"Since We Fell," Dennis Lehane's 14th novel and fifth standalone novel, is a very visual work of fiction. That is the first thing I will say about it. While many novels are often difficult to picture, I had no trouble picturing the events of this one in my mind. It helps that I have spent time in Boston, the novel's primary setting (more on that later), but I will say that it was easy to picture Lehane's descriptions.
Dennis Lehane has had four of his novels ("Mystic River," "Gone Baby Gone," "Shutter Island," and "Live by Night") adapted into films. He has also done work writing episodes of television shows, most notably "The Wire." This, I guess, is why he is good at writing for people to visualize. Many other critics have compared "Since We Fell" to an Alfred Hitchcock film. That is what the novel's ceiling feels like. Its floor is lower, for reasons I will get to.
I was surprised at the level of emotional connection I felt to the novel's lead character. She is one of the most internally troubled protagonists I have ever read about (and that is saying something). Sometimes she hallucinates things that I thought happened, which confused me for a few seconds, but Lehane got back to the main narrative quickly.
Lehane writes, in my opinion, a very compelling description of mental illness. Now I do not have anything similar to that of the lead character, who is said to have agoraphobia, but I do know what it is like to be anxious and feel frozen in place (which happens several times to her).
Furthermore, some of the events that happened were quietly thrilling. Lehane did not write a book where all the thrills come from active violence (although there is a good deal of it, especially in the later chapters). Chapter 19 had my heart pounding even though not that much was happening, just from the knowledge of what could happen. Alfred Hitchcock said, "The terror is not in the bang, but only in its anticipation." This is what, I think, is meant by the comparisons to his work.
"Since We Fell," to its credit, is very full of good insights. While many modern books are, this one seemed to have more than usual. Lehane discusses society, life, and the personality of his characters with a keen eye for what lies just below the surface. I wish I could quote them, but I did not note the page numbers, so I can't look them up.
Another area Lehane excels is character development. One character goes through many stages of what the reader thinks about him, and you never know who this character really is.
I docked a star for two reasons. The first and foremost was that "Since We Fell" felt like several different stories zipped together. I felt as if I was whipped around by the plot, especially at the beginning, where the lead character's backstory is discussed. An author shouldn't begin a story with one hundred pages of backstory, even if he includes an in-medias-res prologue which does not make sense to the reader at the time.
A few quick notes: Many of the places made sense to me, as the book was set in Boston, a city I am familiar with. I had several moments where I thought, "Ha! I know exactly where that is." Furthermore, there were some insights on the wood and lumber industry, in which my dad works. Lehane even discusses Brazil at times, where my dad works. I have never seen the Brazilian lumber industry discussed in any other book.
The other reason I docked a star was that none of the twists felt like actual twists, save one or two. While none were so bad that I saw them coming, none of them seemed that surprising to me. I think Lehane could have been a little more creative with where he took the story, even though there were big time reversals all through the second half of the book.
To say more would be to spoil the book. I felt that "Since We Fell" was a book that I didn't feel like I had to understand fully, just enjoy. And sometimes, that is enough.
Comments