Novel set in Brooklyn, New York

26th June 2019

A Friend Is a Gift You Give Yourself by William Boyle, novel set in Brooklyn, New York.

William Boyle’s latest novel is that rare thing – a taut and well-paced thriller, with wonderful characterisation, brilliant dialogue and nuggets of wickedly black humour thrown in for good measure.

Rena Ruggeiro, a Brooklyn mob widow, hasn’t had an easy time since the death of her beloved husband, Gentle Vic.  She is estranged from her daughter, Adrienne, and consequently has had very little contact with her granddaughter, Lucia, who is now fifteen.  She leads a lonely life, with little interaction with her neighbours until one fateful day when her eighty-year-old neighbour, Enzio, comes calling. Rena agrees to go to his house for a cookie, but Enzio has more than biscuits in mind and, when he makes a move on her, Rena picks up a heavy glass ashtray and wallops him with it.  Enzio collapses, hitting his head on the table on the way down.  Convinced she has killed him, Rena panics, steals Enzio’s prized ’62 Chevy Impala, and heads for her daughter’s house, hoping for a reconciliation.

But Adrienne isn’t in forgiving mood and slams the door in her mother’s face. Fortunately, Rena is given shelter by Adrienne’s neighbour, Lacey “Wolfie” Wolfstein, a retired porn star who has made a packet out of conning money out of wealthy men in Florida.  Before long, Lucia joins them, desperate to get away from her mother and her mother’s mobster boyfriend.  Inevitably, things turn nasty and soon there are bodies on the floor and the three women are on the run, being hotly pursued by the mob.

This is a mafia story, true, but Boyle has done something different in focusing on the women; instead of portraying them as silent figures behind their mob men, he moves them centre stage and empowers them.  For Rena, Lucia and Lacey are survivors, players and hustlers in their own right who are determined to win.  Boyle has created three masterful characters here, each with their own unique voice.

It would be worth reading A Friend is a Gift You Give Yourself just for the wonderful idiomatic New York dialogue alone. The novel gives the reader a genuine flavour of New York and there is a real sense of the way the city’s past has inevitably shaped its present.  Granted, the crazy road trip that we are taken on tends to focus on the underbelly of the city, but there is a real feeling of love for the place, despite its flaws.

It wouldn’t be a mafia story without violence and there is plenty of it here, but it is balanced by the wonderful humour and lightened by the ultimate message of the book and the hope it offers.  Definitely, one not to miss.

Ellen for the TripFiction Team

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