William Boyle's new novel is A Friend Is a Gift You Give Yourself.From his Q&A with Gabino Iglesias at Southwest Review:
Gabino Iglesias: Your work is tied to the atmosphere, accents, and psychogeography of New York City. Do you rely on memories and knowledge acquired by living there or do you research everything you write about?Visit William Boyle's website.
William Boyle: Mostly memories and knowledge, which is why I tend to stick to the places where I’ve lived and spent the most time. This book is set in the part of Southern Brooklyn where I grew up and where my family still lives (as all of my books are), but it also moves to the Bronx neighborhood where my wife’s family is from and then outside the city to a Hudson Valley town where her family now lives. I’m back home often, so occasionally I’ll do something that resembles research to make sure I’m getting a place right or to map things out or even just pick up details, but mostly I’m digging up things I remember or relying on things that have been burned into my memory. The voices are always there.
GI: A Friend Is a Gift You Give Yourself subverts the mob narrative by focusing on the women who live on its periphery. That said, you have a series of narratives about Cosa Nostra members in the book, including their deaths. Why did you decide to make the three main characters women trapped in and, in some ways, shaped by this context?
WB: The book was always going to be about...[read on]
My Book, The Movie: Gravesend and The Lonely Witness.
The Page 69 Test: Gravesend and The Lonely Witness.
Writers Read: William Boyle (September 2018).
--Marshal Zeringue