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Alright, who didn't see The Departed here? That's what we thought. Turns out, The Departed is actually somewhat based on a true story. South Boston, where the movie took place, really was a hotbed of crime and gang-activity, run by an Irish gangster named Whitey Bulger (played by the excellent Jack Nicholson in the film). Nicholson's real-life counterpart was the brother of Boston's senator, Billy Bulger, and was a protected FBI informant (until he killed too many people). Kevin Weeks, author of Brutal, was one of Whitey's right-hand men. Today, Whitey Bulger is still on the run, with a million dollar bounty on his head, accused of killing 13 people and considered armed and dangerous.
Weeks is unflinching in his portrayal of his former boss and cohort. "I grew up in the Old Colony housing project in South Boston and became partners with James 'Whitey' Bulger, who I always called Jimmy," he writes early on. "Jimmy and I, we were unstoppable. We took what we wanted. And we made people disappear - permanently. We made millions. And if someone ratted us out, we killed him. We were not nice guys." That is a bit of an understatement, as Nicholson's character pales in comparison next to his real-life counterpart.
On the other side of the South Boston divide, is the memoir Easter Rising, by Michael Patrick MacDonald. Easter Rising, the sequel to his earlier memoir, All Souls, outlines the crime and poverty in Boston from Michael's own experience.
Michael and his siblings grew up in South Boston's Old Colony Projects. "My oldest memories are of my mother crying," he says in the book. Michael's mother was a single parent of 10 children, doing the best she could with subsidized housing, welfare programs and abusive boyfriends. Part of the strength of both memoirs is the portrayal of Michael's mother. She lost five of her children with another child becoming paralyzed, but survived. She lived in housing projects, filled with drug dealers, addicts, roaches and gangs, all while the government ignored her.
The first child to die in Michael's family was a three-week-old baby boy, Patrick Michael, who had pneumonia. Patrick was turned away at the hospital because hospitals did not have to accept children on welfare and Medicaid didn't exist. The second of Michael's siblings to die was Davey, 23 years old, a diagnosed paranoid schizophrenic who died nine hours after he jumped from a rooftop. The third child, Frankie, was shot while robbing an armored car at 24 years old. The fourth child, Kevin, committed suicide in jail; he was 22 years old. Finally, Michael's sister Kathy either fell from a rooftop or was pushed off during an argument over drugs when she was 19.
To make the situation even more unbearable, another brother, Stevie, was framed for a murder when he was 13 years old. Michael writes, "I was stuck there on the side of the road, and I realized that I could just put the car into drive, and press the gas peddle, and kill myself right then. I couldn't see anything through tears and rain." However, instead of committing suicide or going to a life of crime, Michael became a social activist.
Easter Rising continues on the theme of Michael's renewal but delves into the specifics of his rebirth: a rebirth through punk rock. The punk scene helped him cope with death and gave him an escape from the gangs and drugs of the Old Colony Projects. Eventually, after journeying to England, the home of punk rock's birth, he traveled to Ireland with his mother in a sort of homecoming. The title of the book is taken from the Easter Rebellion in Ireland when the poets and writers took up arms against the British. (They were all executed, though. Not a particularly happy ending to that one.)
Both Brutal and Easter Rising are parts of the same coin, two different possible journeys through life in South Boston and the hard choices the citizens faced. After reading both only one thing is certain: Neither Matt Damon or Leonardo DiCaprio could have survived for a day in the real South Boston.
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