The Given Day by:Dennis Lehane

Just finished reading this book. It is amazing how Boston, 100  years ago, (the 19 teens) is both foreign and familiar at the same time. The same conversations about terrorists, bombs, racial tension, except that some of the ethnicities targeted are a little different. This is not academic book. It is a novel, for entertainment, but I found it very educational in the different events it mentions. Not only were things so bad for certain groups in certain areas, but you would be surprised to know how good things were for say blacks in Tulsa, Oklahoma. I was completely ignorant of that.
In school you get the sense that as far as blacks/African Americans were concerned, things were bad before and are better now and will continue to get better as if progress were in a straight, boring line. It never occurs to your gradeschool mind that blacks 100 years ago were thinking, "Now we've finally made it economically and soon we'll be seen as equal, the same as whites." 100 years ago. So what happened?
It never occurs to you that there is reactionary movements too. That some people want the future to go the other way. Of course in high school and college and as an adult you may or may not read serious or seriously toned books and articles that go into more detail and warn that there is more work to be done etc etc.
But it's nice to have all that in an action packed novel, that had people like Babe Ruth show up in there.

I hope Dennis Lehane will write a book that involves Boston's Chinatown. Not just has some a mention of Chinese (usually derogatory because of the time) but actually has Chinese characters. Dennis Lehane isn't Chinese, but he's not black either. (or is he? I guess you never can be sure, I should know that of all people.) Usually the main character is Irish. But there are a few plots and characters from real life that can have a good action packed novel involving Irish and Chinese and crime and the law. It could be about the 70's or the 80's or the 90's. Or he could go further back. I'm sure there is a story there. And I'm sure too that Lehane would make it not only entertaining, but fair. And if he does his research, I'm pretty sure he can paint an accurate picture of Chinatown (from his point of view) but still much more realistic and deep than the Hollywood version that is out there right now. And because he is Lehane, the book will be sell, be made into a movie, and will probably spark more interest in Chinatown.

In The Given Day, the main neighborhood is the North End instead, and the Irish cop living there speaks Italian. There are a lot of similarities between that historical neighborhood and Chinatown, which is also a historical neighborhood of Boston by the way. A lot of people don't realize that the Chinese have been in Boston for quite some time. There are a lot of Chinese families in Boston that are Old American Families with Old American Roots. But Chinese tend to be thought of as a new immigrant group even now. It would be good. A Dennis Lehane Chinatown adventure.