RARA-AVIS: early Lehane

From: Zoe Bleck (zoebleck@gmail.com)
Date: 12 Nov 2009

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    patrick king said--

    *Lahane's first book, A DRINK BEFORE THE WAR, was god awful; absurd premise, ridiculously violent, comic book deep characters, Bubba for example, and yet it won at least one award. Had I read A DRINK BEFORE THE WAR first, I doubt that, as a reader, I'd bother with Lehane.

    *I think I read somewhere that Lehane himself called his early books the work of a very young writer--and they are.

    But i do want to defend Bubba--he's such an entertaining character--exaggerated and perhaps not very realistic, but he fits in with Lehane's continuing exploratiion of how growing up in a specific time & place shapes character--and the different directions that each character takes.

    And your actual point, that writers deserve a chance to grow with each book and most likely aren't getting the chance to do so in the present publishing climate, is well-taken.

    Zoe

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