Library's review
Boston in 1974 had a lot in common with Birmingham, Alabama. A court ruled earlier that year that Boston public schools must be desegregated with the start of school in the fall, leading to a summer full of racial tension centered on the black neighborhood of Roxbury and vociferous protests in the
Mary Pat, proud Irish Catholic single mother and vehement anti-busing advocate, is distracted from the activism she plans with other mothers in Southie when her teenage daughter Jules goes missing. On the same evening, a young black man is found dead in a Southie subway station. Do these two events connect, and how?
Man, the racism and the foul language, the cruelty and the violence that characters perpetuate on each other is so hard to read — not because it's exaggerated or over-the-top in its depiction but because it is all too depressingly real. The ways that even Mary Pat — as close as this novel comes to a protagonist — speaks about black people is like a bucket of cold water in your face. When the dead teenager turns out to be the son of Mary Pat's black co-worker at the nursing home, she tries and mostly fails to reach out to her with compassion, and is nevertheless surprised when her half-hearted condolences are met with anger and resentment. The gulf between these two women, who have so much in common, cannot be overcome with a clever plot point or one heartfelt conversation. It is bone deep, generations old, and will undoubtedly live on in future generations on both sides.
There are also more bog-standard depictions of neighborhood gangsters and drug dealing, and it all comes together in an explosive finale that metes out a certain rough justice that satisfies no one. But those weren't the aspects that stuck with me. It was the seeming hopelessness of the interpersonal relations between two sets of Americans who struggle to even see each other as human that still haunts my thoughts.
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white working-class neighborhoods of South Boston.Mary Pat, proud Irish Catholic single mother and vehement anti-busing advocate, is distracted from the activism she plans with other mothers in Southie when her teenage daughter Jules goes missing. On the same evening, a young black man is found dead in a Southie subway station. Do these two events connect, and how?
Man, the racism and the foul language, the cruelty and the violence that characters perpetuate on each other is so hard to read — not because it's exaggerated or over-the-top in its depiction but because it is all too depressingly real. The ways that even Mary Pat — as close as this novel comes to a protagonist — speaks about black people is like a bucket of cold water in your face. When the dead teenager turns out to be the son of Mary Pat's black co-worker at the nursing home, she tries and mostly fails to reach out to her with compassion, and is nevertheless surprised when her half-hearted condolences are met with anger and resentment. The gulf between these two women, who have so much in common, cannot be overcome with a clever plot point or one heartfelt conversation. It is bone deep, generations old, and will undoubtedly live on in future generations on both sides.
There are also more bog-standard depictions of neighborhood gangsters and drug dealing, and it all comes together in an explosive finale that metes out a certain rough justice that satisfies no one. But those weren't the aspects that stuck with me. It was the seeming hopelessness of the interpersonal relations between two sets of Americans who struggle to even see each other as human that still haunts my thoughts.
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Description
"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"--
Awards
Dublin Literary Award (Longlist — 2024)
Crime Writers' Association Awards (Longlist — 2024)
BookTube Prize (Octofinalist — Fiction — 2024)
NPR: Books We Love (2023)
Chicago Public Library Best of the Best: Adults (Selection — 2023)
Language
Original publication date
2023