William N. Skirball Writers Center Stage Series

Oct 23, 2014—7:30 PM to

Location: Case Western Reserve University Tinkham Veale University Center 11038 Bellflower Road Cleveland, OH 44106. (get directions)

The William N. Skirball Writers Center Stage Series brings the literary world’s best writers to Cleveland. Each show is followed by a Q&A and book signing. All shows will be held at 7:30 p.m. in Case Western Reserve University’s Tinkham Veale University Center located at 11038 Bellflower Road, Cleveland, 44106.

Boston-based writer Dennis Lehane has published a collection of short stories and 10 critically acclaimed novels, three of which have been adapted into award-winning films: Shutter Island, Mystic River, and Gone, Baby, Gone. Lehane earned the Edgar Award and Writers Guild of America Award for his work as a writer for the hit HBO television series The Wire. His latest novel, Live by Night, won the 2013 Edgar Award for Best Novel of the Year.

Tickets on sale here.

Small Mercies

In the summer of 1974 a heatwave blankets Boston and Mary Pat Fennessy is trying to stay one step ahead of the bill collectors. Mary Pat has lived her entire life in the housing projects of “Southie,” the Irish American enclave that stubbornly adheres to old tradition and stands proudly apart.

One night Mary Pat’s teenage daughter Jules stays out late and doesn’t come home. That same evening, a young Black man is found dead, struck by a subway train under mysterious circumstances.

The two events seem unconnected. But Mary Pat, propelled by a desperate search for her missing daughter, begins turning over stones best left untouched—asking questions that bother Marty Butler, chieftain of the Irish mob, and the men who work for him, men who don’t take kindly to any threat to their business.

Set against the hot, tumultuous months when the city’s desegregation of its public schools exploded in violence, Small Mercies is a superb thriller, a brutal depiction of criminality and power, and an unflinching portrait of the dark heart of American racism. It is a mesmerizing and wrenching work that only Dennis Lehane could write.