Drop By For The Drop

Novelist Dennis Lehane makes SF stop

The novelist and screenwriter Dennis Lehane is coming to the Jean Cocteau Cinema. Think you haven’t heard of him? Here are a few of the pop culture gems he is responsible for: Mystic River, directed by Clint Eastwood, Gone, Baby, Gone, directed by fellow Bostonian Ben Affleck, and Shutter Island, directed by no less than Martin Scorsese. If that’s not enough for you, he was a staff writer on The Wire, widely acknowledged to be one of the greatest television programs of all time.

So, when you hear that he's going to be in town for a talk before the screening of his latest film project, your initial reaction should be: "I'm on my way." It's called The Drop, and it's the first film for which Lehane has written the screenplay. Given his success on The Wire, it's sure to be superb.

Here's the story in a nutshell, as described by the book's publishing house: "Three days after Christmas, a lonely bartender looking for a reason to live rescues an abused puppy from a trash can and meets a damaged woman looking for something to believe in. As their relationship grows, they cross paths with the Chechen mafia; a man grown dangerous with age and thwarted hopes; two hapless stick-up artists; a very curious cop; and the original owner of the puppy, who wants his dog back."

It's the kind of hard-hitting, blue-collar drama that Lehane excels at. In a recorded master class at The Center for Fiction, Lehane describes the way that he was introduced to storytelling as an 8-year-old, when his dad would take him to the bar, buy him a ginger ale and let him listen to the guys share stories. There, Lehane says, he learned "storytelling as blood sport."

"This was not 'interesting story very well-told,' no, this was: If you weren't telling the story, getting in and grabbing them fast, engaging them fast, you got shouted down," Lehane says. "That was it. You were out." So when Lehane writes about a lonely bartender and the Chechen mafia, you know he's going to get the tone right.

In the same interview, Lehane goes on to list other more conventional sources of inspiration for his writing. He first names the public library system. "What libraries say to kids from the wrong side of the tracks, if you will, is very much that you matter," Lehane says. "That this building is city and that means that the city cares about you." His words point to one of the main focal points of The Wire, which examines the way that institutions affect people, especially the disenfranchised.

A focus on resonant, thematic issues, a talent for finding an authentic voice for each character and a thorough knowledge of what makes a good crime-drama make Lehane a powerful figure in fiction. So let's hope it comes together in his latest effort.

The Drop
6 pm Saturday, Sept. 13. $5-$10.
Jean Cocteau Cinema,
418 Montezuma Ave.,
466-5528

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