Dennis Lehane
Author
Dir. Ben Affleck
Cast. Ben Affleck, Elle Fanning, Brendan Gleeson
Dennis’ Credits: Author, Executive Producer
Deadline reports that Ben Affleck has selected Sienna Miller, Zoe Saldana and Elle Fanning to play the female leads in LIVE BY NIGHT.
“Miller will play Emma, a girl Coughlin falls in love with at the beginning of the story. She also happens to be the girlfriend of his mobster boss. Saldana plays Graciella Suarez, a woman he meets later as he becomes involved in organized crime in Tampa. Fanning plays Loretta Figgis, a sheriff’s daughter and aspiring actress who gets into trouble.”
Boston, 1926. The ’20s are roaring. Liquor is flowing, bullets are flying, and one man sets out to make his mark on the world.
Prohibition has given rise to an endless network of underground distilleries, speakeasies, gangsters, and corrupt cops. Joe Coughlin, the youngest son of a prominent Boston police captain, has long since turned his back on his strict and proper upbringing. Now having graduated from a childhood of petty theft to a career in the pay of the city’s most fearsome mobsters, Joe enjoys the spoils, thrills, and notoriety of being an outlaw.
But life on the dark side carries a heavy price. In a time when ruthless men of ambition, armed with cash, illegal booze, and guns, battle for control, no one—neither family nor friend, enemy nor lover—can be trusted. Beyond money and power, even the threat of prison, one fate seems most likely for men like Joe: an early death. But until that day, he and his friends are determined to live life to the hilt.
Joe embarks on a dizzying journey up the ladder of organized crime that takes him from the flash of Jazz Age Boston to the sensual shimmer of Tampa’s Latin Quarter to the sizzling streets of Cuba. Live by Night is a riveting epic layered with a diverse cast of loyal friends and callous enemies, tough rumrunners and sultry femmes fatales, Bible-quoting evangelists and cruel Klansmen, all battling for survival and their piece of the American dream. At once a sweeping love story and a compelling saga of revenge, it is a spellbinding tour de force of betrayal and redemption, music and murder, that brings fully to life a bygone era when sin was cause for celebration and vice was a national virtue.
January 9th, 2019
By Colette Bancroft
When Dennis Lehane co-founded the Writers in Paradise conference at Eckerd College in 2004, he made a rule about the conference faculty. “It’s the no-a—h—- rule,” he says.
It seems to have worked. The weeklong Writers in Paradise is about to commence its 15th season, with a returning faculty of notable authors and a growing list of published alumni.
The faculty members will offer free public readings during the conference, and for the first time in several years Lehane will be on hand, as the keynote speaker on Jan. 19.
Lehane admits he doesn’t get back to Florida much these days, even though he split his time between St. Petersburg and his native Boston for many years before moving to the Los Angeles area. “It’s so much harder to get there than when I was in Boston, now that I’m in California,” he said during a recent phone interview.
The author of such bestselling novels as Gone Baby Gone, Mystic River,Live by Night and Since We Fell, Lehane has switched career tracks to screenwriting and producing. He has worked in the writers rooms of such TV series as The Wire, Boardwalk Empire and Bloodline; most recently he has been a writer and executive producer for two seasons of Mr. Mercedes, based on Stephen King’s novel. He has also been involved as writer and/or producer on films based on his own novels, including Live by Night, The Drop and Shutter Island.
A graduate of writing programs at Eckerd and Florida International University, Lehane, 53, will deliver the keynote address to kick off a week of evening readings by conference faculty and guests that include Andre Dubus III, Ann Hood, Pam Houston, Laura Lippman, Stewart O’Nan, conference co-director Les Standiford and co-founder Sterling Watson. (See schedule.)
“I can’t wait to get back to Writers in Paradise and back to town,” Lehane says. “It’s where my two children were born, so it’s a special place.”
How do you like living in California?
It’s an excellent place to be exiled.
When you and Sterling Watson, former director of the creative writing program at Eckerd, co-founded Writers in Paradise 15 years ago, did you expect it to be successful for this long?
I hoped it would. I’m not sure; I never know how to value success from the inside. Success, that’s your word. It seems like it’s done well.
Who are some of the program’s standout students?
Well, one would be Lori Roy. I’m pretty sure she’s won an (Edgar Allan Poe Award).
She’s won two Edgars.
Well, damn! Good for her.
It’s a very strange thing. Most of the outstanding writers I’ve taught have shown up in a classroom if not fully formed, then I’d say 85 percent and up. As a teacher you’re just trying to understand what you can do to help them along. People who taught me have said the same thing. When it comes to the best students, I always felt like as a teacher I didn’t do all that much.
Why include the free public readings as part of Writers in Paradise?
They’re always the draw at these things. They pull in the outside world. That was the plan always, from the very beginning. It’s the best way to engage the community at large. You don’t just want to be this weird little group of people meeting in a cellar, talking to each other.
It’s mutually advantageous, for the students, for the teachers, for the community at large. It’s a win-win-win situation.
Writers in Paradise has an impressive core of faculty members who return each year. How does that happen?
We established a rule very early amongst the faculty. It’s the no-a—h—- rule. If we had to choose between hypertalented and a—h——, and not, we’d take not.
The faculty has to be together for a week, all the time. It just takes one to upset that apple cart and the alchemy is gone. So I instituted that rule, with Sterling’s full support.
Also, it’s not just straight up being disagreeable in social situations. It affects their attitude toward their students, their work ethic. It’s all connected. Life’s too short.
What kind of writers have you aimed to have on the faculty?
Our returning faculty, like Laura (Lippman) and Stewart (O’Nan) and the others, they love what they do. It’s not just the summer camp vibe (of the conference). They love to teach. They love their students.
How much involvement do you have with Writers in Paradise now?
It’s very macro at this point. I work with Les (Standiford) at a pretty big remove. I gave him carte blanche when he came in. He says, what about this person or that person, and I say yea or nay.
I’m mainly involved in faculty or speaker hiring. That was always my primary job. What I brought to the party was my Rolodex.
Do you miss teaching?
No, I don’t, to be honest. I ran a TV show last year. I ran the writers room. I thought, this is kind of like teaching, at a different pitch. But I’m taught out.
Will you continue writing for the next season of Mr. Mercedes?
No, I stepped off. I’m very happy with what I did in the first two seasons. But now I’m the best guy for another job.
So what’s next?
Right now I’m working on two other projects that I can’t really talk about yet with David Kelley (the showrunner for Mr. Mercedes, who is known for such series as Ally McBeal and Big Little Lies). We’re delicately shepherding them along.
I’m working on Storming Las Vegas, a film with Sony that’s based on a nonfiction book by John Huddy. That one is more fun than a barrel of monkeys. I’m working directly with the producer.
When we spoke a few years ago, you were working on a screenplay based on Florida writer John D. MacDonald’s The Deep Blue Good-by. What happened to that one?
It’s dead as a doornail. It’s since been rewritten; (screenwriter-director) Scott Frank had it, last I heard. We were all set to go and the star got injured. Christian Bale — he’s way past that now.
Between all these TV series and movies, when might we see another book from you?
I’ve begun working on a book, but I don’t want to speak about it. I’m very scared.
The dirty secret about writing books is that they get harder, for me, not easier. I’m petrified, I have a petrified editor, I have a petrified publisher. I never work from a place of confidence. I always expect it to fail.
So novel writing is different from screenwriting?
Yes, totally different. With a movie you know you’re one of 150 people involved. You’re like a guy with a paintbrush, painting a room. With a book, you’re the project manager, the contractor, the painter and everybody else. So I’m crawling around it.
Contact Colette Bancroft at cbancroft@tampabay.com or (727) 893-8435. Follow @colettemb.
The schedule
All readings are free and will take place in the Miller Auditorium on the campus of Eckerd College, 4200 54th Ave. S, St. Petersburg. Books will be available for purchase on site, and author signings will take place following readings.
8 p.m. Jan. 19: Keynote by novelist and screenwriter Dennis Lehane(Since We Fell), on-stage Q&A with Les Standiford
December 13th, 2018
By Nano Riley
The co-founder of Writers in Paradise sits down with CL.
Dennis Lehane has established a formidable presence as a writer of mysteries, usually dealing with gritty characters — whether cops or criminals. Growing up in Dorchester, the Irish section of South Boston, Lehane was surrounded by both, and allows him an intimacy with their lives that comes naturally. That’s part of his allure: He writes about what he knows, and advises beginning authors to follow that rule.
Lehane’s popular books have been on the New York Times bestseller list, and several have been adapted for movies. Gone Baby Gone, Shutter Island and Mystic River have all been box office hits starring major Hollywood actors. He’s also shared writing awards for his TV work on The Wire and Boardwalk Empire, and won several Edgars, the coveted mystery writer’s award named for Edgar Allan Poe. Lehane’s first novel, A Drink Before the War (1994), introduced the recurring detectives Patrick Kenzie and Angela Gennaro, and earned the 1995 Shamus Award for Best First P.I. Novel.
Despite his Boston background, his ties to the Tampa Bay area are strong. He graduated from Eckerd College, where he discovered his writing ability and was awarded an honorary Ph.D. He has also taught writing classes at Eckerd, as well as Harvard, and serves on Eckerd’s board of trustees and as a director of the Writers in Paradise program (which he co-founded with Les Standiford.) We wanted to find out a bit about his influences, and just what makes him tick. Here’s what he told us.
Is there one book that has influenced you more than any other?
The Wanderers, by Richard Price, which I read the summer I turned 14. It was hilarious, tragic, profane, mournfully poetic and concerned with the kinds of people I saw around me every day in my neighborhood. It made me realize, “You don’t have to write about kings or professors or millionaires chasing their lost loves; you can write about working-class people just trying to get through a day.” Game changer on every level.
What writer/writers do you most admire?
Well, Price, for obvious reasons. But otherwise, the list is truly bottomless. But in terms of the Rushmore of writers for me — Raymond Carver, Flannery O’Connor, Elmore Leonard, Edith Wharton, James Crumley, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Toni Morrison, William Kennedy and Graham Greene.
What do you like most about teaching?
Seeing the lightbulb go off in a student’s mind.
You don’t like writing screenplays from your novels because you feel it’s like operating on your child, but do you usually approve of the screenwriter’s work?
I’ve “evolved” on that issue. I’m now comfortable adapting my own books. What do you mean by “approve the screenwriter’s work”? Are you asking if I OK a screenwriter before he or she is hired?
You grew up in Dorchester, so do you base any characters on real people you knew? Composites?
Lots of composites. Almost never directly. I did that once, with one of my more infamous characters, and the woman I based her on showed up at a signing and stood in line. I was checking for suspicious bulges in her pocket, waiting for her to whip out a gun, and then when she reached me, she asked if I remembered her, what I’d been up to, and even where I’d come up with “that bitch” in my book. She was genuinely curious. Had zero idea I’d based the woman on her. So there went the idea of getting revenge through writing.
If you’re just reading for fun, what do you like to read?
Nonfiction. I’m reading a book now about 10 maps that explain the entire world and another about how our current idiocracy and the general conspiracy-theory nature of America didn’t start with Comrade Trump but actually came over on the Mayflower and has been metastasizing ever since. Good stuff.
Growing up in Boston’s Irish community, did you ever encounter — or hear about — the Irish underworld? Folks like Whitey Bulger?
Um, yeah. Just a bit.
Editor’s note: In addition to co-founding Writers in Paradise. Lehane’s Florida accolades are strong: He served as a writer/producer on the ended-much-too-soon Netflix series Bloodline, set and filmed in the Florida Keys; he set World Gone By in Ybor City (and Cuba); he also set Live By Night in Ybor City; and — we love this part the most — he wrote a screenplay based on John D. MacDonald’s The Deep Blue Good-By. If there’s anything that says “paradise” more than MacDonald’s Travis McGee and the Busted Flush, we’ve yet to find it.