Coronado

This collection includes five short stories and one play, and the book can be divided almost in half, page-wise, between the former and the latter. Used to Lehane's affinity for Boston, I was surprised by the Southern settings, but noir works here equally well as there. Many of the stories are linked only by this general place and a general time: post-Vietnam. The work seems best discussed in its pieces.

"Running Out of Dog" -- A Vietnam vet comes home to his small South Carolina town and finds an old buddy (who did not go to war) in crisis. The foreboding escalates in this story until you sit reading and waiting for violence to explode off the pages. The conclusion is almost anticlimactic, but the awfulness manages to haunt anyway. A show more bleak look at the psychology of a man whose "hope came too late" and therefore became dangerous.

"ICU" -- An everyman is harassed by a nebulous government agency for an unnamed crime until he hides ... in a hospital. I've never read a story like this before. It's absurd, yet absurdity seems to be the point. For me, somehow, it worked, maybe because the desperation for human connection overshadows the odd setup.

"Gone Down to Corpus" -- The simplest, most realistic of the stories. A group of low-class high school football players vandalize the home of their rich teammate who lost them the game that would have made a difference in their lives (but to him didn't matter one bit). It doesn't have much of an ending, which seems to be the point.

"Mushrooms" -- A girl who's lost too much to the gang wars in her neighborhood decides on vengeance. She reminds me a lot of the protagonist from the previous story--two kids without hope, with only anger to hold onto. Or, as the stories leave you wondering, maybe not ... but probably yes.

"Until Gwen" -- A young man's father picks him up from prison. This is my favorite of the stories. Layered, chilling, suspenseful, sad. The dialogue in this one just crackles. The father/son relationship is taut and terrible. Something about this story stands out as sharper than any of the others--sharper writing, sharper characters.

"Coronado" (the play) -- Two stars to this. Strong dislike. Which is interesting, since it's built from the story I liked the most. But the attempt to draw out the exchanges in the story falls flat and deadens their impact. A comparison between this story and play is a great study in the rule that economy wins. In addition, I found the scenes between Doctor and Patient to be positively scenery-chewing and the revelation of all the character connections to be forced. I couldn't go back to the beginning and see, yes, aha, it was there all the time, but rather felt that various characters' incarnations contradicted each other without explanation. I'd venture to guess the reason for this is that Lehane's greatest strength as a writer is not his dialogue. Not to say he isn't great at it, but part of what makes the dialogue work in his novels (especially Kenzie & Gennaro) is the richness of the narration surrounding it. His characters have deep, human, sarcastic, poignant thought lives that make them who they are; to prove this, one only has to compare the book and film versions of [b:Mystic River|21671|Mystic River|Dennis Lehane|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1407109549s/21671.jpg|1234249].

As a Lehane fan, I'm glad to have read this piercing little collection, but the stories are far superior to the play. show less

My only previous exposure to Lehane is Mystic River, which I thought fell a bit short of its high aspirations. This short story collection, which is quite varied in its plots, is quite satisfying, however. And it manages to be pretty profound more than once. Recommended!

I continue to stare in disbelief at the blurb the publisher chose for the cover of my paperback edition of this book, which comes from USA Today: "An apt reminder that the master of crime and literary fiction is also a proficient short story writer."

PROFICIENT!!!!!!?????????? Is that supposed to be an endorsement for someone to shell out their money? What idiot put this on the cover? It might be an exaggeration to call Lehane a master of the short story or something like show more that, but he is way more than proficient. Also 1/3 of the book is a play, not a short story...

My individual reviews follow.

Running Out of Dog ***1/2
Very strange story, set in South Carolina, which doesn't seem like Lehane's home turf, that centers around a woman married to one man, having an affair with another, and idolized by a third--whose current job is to shoot dogs before they run onto I-95 and spoil the town's tourist business. After the last two books I have reviewed, this story seems a bit artificial, but it is effective and, in fact, reminiscent of John D. MacDonald's non-Travis McGee stuff.

ICU ****
This is another strange, but affecting, story of a man who is being pursued for something that the reader isn't told about and that the man himself may not even know. He takes refuge in a hospital complex, and there he discovers something special, a different way perhaps to live. Nothing particularly happens in this story; it is all about moods and atmosphere, but it works.

Gone Down to Corpus ****1/2
This story is much more than "proficient" -- it gets to the heart of teenage anxiety about the future in a very subtle way, and it leaves the reader wondering about what becomes of these characters after the story ends. Very very well done.

Mushrooms ****1/2
A very dark and powerful story with a nice finish. It's too short to really describe without giving anything away, but I did discover that New Hampshire apparently has nice beaches!

Until Gwen ****
A man just out of prison is greeted by his father--also a crook--and a hunt begins. Memorable and very dark.

Coronado: A Play in Two Acts ****1/2
This expansion of "Until Gwen" clears up any ambiguity in that story. It is a little overdone at times, but in the end it is a hell of a story and we're glad to know it. show less

I am a Dennis Lehane fan and this is the 3rd book I have read by him in the last 2 months. I found this collection very dark but I enjoyed the subject matter and down and out characters that he introduced. The last story and its extension as a play was ambitious but for me it worked. The language was excellent and I enjoyed his take on low life characters. I also like that Lehane broke out of his focus on New England and actually had stories that took place elsewhere. If you have never read Dennis Lehane, I thought these stories were a good introduction to him.

Coronado encierra en sus 232 páginas un total de cinco relatos y una obra teatral. Adquirí el libro vía Amazon para mis dispositivos que utilizan la aplicación Kindle y me costó poco más de 1 dólar para ese entonces. La versión que compré tiene en sus páginas finales un extracto de su próximo libro "World Gone By", tercera instalación del personaje Joe Coughlin, que verá la luz el 10 de marzo del año en curso.

Las historias que contiene el libro son las siguientes y comentaré un poco sobre mi impresión de cada una:

"Running Out of Dog"

"ICU"

"Gone Down to Corpus"

"Mushrooms"

"Until Gwen"

"Coronado: A Play in Two Acts"

Running Out of Dog es un relato que toma lugar en Eden, South Carolina, donde los residentes crían perros en show more grandes cantidades y muchos de ellos morían atropellados en la autopista (4.9 perros por semana). Inversionistas tenían la intención de colocar a Eden en el mapa, construyendo un parque de diversiones -Eden Falls-, pero el problema con los perros mantenía a los turistas alejados.

El alcalde Big Bobby encontró una solución: aniquilar a los perros antes de que éstos llegaran a la autopista. Blue, un hombre feo, pequeño, delgado, presumiblemente retardado y peligroso, era la persona indicada para el trabajo. ¿Pero sería lo indicado poner un rifle en manos de Blue?

Running Out of Dog, más que la sinopsis en sí, es un estudio de los personajes principales: Elgin, Blue, Shelley, Jewel Lut y Perkin Lut. La relación entre ellos es lo que guía la historia a una resolución algo predecible pero igual de impactante.

Lehane te arropa con una prosa elegante y bien construida, por ratos crees estar leyendo una novela y no un relato corto. Me gustó mucho Running Out of Dog, más por cómo está escrito y por el palpable desarrollo de personajes, aún con unas 50 páginas de extensión.

ICU se desarrolla en su totalidad en unas 24 páginas. Trata sobre un hombre -aparentemente inocente- que es asediado y perseguido por un grupo de hombres -presumiblemente del gobierno-. Éste hombre, Daniel, toma medida drásticas para evadir la persecusión.

Es un relato corto, ambiguo y, a pesar de estar bien escrito, se siente débil e inacabado. Puede que sea el más flojo de la colección.

downloadGone Down to Corpus narra la historia de un jovencito que no tiene muchas esperanzas para con su futuro, y menos ahora que su colegio no llegó a las Divisionales, donde los cazatalentos podían divisarlo. Sucede que nuestro protagonista es mariscal de campo y, si su equipo no alcanzó las Divisionales, fue por culpa de Lyle Biddet, el mismo que dejó caer el balón en dos situaciones importantes.
Ahora, con un grupo de amigos, el joven planea ir a casa de Lyle para 'castigarlo'. Lyle no está en casa, pero la puerta está abierta... Los jóvenes entrarán a cometer fechorías y es cuando Lurlene Biddet, hermana de Lyle, los encontrará en pleno acto... Su reacción no es la más esperada.

Gone Down to Corpus es una buena historia, escrita de manera impecable y narrando dos tiempos simultáneamente. Tiene 22 páginas de extensión y, a pesar de ser corto, puedo decir que es una de las mejores historias de la colección. Sí, puede que sea un poco ambiguo, pero los relatos, por lo general, lo son, ¿o no?

En Mushrooms una pareja viaja con un compañero que no sabe que acabará muerto al final de la jornada.

Es el cuento más corto de la colección, pero aún así, en sus 10 páginas, es mucho lo que se abarca en este relato. Muchas experiencias, muchos detalles. Una víctima que pasa a ser vengadora, algo cliché, pero con una frescura autografiada por Dennis Lehane.

Until Gwen es el mejor relato de la colección, narra la historia de un padre es búsqueda de un diamante cuyo escondite solo conoce su hijo, quien acaba de salir de la cárcel después de cuatro años. El hijo, por su parte, desea saber el paradero de Gwen, su novia.
Tiene una extensión de 28 páginas.
Coronado narra la misma historia que leímos en "Until Gwen", pero adaptado para el teatro en dos actos conformados por 31 escenas en total. En Coronado tendremos un trasfondo más completo de los personajes del otro relato, además de nuevas caras que darán una estructura más completa a la historia.

Según leí reviews en Goodreads, muchas personas optaron por no leer la obra, pero me atrevo a decir que obviarlo es un error. Coronado es una excelente lectura y fueron bien acogidos los detalles extras y los nuevos personajes.

Ahora bien, hablando de la colección completa; me pareció una obra bastante equilibrada, hasta el orden de los cuentos me pareció acertado y casi todos están enlazados por elementos comunes, tales como violencia, amor, rencor, arrepentimiento, miedo, avaricia, obsesión, venganza, muerte y más.

La colección Coronado no desencanta y entiendo que, para el gusto popular, las novelas son más atractivas y absorbentes, pero los cuentos siempre tendrán en mí un lugar especial. show less

This book arrived latish last year as an unsolicited review book. I have read MYSTIC RIVER and SHUTTER ISLAND and enjoyed both of them and anticipated enjoying this one. On the surface it is a collection of short stories, written I suspect over a quite a long period of time, and of varying quality. One, ICU, in which an innocent man is stalked wherever he goes by a gang of men for doing goodness-knows-what is really interesting. However the last part of the book is the script for the play CORONADO which the blurb tells me is an acclaimed play. The cast for two of the play's productions are listed. It premiered in in a Greenwich Village theatre in late 2005, and then was produced again in Florida in January 2006. What annoyed me more show more than anything that it was a re-write/expansion into dialogue of one of the stories in the book called UNTIL GWEN. In an introduction to the play script Lehane says that he had to write the play because UNTIL GWEN felt like a story he hadn't completed and couldn't get out of his mind. On some level I felt I'd been "had". Others will no doubt enjoy it and rave over it. And don't get me wrong - the stories, especially ICU, are quite good, so perhaps its a book to dip into. And let me be the first to admit the play may be much better in production than in script form. show less

This collection of short stories and one play didn't really do much for me. Admittedly, I am not a fan of the genre but I have enjoyed several of Lehane's previous mysteries and thought I'd give it a try.

I thought the first story was perhaps the most well-crafted "Running out of Dog," certainly its characters were the most developed. The play 'Coronado' was also pretty good and a bit clever. My problem with the collection is two-fold. One: the writing is a bit crude and raunchy for my taste. His novels were not as sexually explicit. And two: nothing stands out to me as being particularly memorable. I just finished it less than 24 hours ago and I am struggling to remember the few stories in between the first and the last.

I think Lehane show more should stick to writing crime drama and Bostonia -- he is much better at the full-legnth novel. This collection was a passable airplane read but isn't able to rise much above that. show less

This was a great one day quick read for me. I have really enjoyed Lehane's books over the years for the suspense, well developed characters, and surprise endings - these short stories did not disappoint. I found this book accidentally at the library and generally don't read short stories, but found these stories enjoyable because they all have similar characteristics. All revolve around crime, primarily murder, and most involve a soldier affected by a war. The two-part play was also cohesive because it was inspired by one of the short stories. If you are a Lehane fan, I would recommend this collection.