The Given Day by Dennis Lehane

This is a very big book and there's a lot to say about it. This historical novel is Dickensian in its interweaving of plot and characters, which all lead to the Police Officers' strike in Boston in 1919. The male characters are very richly depicted. We see them inside and out, and live their point of view. The protaganist, Danny Coughlin, is the heir apparent to an Irish Catholic Boston Police Department Lieutenant, Thomas Coughlin, who has the natural conservatism and prejudices of his time and heritage. But Danny rejects the old values and we get to see his character, his views, his introspection. The other major characters, a black man named Luther Laurence, a recent immigrant named Nora, and the bad guy, Eddie McKenna. The women are more lightly sketched--we never see inside Nora's head, or get her history. Luther's wife we see only from his point of view. Thomas' wife, Ellen, is just a sketch.
The historic events and thinking of the time is well researched and reflected in the characters and their actions. The times were similar to our own. There was an irrational branding of all immigrants as bad in the minds of the majority, especially slavic and Russian immigrants. Terrorism from anarchists was a real fear. There were real bombings, real injuries and death, caused by anarchists, but the emotional reaction lost all focus on the perpetrators and anyone who was a recent immigrant from Russia or slavic countries was suspect. Normal dissent was feared. Union activity was subversive.
This was the end of the first World War, the world was suffering from the Spanish flu pandemic which killed 18 million people during its two year spread throughout the world, and immigrants were pouring in to the United States as the economy was faltering. The Boston Police department had not had a raise since 1903, but unionization of essential government services was especially subversive.
Given the complexity of the times, its natural that the book takes awhile to lay the foundation for the main story lines and characters. The author's style does allow you to immerse yourself in the times, the people, the events, but if he could have eliminated about 10% of the metaphors and added some character to the women, I would have liked it better. It was, as a good friend of mine said, very metaphor-full. Here's an example:
"The night was moonless, the air so raw it found his gums. ...He drove back to the city with a windshield grimed by salt and his own fear drying into his scalp." There's a little too much of that.
On the other hand, there were two bad guys, Eddie McKenna, and Tessa Ficara, and we know exactly what Eddie is thinking, and how he got the way he is. We never see inside Tessa's head. We could have used a little more introspection on the part of the women.
But all in all I was absorbed in the story, not very distracted by the excess of imagery, and only disappointed in the women after the fact. So, I would very much recommend the book as a great and entertaining depiction of a pivotal event in the history of the country, not just Boston, and for the feel of the times, the real and unfounded fears that justifiably or not changed Boston forever. The parallels to our own time make the lessons that could be learned from that time important.