The boy from Boston’s school of hard knocks

put his hand on my shoulder and said, “You’ve such a long face, son” and I said, “Nah, I was born with it, Father” and walked away. That was the closest I came to it. Priests weren’t going after boys like me – they went for kids who were missing fathers, who had an emptiness inside them that needed to be filled. And that was the most reprehensible thing about them.

‘But we knew it was going on,’ adds Lehane. ‘Later, my mother said, “How come none of you said anything?” and I replied, “Because you wouldn’t have believed us.”’ Did Lehane feel guilty for having escaped? ‘Yes,’ he replies. ‘And that’s what Mystic River is about.’

The film version tells the story of three childhood friends, one of whom is abducted and abused, though the event comes to haunt all three as adults. ‘The whole book,’ says Lehane, ‘could just as well have been called “Survivor’s Guilt”.’

After college he worked as a counsellor for abused children: ‘I felt I had to give back. That was the beginning of that guilt. Once I worked with a twoyear-old kid whose parents had left him alone. He was mentally handicapped and he’d drunk a can of lead paint when his parents weren’t there. If I’d stayed in that job listening to those stories, I’d have ended up an alcoholic.’

Physically, he may resemble a retired pugilist. ‘But I’m not a tough guy at all,’ he explains. ‘I didn’t stay in the ring. I got out and wrote about it.’

Since We Fell by Dennis Lehane is available now (Little, Brown €18.19).