Dennis Lehane

Growing up in the Boston area, Lehane shared how his Irish heritage influenced his literary abilities and the importance of a library to a young child in that neighborhood.

“We couldn’t afford books in the house I grew up in. It wasn’t that we were so poor we couldn’t afford anything, but books were a luxury. Why would you buy something you could only use once,” he said.

His mother got him a library card when he was 7 years old because he read a book when he was 6 and the nuns said it was for 7 and up. “They told that to my mother and she said ‘this kid is a prodigy.’ “

“What a library says to a kid from the wrong side of the tracks is, when you show up at a library to get a book out it doesn’t matter what you’re wearing, it doesn’t matter where you come from, it doesn’t matter if you were driven up in a Bentley or if you took the subway. That book, that knowledge is yours,” he said.

“What a library says to a kid on the wrong side of the tracks is, you matter, it’s as simple as that. And if the library says you matter, then the people who support it in the town say you matter and if the town says you matter then the city says you matter and if the city says you matter then the state says you matter and if the state says you matter then the country says you matter. A library says you matter,” he continued.

Lehane, who has had some of his works on the New York Times bestseller list, shared some of the secrets of crafting a story he learned from the storytellers in his Irish family.

“I learned that a story should probably be funny because in the end it will be tragic because it’s a working-class story. Stories must begin where their supposed to begin. They must be exciting, they must be compelling, they must be humorous and they must ultimately be kind of tragic,” he said.

The library’s author gala is the group’s biggest fundraiser each year.