Review: "Small Mercies," Dennis Lehane

By Paul Carrier

It’s 1974, and with the upcoming start of the school year, Boston is about to explode in an orgy of anger, protest and violence. To combat segregation, a mandatory busing plan is being implemented, requiring students from the Irish enclave of South Boston and other white neighborhoods to attend classes in Roxbury and other black sections of the city, and vice versa.

“Southie” native Mary Pat Fennessy shares her neighbors’ opposition to court-ordered busing. Her daughter Jules, a student at South Boston High, would be directly affected by the integration plan. Mary Pat makes her share of protest signs, and she eventually joins other busing foes from Southie at a large, raucous, hate-filled rally outside City Hall. 

Mary Pat (no one calls her Mary), is coping with two failed marriages and the loss of a son to drugs. She can be foul-mouthed. She drinks too much. But she's introspective, with a more nuanced view of race than her neighbors. Most importantly, she has a much higher priority than promoting segregation.

Jules, 17, left home one night to hang out with friends and never returned. Is she dead? Or in hiding? Jules is a potential suspect in the death of Auggie Williamson, a 20-year-old black man whose car broke down in Southie on the night that Jules disappeared. Stranded in the wrong part of town, Auggie appears to have been shoved into an oncoming subway train. The police have their sights on four white kids, including Jules, but the cops are having a hard time making a case that will hold up in court.

In a desperate search for her daughter, or answers about her fate, Mary Pat launches a one-woman crusade, which runs afoul of Southie crime boss Marty Butler. Mary Pat is all the more troubled about the recent turn of events because she respects Auggie's mother, with whom Mary Pat works at a nursing home.

The tone of Small Mercies is alternately lyrical and gritty, reflective and degrading. One character is “fucked in the head.” Another is “a little shit.” Derogatory terms for black people are bandied about with impunity. These are tough folks going through tough times in a tough neighborhood. They're tribal, small-minded, hidebound and blatantly racist.

Not so Mary Pat, who disapproves of the more extreme manifestations of racism and sees the world with greater clarity than most anyone else in Southie. Set against the backdrop of school integration in Boston, Small Mercies is the tale of a city in crisis and one mother’s decision to take matters into her own hands, fueled by grief, rage and a thirst for something at least vaguely resembling justice. It's a disturbingly powerful and unflinching tale that builds to an unforgettable climax.