Karen's Reviews > Since We Fell

Since We Fell by Dennis Lehane

Dennis Lehane has been one of my favorite author's since I met him and his wife at a book reading and signing at The Harvard Bookstore. I will always think "Mystic River," "Shutter Island," and "Any Given Day," were phenomenal and he has a great sense of humor and a deep insight into psychological aspects that make up human nature.

I went into my reading of "Since We Fell," totally blind. I didn't even read the synopsis on the book jacket and I am glad that I did. For at least 100 pages in the book delves into Rachel's upbringing with a very controlling mother who denies Rachel the identity of her father's name. It is left off of the birth certificate. Rachel goes on a quest to find her biological father and hires Brian Delacroix who will figure into the story in the second half of the book. He will be a significant person and a catalyst for the way she heals from a downward spiral. One of the questionable character's that ratchets up the tension in the second half of the book. The slow burn build up of this character study of Rachel pays off greatly in huge dividends as we witness a disaster that will define her life that happened while she was at working as a reporter in Haiti that further unravels her. Social media and it's consequences make her a full blown agoraphobic. There are so many more layers to this novel which is both literary and thrilling. This book defies any one genre. If you can appreciate Lehane's descriptive character study of all that Rachel endures including finding her father, her various job changes etc. Your understanding of Rachel as a three dimensional character will enhance your overall interpretations of her in the second half of the book where the speed limit is 55 mph and the thrills and action speed up to over 100 mph.

I don't want to give away any spoilers here as to ruin your reading experience. I just want to encourage the reader that the slow, dense descriptions of Rachel's life are finally understood when you get to the second part of the book. There seems almost to be two different books in one until you get to a betrayal that accelerates the action and will test Rachel's strength of identity. I was so thoroughly immersed in this novel that I read it in one sitting and did the minimum required of me to honor family commitments, and then rushed back to reading until I finished. This novel doesn't engage in the usual prototype of psychological thrillers that we have been bombarded with lately.
The novel is both literary and thrilling at the same time.

"Since We Fell" is Dennis Lehane's writing at his very best. There are abandonment issues, explorations into how well do we know our spouse, romance, conspiracies, some very dangerous characters, panic attacks, agoraphobia and the refreshing device of each chapter leading us on a continuation of the story from the chapter before. There are no alternating chapters of different points of view or going backward and forward in time. Thank you Dennis Lehane for another gripping, lyrical, character driven stand alone story.