Nicholas McCane
Lehane takes us back to 1974, where there was a ruling by the district court to desegregate the city public high schools. Roxbury High School was a black school, and South Boston High School was mostly white. Half of the white kids would have to take the bus to Roxbury and vice verse. They had 90 days to prepare.
The book mostly takes place in South Boston. An Irish-American neighborhood that they refer to as Southie. The Irish mob runs this place. About half of the people there are racist as hell, and the other half are poor and just didn’t want to bus their kids to Roxbury. Either way, it was a very dangerous place for an African American.
In the middle of all this tension, someone murders a black male in South Boston (Augustus “Augie” Williamson). We, the reader, follow Mary Pat Fennessy, who is a foul mouth, chain-smoking, alcoholic, racist, single mother of a 17-year-old (Jules). One day, her racist daughter Jules is hanging out with her racist friends, and she comes up missing on the same day of Augie’s murder. So now we (the reader) have to go along with the racist mom as she does whatever to find her racist daughter.
This book has taught me something about myself. I’ve never disliked a character as much as this one. There were plenty of times that I wanted to DNF this. I hung in there because history is history. I love how the author kept Mary Pat's character real. This is an actual place with real people like this. However, I found it hard to root for a person who wouldn’t piss on me if I were on fire. Also, some scenes at the end didn’t seem realistic, but were still entertaining. There was a lot of hatred and racial tension in this book. I can’t count how many times the n-word with the hard R was said. I’m putting my personal feelings to the side and grading this book based on the writing. Four stars, but would not recommend.
Lehane takes us back to 1974, where there was a ruling by the district court to desegregate the city public high schools. Roxbury High School was a black school, and South Boston High School was mostly white. Half of the white kids would have to take the bus to Roxbury and vice verse. They had 90 days to prepare.
The book mostly takes place in South Boston. An Irish-American neighborhood that they refer to as Southie. The Irish mob runs this place. About half of the people there are racist as hell, and the other half are poor and just didn’t want to bus their kids to Roxbury. Either way, it was a very dangerous place for an African American.
In the middle of all this tension, someone murders a black male in South Boston (Augustus “Augie” Williamson). We, the reader, follow Mary Pat Fennessy, who is a foul mouth, chain-smoking, alcoholic, racist, single mother of a 17-year-old (Jules). One day, her racist daughter Jules is hanging out with her racist friends, and she comes up missing on the same day of Augie’s murder. So now we (the reader) have to go along with the racist mom as she does whatever to find her racist daughter.
This book has taught me something about myself. I’ve never disliked a character as much as this one. There were plenty of times that I wanted to DNF this. I hung in there because history is history. I love how the author kept Mary Pat's character real. This is an actual place with real people like this. However, I found it hard to root for a person who wouldn’t piss on me if I were on fire. Also, some scenes at the end didn’t seem realistic, but were still entertaining. There was a lot of hatred and racial tension in this book. I can’t count how many times the n-word with the hard R was said. I’m putting my personal feelings to the side and grading this book based on the writing. Four stars, but would not recommend.
