Word: patriotism
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...theme of sorts--a crime with which most of the characters in the novel are concerned. In his first, and still probably his best. The Friends of Eddie Coyle, it was auto theft, in the 1981 model. The Rat on Fire, it was arson for profit: in The Patriot Game, it is gun-running for profit and the greater glory of the provisional wing of the Irish Republican Army. But whatever the crime of choice the novel is usually only an excuse to let the Higgins people talk...
...they do talk Not being personally tough enough to associate with the likes of Patriot Game players. I can't say really whether this chatter is "realistic." Maybe there are folks who heap thousand or two-thousand word monologues of abuse--positively awesome displays of obscenity-peppered grammatically correct spleen, veritable Vesuviuses of vilification--on one another, apparently without stopping for breath. But they sure are fun to read Town...
Though one shouldn't complain about the purveyor of such gloriously purient prose, it is tempting to wonder why Higgins doesn't try something a little more ambitious now that he has buffed the Boston low-life novel to such a perfect shine. The Patriot Game, in fact, would have been an excellent opportunity, because in it he touches on--but ultimately skirts--the issues of the American Irish feelings for their embattled brethren overseas. Jimmy Breslin, also a member in good-standing of the tough-guy school, made such an attempt in World Without End, Amen. Higgins implies that...
...only change from the previous novel that I can detect in The Patriot Game is a slight mellowing--exemplified in the protagonist. Pete Riordan, a tough (natch) federal agent who's trying to figure out what's going on In Eddie Coyle and Rat on Fire, the good guys don't fight the bad guys as much as the stupid and evil guys fight the stupider and eviler Riordan, however, is a hero-- a Vietnam vet with a bum leg and cynical pride in truth, justice and the American way Heart-warming it certainly ain't in Higginsland, Bambi would...
...fact, I can already foresee Patriot's Day 1983, with absolute clarity: Joanne will turn to me while we stretch and say, "I wish I had run the Marathon. "I will agree, and we will strap on our Walkmans and head on down the River for a four-mile...