THE GIVEN DAY
By Dennis Lehane

A Publishers Weekly Best Book of 2008

Washington Post:

[Lehane] deserves to be included among the most interesting and accomplished American novelists of any genre or category.

The New York Times:

No more thinking of Mr. Lehane as an author of detective novels that make good movies (Gone Baby Gone) and tell devastatingly bleak Boston stories (Mystic River). He has written a majestic, fiery epic that moves him far beyond the confines of the crime genre.

Publishers Weekly (starred review):

In a splendid flowering of the talent previously demonstrated in his crime fiction, Lehane combines 20th-century American history, a gripping story of a family torn by pride and the strictures of the Catholic Church, and the plot of a multifaceted thriller [in a] nail-biter [that] carries serious moral gravity.

Booklist (starred review):

Like E. L. Doctorow in Ragtime, Lehane captures the sense of a country coming of age, vividly dramatizing how the conflicting emotions and tortured dreams that drive individual human lives also send a nation roiling forward.

Library Journal (starred review):

Lehane's first historical novel is a clear winner, displaying all the virtues the author has shown in his exceptional series of crime novels: narrative verve, sensitivity to setting, the interweaving of complicated story lines, an apt and emotionally satisfying denouement—and, above all, the author's abiding love for his characters and the human condition. Lehane's long-awaited eighth novel is as good as it gets.

Associated Press:

The Given Day places [Lehane] in the first rank of modern American novelists.

USA Today:

This may be Lehane's finest work.

Time Out London (Book of the Week for February 5-11, 2009):

In the tradition of James Lee Burke's “The Tin Roof Blowdown” (set during Hurricane Katrina) and Ellroy's “American Tabloid,” this is a novel that transcends genre, instead presenting a riveting portrayal of American life. Philadelphia Inquirer: The Given Day moves at the pace of an Indiana Jones movie with a narrative voice that touches the eye and delights the ear…this book is Lehane at his best.

Ft. Meyers News Press:

If Mystic River was an unforgettable appetizer of the Irish-American experience, Dennis Lehane’s long-awaited historical novel The Given Day is the feast we’ve waited more than seven years to savor. Rich, complex and deeply moving, The Given Day is this year’s undisputed masterpiece.

Orlando Sentinel:

At 720 pages, The Given Day could double as a doorstop, but Lehane's masterful pacing and precise prose make the story speed by. As with the finest of historical fiction, Lehane shows that the fears and concerns of the 21st century are as fresh and raw as they were in the 20th century.