Small Mercies by Dennis Lehane

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.

303 pages, Hardcover

First published April 25, 2023

Genre(s): Historical Fiction: Mystery Thriller

My Thoughts

Dennis Lehane's Small Mercies may take place in Boston's Southie neighborhood in 1974 — but the topics it deals with are incredibly timely and relevant 50 years later.

This is a thriller about a mother trying to find her daughter. It is a novel about the mob. It is a story about bussing and the desegregation of the schools. It is about so much more than that though.

This is a difficult read due to the constant racist discourse and endless racial slurs, It is worth it, however, in the moments that Mary Pat begins to see how everything she thought she knew about Black people might not be true. There is a powerful message about how sometimes racism was often more of an inherited trait rather than a conscious decision. We have to know we are operated on the fiction we were raised with before we can make a conscious decision to model something different for future generations.

This novel is about grief, poverty, and desperation, but underneath all of that it is about racism, and that makes it a relevant read today. There are so many echoes with some of the behavior and conversation about race that we see today. This novel is powerful and relevant. I gave it 5 stars.