Gone Baby Gone
Dennis Lehane writes satisfyingly complex and disturbingly violent crime fiction that often crosses into thriller territory. These are not, however, cheap thrills. Even in their goriest moments, his books are grounded in rich, real-life detail. Lehane knows Boston and its denizens, and he captures the city’s subcultures beautifully -- from the hushed refinement of the old-money suburbs to the grittiness of tacky motels and bail-bond agencies. He has a unique way of presenting his mysteries with an edge-of-the-seat feeling, yet his descriptive methods brings one into his neighborhoods and gives one the feeling that they lived there their entire life.
His main characters, private investigators Patrick Kenzie and Angie Gennaro, transcend crime fiction stereotypes. At first glance, Kenzie is a classic hard-boiled detective, an idealistic man who feels trapped and angry – perhaps because of emotional scars left by his brutal father. But he is no rootless loner. He still lives and works in the neighborhood (the Irish stronghold of Dorchester) where he grew up alongside Angie and Bubba Rogowski, their larger-than-life sidekick and hit man.
Angie is practical, passionate and somewhat inscrutable. She’s tough and courageous in the pursuit of homicidal psychopaths and twisted minds. But in her private life, she waffles. Angie has struggled for years to break free from an abusive marriage and has mixed feelings about her brief romantic relationship with Kenzie.
Lehane has no background in police work or private investigation. His books are fiction in every sense of the word. They are set in an Irish neighborhood that no longer exists quite as he portrays it and his characters can wreak more violence in one chapter than the real city of Boston is likely to see in a year. Most of these stories feature an evil mastermind whom Kenzie and Gennaro must outwit and overpower. That’s where Gone Baby Gone is different, they are looking for a child who’s disappeared without a trace, and none of the “usual suspects” did it. In this book it turns out that no one is what he or she appears to be and the good guys can do bad things with good intentions.
Kenzie and Gennaro are hired to find four-year-old Amanda McCready. Amanda disappeared from her home three days before her aunt and uncle approached the detectives. Amanda’s mother, Hel...
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...ngs. Lehane peppers his dialogue with snappy repartee and sardonic comedy. Lehane use humor to lure the reader in and then smacks them across the face with a burst of surprising violence. The narrative voice of the book is that of Patrick Kenzie speaking in the first person. This draws the readers into Patrick’s situation and allows them to see things as he sees them and feel the action as he feels. As a detective Kenzie tries to be detached but in this book especially the reader can sense a mood of hopelessness in their search as well as the determination it takes to keep going.
Lehane sets the tone with a sad but practical introduction featuring statistics of lost children in America and the rates at which they are found. He creates a broader picture of life, and contrasts Kenzie’s and Gennaro’s perspectives as the search is reflected in the media and leaves its mark on everyone involved.
Lehane’s novels are all dark in tone, his gallows humor the only light in a maze of corruption, greed, and murder. GBG is not his darkest work, which would be Darkness Take My Hand, but it is the most despondent. The ending is ambivalent and raises more questions than it answers.
Stolen Children is a Gianni Amelio’s magnum opus and a tragic salute to neorealism. The film follows a carabinieri, Antonio, who was assigned to escort two southern orphans in northern Italy to a Catholic orphanage, but when that proved to be unsuccessful, he took it in his hands to escort the children back to southern Italy. Gianni, much like De Sica, explores the issue of failed institutions that are fundamental to a contemporary society or an individual in need of help. When these central institutions, such as the church or law, begin to deteriorate, so does the community that relies on them. He also makes a point of criticizing post-modern institutions, such as the role of media in current society and its socio-cultural impact. This criticism begins the fundamental conversation, postmodern society should concern itself with to improve one’s present civilization.
Typically, a novel contains four basic parts: a beginning, middle, climax, and the end. The beginning sets the tone for the book and introduces the reader to the characters and the setting. The majority of the novel comes from middle where the plot takes place. The plot is what usually captures the reader’s attention and allows the reader to become mentally involved. Next, is the climax of the story. This is the point in the book where everything comes together and the reader’s attention is at the fullest. Finally, there is the end. In the end of a book, the reader is typically left asking no questions, and satisfied with the outcome of the previous events. However, in the novel The Things They Carried the setup of the book is quite different. This book is written in a genre of literature called “metafiction.” “Metafiction” is a term given to fictional story in which the author makes the reader question what is fiction and what is reality. This is very important in the setup of the Tim’s writing because it forces the reader to draw his or her own conclusion about the story. However, this is not one story at all; instead, O’Brien writes the book as if each chapter were its own short story. Although all the chapters have relation to one another, when reading the book, the reader is compelled to keep reading. It is almost as if the reader is listening to a “soldier storyteller” over a long period of time.
Anne Taylor's The Accidental Tourist, set in the late twentieth century United States, explores the belief that the loss and suffering of kids is the force behind other losses. Taylor is able to illustrate the exponential amount of her main character's development following the death of his son and the lost of his marriage. The loss of the main character's child illustrates the continuous struggle to discover oneself and repair one's life after a tragedy. Taylor's ability to depict the return of those broken by the world allows one to reflect on their internal happiness.
The novel “The Orphan Train” written by Christina Baker Kline is a fictional portrayal of a young girl who migrated to America from Ireland, and found herself orphaned at the age of ten in New York City in the year 1929. The book tells the story of the pain and anguish she suffered, and the happiness she would later find. From the mid 1850’s through the early 1900’s there was an surge of European immigrants just like Niamh and her family who came to America in search of a better life. Unfortunately, most were not as prosperous as they had hoped to be. As a result, many poverty-stricken children were left orphaned, abandoned, and homeless. They roamed the streets looking for food, money, and refuge by any means necessary. Since there
Nathaniel Hawthorne’s “Young Goodman Brown,” and Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Cask of Amontillado” utilize character responsibilities to create a sinister plot. For Hawthorne, protagonist Young Goodman Brown must leave his wife at home while he partakes in a night journey. For Poe, ancillary Fortunato covets a pretentious manner towards his wine tasting skills, and after being ‘challenged’ decides to prove his expertise by sampling Amontillado. Hawthorne and Poe showcase a theme of darkness but differ in their approach to the setting, characters, and fate of entrapment.
In James Patterson’s thriller novel, I, Alex Cross, Alex Cross and his family living in the nation’s capital must solve a beloved niece’s murder, and uncover the truth about the power players of the country -- all while nurturing the growing wound of the loss of a family member. The idea and importance of the connection between loss and familial support and love runs through the entire story, and one key lesson suggests that no matter how the loss of a family member affects the family, the results will often be similar, if not the same: the remaining members strive to support one another and often work together to find the true reason for the loss, always leading to a better and brighter future for everyone.
This book was an extremely captivating read that I had a hard time putting down. This exciting novel was about an upstart gang of Vietnamese youths that formed in Chinatown who violently made their presence felt, they were known by the name Born to Kill. This book had many legal issues that we discussed in class and only a couple of issues that were not handled correctly in my eyes. This is a book that anyone that is interested in Asian organized crime should read.
Mary Shelley, the renowned author of Frankenstein, explores the consequences of man and monster chasing ambition blindly. Victor Frankenstein discovered the secret that allowed him to create life. His understanding of how bodies operated and the science of human anatomy enabled him to make this discovery and apply it to the creation of his monster. Walton wished to sail to the arctic because no sailor has ever reached it. The monster was created against his will, his ambition was to avenge his creation as a hideous outcast. These three characters were all driven by the same blind ambition.
Looking back on the death of Larissa’s son, Zebedee Breeze, Lorraine examines Larissa’s response to the passing of her child. Lorraine says, “I never saw her cry that day or any other. She never mentioned her sons.” (Senior 311). This statement from Lorraine shows how even though Larissa was devastated by the news of her son’s passing, she had to keep going. Women in Larissa’s position did not have the luxury of stopping everything to grieve. While someone in Lorraine’s position could take time to grieve and recover from the loss of a loved one, Larissa was expected to keep working despite the grief she felt. One of the saddest things about Zebedee’s passing, was that Larissa had to leave him and was not able to stay with her family because she had to take care of other families. Not only did Larissa have the strength to move on and keep working after her son’s passing, Larissa and other women like her also had no choice but to leave their families in order to find a way to support them. As a child, Lorraine did not understand the strength Larissa must have had to leave her family to take care of someone else’s
Morphine has been used for many years in different cultures, and for different reasons. It has been abused, demolished, revived, and manufactured. It has saved many lives and ruined many more. It is the drug of choice for many who feel they need something to numb out the bad, and forget about the real. It is also the prescription of choice for men and women who just want to have their lives back. Although morphine addicts go through hell during their withdrawal stages, and how awful the drug can be through abuse, it offers very much to a wide array of patients suffering from diseases such as cancer, severe back pain, kidney stones, and pain associated in trauma.
In 1965, the American Nurses Association shared its vision for the future of nursing education. A primary goal in its message was that a Bachelor of Science in Nursing (BSN) becomes the minimum requirement for entry into nursing practice (Nelson, 2002). Fifty years later, debates on this issue continue. In its report, The Future of Nursing: Leading Change and Advancing Healthcare, the Institute of Medicine shared its recommendation that 80% of nurses possess a bachelor’s degree by the year 2020. A significant number of health care facilities have adopted the practice of hiring nurses with BSN over those with two year Associate’s Degree of Nursing (ADN) or a three-year hospital based diploma program. Stakeholders in the Registered Nurse (RN)
Wolff, Sula and Alexander McCall Smith. Children who kill: They can and should be reclaimed.
James Garbarino (1999) discusses the boys who are lost and ways that they can learn to see again in his book Lost Boys: Why Our Sons Turn Violent and How We Can Save Them. He takes an in depth look at what he calls the "epidemic of youth violence" in America in order to determine its causes and origins. By gaining an understanding of the problem, Garbarino hopes to be able to ascertain some sort of solution. He provides useful advice and insight about steps we as a society can take to ensure our boys do not become lost. In order to develop Garbarino’s ideas in my mind, I thought it would be interesting to apply some of his points he makes in his book to a case. I chose to write on the two main characters, Derek and Danny, in the movie American History X. I will provide a brief summary of the movie, followed by an extensive examination of the characters, using Lost Boys as a critical lens. First I will discuss the importance of viewing the boys lives in their entirety rather that isolating one incident. I will then look at the risk factors and the racial implications involved in Derek and Danny’s life. The next two sections will focus on the lack of a father figure and the powerful influence Derek has as a result of the absence of a father. Then I devote a short section to Garbarino’s idea of affirmation instead of discrimination and how this could have helped Derek and Danny. Before concluding, I take into account psychologist James Gilligan’s ideas on violence and how they apply to this case. In my conclusion, I look at Garbarin...
Bausch, Richard, and R. V. Cassill. "Heart of Darkness." The Norton Anthology of Short Fiction. New York: W.W. Norton, 2006. 126-86. Print.
...ecific to our state, California, was the drought from 1987 to 1992. This drought lasted a little over five years and was one of the most severe droughts California had ever experienced, especially the Central Coast. The counties to be mainly affected were Santa Barbara County, San Luis Obispo County, and San Benito County (Teijet, Weitkamp, Jensen, Garcia., 1993). One of the main consequences to hit these counties was environmental. Oak trees, specifically, were not able to recover from this drought, and many of them died from lack of water and nutrients. Because so many of these native oak trees were destroyed, even when the drought was over, the population would still have been tremendously decreased. The following years after this drought, the three counties were a part of a long-term study involving acorn production of different types of oak trees (Teijet,1993).