This is Jenn Delperdang, with the Sioux City Public Library, and you’re listening to Check It Out. Like most people I know, my reading habits have evolved as technology plays a larger role in my day-to-day routine--and time has become a commodity that I never have enough of. A trend in reading has recently emerged in the popularity of the ‘short novel’--that is a novel generally under 200 pages. The idea of a short novel that offers an intense connection to characters and storyline is very appealing to many readers, and I have found myself searching out this style of book to get my reading ‘fix’.
I recently picked up The Drop by bestselling author Dennis Lehane. Lehane has had blockbuster success with previous novels that became movies, including Shutter Island, Mystic River, and Gone Baby Gone. Weighing in at 207 pages, The Drop is a novelization of the screenplay adapted from the short story “Animal Rescue." The movie, released in 2014, stars Tom Hardy, and James Gandolfini in his final on-screen performance.
While ‘novelization’ is kind of a ‘dirty word’ among authors and critics alike, this book is an exception. In The Drop, we meet Bob Saginowski, a lonely bartender, working for his cousin Marv in a sleepy watering hole on the mean streets of Boston. The bar serves as a drop site for Chechen mobsters continuously moving dirty money. Bob’s life is pretty sad, until he rescues an abused and abandoned dog, meets a woman with a shadowy past, and finds himself mixed up with with the Chechens after a robbery gone wrong. Gritty and compelling, this working-class crime fiction is intricately plotted, and the characters are well-developed, each with their own secrets and revelations. Bob’s transformation is powerful, and the ending is unexpected. Lehane’s signature style shines in this short novel, giving life to the story in the details of his character’s lives.
Stop by the Sioux City Public Library to check out The Drop by Dennis Lehane, or let our staff give you personal recommendations based on your reading tastes.
