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Dennis Lehane

Shutter Island

Mystic River

Dennis Lehane wrote five private-eye novels (the first in 1994) before hitting the charts with Mystic River, his first stand-alone. Lehane grabbed readers by the throat when Mystic River hit the bookshelves, winning the Anthony Award and Barry Award for Best Novel. Released in 2001, Mystic River was optioned for film and directed by Clint Eastwood in Boston in October, 2002. The movie starred Sean Penn, Kevin Bacon, Tim Robbins, and Laura Linney.

Shutter Island, another stand-alone, this one replete with deception, was released in 2003. Check out the following Empowering Characters’ Emotions examples from his two stand-alones.

Shutter Island

Here are fresh ways that Lehane shares five smiles and two grins:

Cawley’s smile returned, but it was a more viscous version, and it reminded Teddy of the film that formed over soup.

Chuck smiled in such a way that Teddy suspected they were already tuning into each other’s rhythms, learning how to fuck with each other.

“It’s come up.” Chuck giving the sea another of his small smiles, leaning over the bow, stretching his back.

Marino caught herself before a half-smile went full.

He had an explosive smile, however, bright and bulging with a confidence that lightened his irises, and he used it now as he came around the desk to greet them, his hand outstretched.

Teddy stopped in the middle of a second round of pocket pats, found Chuck watching him, his wry grin etched into his cheeks just below the scar.

Chuck grinned. He lit a cigarette, his eye on Teddy, his grin turning into a soft laugh, the smoke chugging out in rhythm with it.

The following two sentences deepen characterization by empowering a handshake:

His hand was dry and statue smooth in Teddy’s, and his grip was a shocker, squeezing the bones in Teddy’s hand until Teddy could feel the press of it straight up his forearm. Cawley’s eyes glittered for a moment, as if to say, Didn’t expect that, did you?

Here’s a mannerism not frequently found in print, finger-combing. Lehane empowers it by adding a response to the stimulus and interpreting the behavior.

Her cap sat in her lap, and she finger-combed her hair in a lazy way that suggested weariness but had every guy in the room sneaking glances at her, the way that weary finger-combing suggested the need for a bed. (p. 53)

As we study in my Empowering Characters’ Emotions course, characters display telltale behaviors when they lie. Check these out.

She paused. It was more like a hitch, actually, and Teddy watched her eyes turn up slightly as if she were searching her brain for the right file, and Teddy scribbled “lies” on his notepad, curling his wrist over the word as soon as he was done.

She spoke with her head down, and when she finished, she couldn’t meet Teddy’s eyes. Her glance bounced off his face, and she studied the table top and lit another cigarette.

Her face showed no expression. None whatsoever. It was as if it had turned to alabaster. Her hands stayed flat on the table top, as if removing them would cause the table to float to the ceiling.

Mystic River

Here are some exceptional examples of paralanguage (vocal cues).

Sean nodded. Arguing with his father was pointless when he spoke as quietly and slowly as he was doing now, every word coming out of his mouth as if it had a small stone attached to it.

Seems weird,” Jimmy said, his voice stripped of color.

“Know what would be cool?” Jimmy’s voice had that slight rise in it that made something in Sean’s blood jitter, probably because Jimmy’s idea of cool was usually way different that anyone else’s.

The following excerpts are some of my favorites. I would categorize these as EMPOWERED examples. Lehane gives the reader a combination of physical emotion, internalizations, gestures and facial expressions, mixing and matching to capture the right image in the right cadence. Read them out loud. Enjoy.

Sean got that lurching sensation again, this time accompanied by the taste of dirty pennies in his mouth. His stomach felt as if a spoon had hollowed it out.

Sean looked at his father. He didn’t seem to know where to put his hands. He put them in his pockets, then he pulled them out, wiped them on his pants.

Jimmy’s father showed up and stood in the corner of the kitchen looking mad and distracted, his eyes watery, weaving a bit as if the wall kept moving behind him.

Dave just stared. He stared at Jimmy, and even though Jimmy couldn’t see his eyes, he could sense blankness in them. Blankness, and blame.

The next one is a free-form empowered example.

Katie. The trill of her name sliding through his brain was enough to make Brendan feel like his limbs were filled with nitrous oxide, like he could walk on water and bench-press an eighteen-wheeler, toss it across the street when he was finished with it.

I think Lehane gave himself permission to have fun when he wrote that one. Some people may say it’s over the top. It works for me. The reader gets it. Brendan is in love, yet Lehane didn’t use the word LOVE.

Read Dennis Lehane and you’ll find fresh emotion, fresh nonverbals, fresh writing.