Peter David Shapiro's 3 favorite reads in 2023

• 2023
• 2024

What stands out for me in Small Mercies is the intensity of Lehane’s writing.

Like his earlier masterpiece, Mystic River, it is a tragic story of working-class people in South Boston, propelled by the loss of a protagonist’s beloved daughter. The added twist in Small Mercies is that it ties into the real-life history of court-imposed school busing in Boston to desegregate Boston schools.

We see this happening through the eyes of Mary Pat Fennessy, a fierce busing opponent, while also sharing the experiences of Black participants in those events, and while Mary Pat also goes to war against South Boston criminals who are ruining the lives of people around her.

I heard Lehane say at a book signing that working-class stories are inevitably tragic. As an exploration of rage, revenge, and grief, Small Mercies provides a memorable example.

As expected from this author, this book is very funny in parts, but it’s also alarming as commentary on decline in our political leadership.

Borowitz chronicles the emergence of ignorance and stupidity as political credentials rather than disqualifiers, starting with Reagan, flowering with Dan Quayle and GWBush and Sarah Palin, and surpassing absurdity with the multiply-impeached and indicted former president and his imitators and sycophants.

Borowitz makes the point that public ignorance is no longer the embarrassment that it once was, but the opposite, becoming a criterion for electability that shows commonality with an electorate for whom knowing what you are talking about is seen as elitist. There’s a lot of blame to go around for this, but whatever the reasons, Borowitz is depressingly convincing that it doesn’t bode well for US democracy.

Also known as Tokyo Station (in the UK), December 6 by Martin Cruz Smith introduces us to Japan prior to its attack on Pearl Harbor. While Cruz Smith is a reliably excellent writer, he outdoes himself with this novel which builds slowly and powerfully to its conclusion.

He introduces us to movers and shakers in pre-war Japan in the overlapping worlds of night club entertainers, criminals, political and military leaders, and journalists and diplomats, all through the eyes of an American who grew up in Japan and understands and lives as Japanese while also remaining, unavoidably, a foreigner in a country that is increasingly isolated, paranoid, and militaristic, and that is on what seems an unalterable path towards total war.

The story held my attention to its concluding sentence that wonderfully echoes the last sentence in The Great Gatsby. Truly a great read!