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WILLIAM MORROW, 2001
(available in paperback from HarperTorch, 2002)
IN 1975, three friends—Sean Devine, Jimmy Marcus, and Dave Boyle—are playing on the street of a close-knit Boston neighborhood. A man who appears to be a cop pulls up and authoritatively orders Dave into his car. Dave goes, not to return for four excruciating days, and the lives of all three friends change forever.
Mystic River, a novel, explores the three boys’ lives twenty-five years after the abduction when, as grown men, their paths once more intersect. Sean has become a homicide detective. When Jimmy’s daughter, Katie, is murdered, Sean is assigned the case. He pursues several leads, but eventually Dave comes under suspicion. Since his childhood abduction, Dave has fought his own personal demons. Sean and Jimmy discover that on the night of Katie’s murder, Dave had arrived home in the wee hours covered in someone else’s blood. As Jimmy becomes increasingly convinced of Dave’s guilt, he grows impatient with Sean’s investigation and wants to exact his own revenge. But to do so would propel him back into a life of crime, a life he left long ago.
In the context of a riveting murder mystery, Mystic River explores loyalty, guilt, vengeance, and remorse, and the devastating effects that can ripple through countless lives from one formative event.
At a neighborhood barbecue soon after Dave’s safe return from his abduction, Jimmy inhales the smell of hot dogs and Italian sausage, which reminds him of Boston’s historic baseball stadium, Fenway Park. Although Mystic River is a fictional story, Italian sausage could not be more real. Vendors have been peddling sweet Italian sausages outside Fenway Park for years, lending a festive, if smoky, atmosphere to the streets that surround the ballpark.
Besides evoking current-day Boston, the mention of Italian sausage is a reminder of Boston’s immigrant history, crucial to the development of the tight-knit neighborhood setting of Mystic River. Large-scale immigration to Boston in the nineteenth century shaped it into the city of ethnic loyalties and close neighborhoods astutely depicted in Lehane’s book. Successive waves of English, Polish, Russian, Jewish, and Portuguese immigrants occupied areas of Boston, but the Irish came in the greatest numbers. In the early and middle decades of the 1800s, Irish immigrants flooded the city, first settling near Boston’s piers. The advent of railroads allowed the Irish to fan out into outlying parts of the city. By the 1870s, Boston saw an influx of Italian immigrants, who supplanted the Irish in communities like Boston’s North End, and who still dominate that part of the city today. Visitors to Boston seek Italian delicacies in its historic North End—Italian pastries like cannoli and tiramisu, Italian cheeses and pastas, and Italian sausage.
Drew Hevle of the Houston Book Club in Texas developed this tempting recipe for Italian sausage and peppers after tasting similar dishes. “I especially like the colorful combination of red and green peppers,” says Hevle.
The number and variety of Italian sausages is staggering, and the flavor overtones of this dish will depend on the type of sausage you use. Hevle prefers freshly ground spicy Italian pork sausage. If you choose a milder sausage, Hevle recommends adding a bouquet garni (bundle of fresh herbs) to the pan, including fresh parsley, oregano, and thyme, when you add the vegetables.
This dish can be served as a main dish, an appetizer, or a side dish. For a main course, toss cooked angel-hair pasta in heated marinara sauce. Top with vegetables and slices of sausage. As an appetizer, serve with crusty Italian bread.
Hevle warns that his dish can overpower. “With the garlic, onions, and sausage, this is a strong dish, so take care what you serve it with. A bold red, such as a Chianti, will stand up to the spice.”
2 pounds sweet or hot Italian sausage or a mixture 1 tablespoon olive oil 1 large sweet onion, cut into large pieces 3 bell peppers (1 each red, green, and yellow), sliced into thin strips |
3 cloves garlic, crushed Salt and pepper 2 cups Marinara Sauce (see below) and 1 pound angel-hair pasta |
Place the sausage in a large, deep skillet with enough water to barely cover the bottom. Place over medium heat, cover, and cook 20–25 minutes, turning once (don’t use a fork—you don’t want to puncture the sausages). Check occasionally to make sure the liquid has not boiled off, and add a little more if necessary.
Pour off any liquid from the pan and reserve it. Brown the sausage on all sides. Remove sausage from pan, cut into bite-size pieces, and place in a large bowl. Set aside.
Put the olive oil, onion, peppers, and garlic in the pan. Sauté over medium-high heat until vegetables are done, but still firm to the bite. You may add some of the reserved pan liquid as the vegetables cook for extra flavor. Return sliced sausages to pan and heat through with vegetables. Season with salt and pepper to taste.
Yield: Serves 6 as a main course, 8 as an appetizer
Our friend Denise DiRocco contributed her recipe for a flavorful marinara sauce. To achieve the fullest flavor, she highly recommends using Pastene “Kitchen Ready” tomatoes.
3 tablespoons olive oil 1 medium onion, finely chopped 5 cloves garlic, pressed 1 6-ounce can tomato paste ¾ cup red wine 1 28-ounce can ground plum tomatoes, such as Pastene “Kitchen Ready” |
1 teaspoon dried oregano 1 teaspoon dried basil 1 teaspoon dried parsley 3 tablespoons grated Parmesan cheese (optional) Salt and freshly ground black pepper |
Heat the olive oil in a medium saucepan over medium heat. Add the onion and garlic and sauté until very soft but not browned, about 5 minutes.
Add the tomato paste and wine. Stir and simmer over medium heat for 3–5 minutes. Add the tomatoes. When the sauce bubbles, reduce heat and simmer for 15 minutes, stirring occasionally.
Add the oregano, basil, parsley, and Parmesan (if desired) and simmer an additional 10 minutes. Season to taste with salt and pepper.
Yield: About 4 cups
After Katie’s death, friends and neighbors shower Jimmy and his wife, Annabeth, with food, including Irish soda bread, pies, croissants, muffins, pastries, potato salad, deli meat, ham, turkey, and Swedish meatballs.
Jan Seerveld of the Silicon Valley Book Club in California contributed this recipe from her friend, Kerstin Jansson. Originally from Gothenburg, Sweden, Jansson remembers eating these Swedish meatballs—her mother’s recipe—at smorgasbords and festive events like Christmas. Today, Jansson serves the meatballs at Christmastime with gravlax (smoked salmon with a spice rub), pickled herring, matjes herring (filleted and cured with salt, sugar, vinegar, and spices), sausages and ham, and Jansson’s Temptation, a traditional Scandinavian side dish of potatoes, onions, and anchovies.
She also serves them as a dinner entrée. “My children’s favorite is Swedish meatballs with mashed potatoes,” says Jansson. “They pour the gravy from the meatballs over the potatoes. And, of course, we always have lingonberries,” the traditional Swedish accompaniment to the meatballs, similar to cranberry sauce.
For family dinners, Jansson makes her meatballs with ground beef or with a combination of beef and pork. For festive occasions, Jansson uses veal to give the meatballs a special flavor.
As a main course, these meatballs can be served with cranberry sauce and mashed potatoes or egg noodles, and gravy on the side. For an appetizer, Jansson skips the gravy and serves the meatballs plain or with a dipping sauce made of equal parts yellow mustard and plum preserves. “This dip is not Swedish at all,” Jansson tells us, “but it really jazzes up the meatballs.”
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1 medium onion, grated ½ cup soft bread crumbs Scant ½ cup water 2 eggs 1 teaspoon sugar 2 teaspoons salt ¼ teaspoon ground white pepper 1½ pounds ground beef ½ pound ground pork, or ¼ pound veal and ¼pound pork Butter or margarine for frying |
For the gravy ½ cup flour 3½ cups beef bouillon (substitute half-and-half for ¾ cup of bouillon for a creamier gravy) 1–2 teaspoons beef bouillon granules Dash Kitchen Bouquet, to color (optional) |
To make the meatballs: In a large bowl, combine the onion, bread crumbs, water, eggs, sugar, salt, and pepper. Let the mixture sit for 5–10 minutes, until bread crumbs swell. Add the meat and mix with a sturdy wooden spoon until well combined.
Form meatballs about 1½ inches in diameter (you may want to make them a little smaller for appetizers). Fry the meatballs in the butter or margarine at medium heat until cooked through, not too many at a time. Shake the pan or turn gently to keep the meatballs nicely rounded and browned on all sides. Remove from pan to a serving dish. Do not wash the pan—you will use the pan juices for the gravy.
To make the gravy: Heat about ¼ cup of water in the frying pan and scrape down the browned bits. Pour through a strainer and reserve.
In a small bowl, dissolve flour in a bit of the bouillon. In a saucepan, heat on high setting the rest of the bouillon (and half-and-half, if using) with the instant bouillon and reserved pan liquid. When it approaches a boil, whisk in the dissolved flour. Turn down heat to medium-high and cook, whisking constantly, for 3–5 minutes, until gravy is smooth and thick. Add a bit of water or milk if gravy becomes too thick. Stir in Kitchen Bouquet for color.
Yield: Serves 6 as a main course, 10 as an appetizer
Every month since 1995, the San Geronimo Lodge in Taos, New Mexico, has opened its doors to members of Who Did It? A Grammatically Correct Mystery Book Club, sponsored by the Moby Dickens Bookshop in Taos. “The innkeeper is a mystery buff,” explains Art Bachrach, bookshop owner and founder of the club, which limits itself to the reading of mysteries. “She’s generous with her space.”
When the group read Mystic River, they found the related discussion to be particularly lively. Group members dwelled on the book’s ending, some arguing that it flowed naturally from the development of the characters; others, that it was inconsistent with the characters. “Some people had hopes that everyone would live happily ever after,” says Bachrach, “but others felt it was predictable that this core of malevolence would emerge.”
Conversation also focused on the book’s setting. “People were interested in the ethnicity depicted in the book,” says Bachrach. “We felt [Dennis] Lehane portrayed a typical, small, closed Boston community very well. People could see how this small-town atmo-sphere contributed to the unhappy ending.”
Everyone agreed that Lehane’s writing was superb. “Lehane stands out among contemporary mystery writers for his strong and sensitive character development, his sense of place in a community the reader can enter and comprehend, and his suspenseful, well-crafted plots,” says Bachrach. “I recommend his writings very highly for mystery readers. Mystic River is one of his best.”
More Food for Thought
Karen Oleson served canned vegetarian baked beans and New England clam chowder to her San Francisco–area book club, FRED (Friends Reading, Eating, and Discussing books), when the group discussed Mystic River. “The story took place in the greater Boston area,” says Oleson, “and beans and chowder are common Boston fare.”
