Review: Since We Fell

Since We Fell by Dennis Lehane
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

“On a Tuesday in May, in her thirty-fifth year, Rachel shot her husband dead. He stumbled backward with an odd look of confirmation on his face, as if some part of him had always known she’d do it.”

‘Since We Fell’ opens in a way I have come to expect from Dennis Lehane - in the heart of the action, a crime (?) committed. Who is Rachel Childs and why has she killed her husband? And then….

And then, it is not that novel. What follows is a ‘literary’ novel, the story of a woman whose life is dominated by the missing. Denied her father’s identity by her controlling and manipulative mother, Rachel tries to find him. Becoming an reporter, she is haunted, firstly by those taken by the hurricane in Haiti, then by those taken by the rape gangs who follow in its wake. Rachel is unhappy, unfulfilled and close to breakdown but, despite her issues, perhaps because of them, she is hard to root for. Lehane writes brilliantly and some of his prose is stunningly good but Rachel is not an entirely sympathetic character. She is needy, self-absorbed and a bit whiny… But her story is captivating. Even as I struggled with the direction of the book, trying to work out exactly what I was reading, where Lehane was going, I was enjoying it immensely. The story moves slowly, there is little in the way of real plot, but I enjoyed the writing, the commentary on modern American values, the media.

“God. I want the capital-G God the televangelists claim moves tornadoes out of their paths. The one who cures cancer and arthritis in the faithful, the God professional athletes thank for taking an interest in the outcome of the Super Bowl or the World Cup or a home run hit in the eighty-seventh game of the hundred sixty-two played by the Red Sox this year.”

And then, it is not that novel.

About halfway through ‘Since We Fell’ goes in a different direction. You don’t see it coming. It is so jarring that it is almost as if you have started another novel, one that is pretty much all about plot, and I suppose how the reader reacts to this, accepts this, is down to how much you like, and trust, Dennis Lehane. Having read Lehane since the Kenzie and Gennaro novels, I was prepared to go with him. And I am glad I did.

I won’t go into the details of the second half of ‘Since We Fell’. It is only fair for others to enjoy (or be infuriated by) the abrupt transition. In terms of Lehane’s work I suspect this is a bit of an experiment, a flawed but enjoyable and worthwhile experiment.

View all my reviews