Chris Lynch was the fifth of seven children raised in the Jamaica Plains neighborhood of Boston by Edward Lynch, a bus driver, and his wife Dorothy O'Brien Lynch, who worked as a receptionist. The community was originally one of the historic Irish districts of Boston, but by the time Lynch was born in 1962, it also included a large Hispanic population. Lynch's father died when he was five, and he recalls that his mother "did a good job of covering it up, but things were pretty lean back then." Lynch attended Catholic schools on the primary and secondary level and while he describes himself as not "what you'd call bookish," he enjoyed belonging to a Dr. Seuss Book Club because he liked getting "my own book in the mail." His favorite reading in the early grades included military histories and biographies of sports figures "but...