Shutter Island

Shutter Island
First edition
AuthorDennis Lehane
Cover artistChip Kidd (designer)
LanguageEnglish language
GenreGothic, Psychological Horror, Crime
PublisherWilliam Morrow
Publication date
April 15, 2003
Publication placeUnited States
Media typePrint (Mass)
Pages380
ISBN0-688-16317-3
OCLC51969184
813/.54 21
LC ClassPS3562.E426 S55 2003

Shutter Island is a novel by American writer Dennis Lehane, published by HarperCollins in April 2003. It is about a U.S. Marshal who goes to an isolated hospital for the criminally insane to investigate the disappearance of a patient who is a multiple murderer. Lehane has said he sought to write a novel that would be an homage to Gothic settings, B movies, and pulp. He described the novel as a hybrid of the works of the Brontë sisters and the 1956 film Invasion of the Body Snatchers. His intent was to write the main characters in a position where they would lack 20th-century resources such as radio communications. He also structured the book to be "more taut" than his previous book, Mystic River.[1]

Lehane was inspired by the hospital and grounds on Long Island in Boston Harbor for the model of the hospital and island. Lehane had visited it in the Blizzard of 1978 as a child with his uncle and family.[2]

A film adaptation of the novel, adapted by Laeta Kalogridis and directed by Martin Scorsese, was released on February 19, 2010.

  1. ^ Dave Weich. "Dennis Lehane meets the Bronte Sisters". Powell's Books. Archived from the original on 2007-12-22. Retrieved 2008-01-08.
  2. ^ Symkus, Ed, "Real local flavor on display in 'Shutter Island'", The Patriot Ledger, Feb. 19, 2010