Move over, Tony Soprano. Ron Currie’s unforgettable Babs Dionne is back. While his acclaimed The Savage, Noble Death of Babs Dionne chronicled eight days in 2016, We Will See You Bleed—the second book of a projected trilogy—takes place in 1984, describing the pivotal succession of events that led the gritty Franco American Babs to become a drug kingpin in her hometown of Waterville, Maine, where the paper mill’s “great stack had pumped forth steam and carcinogens without interruption for a century.” An early scene sparks the action perfectly when a man with a chain saw enters a diner to confront Babs’ husband, Rheal.
Not only is this formative backstory riveting, it will likely propel readers to return to the first book, finding new layers of meaning during a second read. Both Currie’s pitch-perfect plotting and razor-sharp prose are worthy of such scrutiny, filled with violent yet often hilarious scenes—that chain saw!—as well as moving portrayals of the residents of Waterville’s Little Canada neighborhood, who are struggling to eke out a living as a strike at the mill drags on for over a year, leaving workers destitute.
Ghosts appeared in the first book, and there’s one here, too. In a prelude, Babs’ late mother warns her to be ready for “the biggest test of [her] life,” adding that her burden “is to be someone bursting with love who is capable of terrible things. The world needs people like that. Because you have what it takes to protect us from the true sadists.”
Babs encounters plenty of those, as mill executive Clay Sutton is happy to get rid of union employees with nary a thought for their well-being. As a result, Babs concludes, “Sometimes doing right by your family and community requires extraordinary measures.” In this case, the measures involve dealing drugs, which will provide a steady income stream for an unlikely crew, who Babs herself calls “some kind of half-assed Franco mob.”
The novel skewers corrupt corporate executives, police officers and the Catholic Church with precision, although Babs’ longtime friend and mentor, Father Clement, is once again a valiant companion and ally. Currie recounts Waterville’s economic and cultural clashes while enlarging and deepening his cast of characters, including Rheal, his best friend, Claude, and their strong-armed enforcers, the Saucier brothers, “who had once assassinated a Khmer Rouge prefect with a chopstick and lived to tell about it.” Rheal and Claude’s relationship is particularly heartbreaking.
Fans like this reviewer will be counting the days until book three. In the meantime, Stranger Things creators the Duffer brothers are developing Currie’s first Babs novel into a Netflix series. We Will See You Bleed is a mesmerizing second offering—an account of Babs’ transformation and what hellfire erupts when a community finds itself stuck between a rock and a hard place. A firebomb of a novel, it’s packed with explosive rewards on every page.