty realism. The story is lip-smacking, sadistic, graphic violence with a thin veneer of character development and social relevance. Calling it porn is not a metaphor, as the tropes are the same. Ultraviolent acts are preceded by a teasing sequence, are sadistic and perverse, and always involve the target begging for mercy while being tortured. The Black characters are two-dimensional and serve only to motivate actions by white heroes and villains.

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