Crime novel’s TN setting hints at author’s Bronx stint
Author William Boyle might be wearing a Brooklyn Dodgers cap at an event for his latest crime novel, A Friend Is A Gift You Give Yourself, but his obvious familiarity with Throggs Neck,
where much of the book is set, hints at the time he spent living in that Bronx neighborhood. PHOTO BY JOHN ROCHE
BY JOHN ROCHE
Author William Boyle has come to
be both critically acclaimed and wellknown
for writing about his native
Brooklyn, but his latest crime novel
gives away one of the ‘plot twists’ in
Boyle’s own life. Not only is much of A
Friend Is A Gift You Give Yourself set in
the Bronx, but its rich detail also hints
that the writer spent some time living
in Throggs Neck.
The novel, hailed as ‘Goodfellas
meets Thelma & Louise,’ begins in
Brooklyn but quickly heads to Silver
Beach, and the names of some characters
might sound familiar to longtime
residents, as will settings, especially
many of the real life bars of Throggs
Neck, including Alfi e’s and the nowclosed
Clipper and Charlie’s Inn.
There’s good reason for that: Boyle
married into the Farrell family, who
owned the popular bar Farrell’s on East
Tremont Avenue and Sampson Avenue
that later became McGinnis & Farrell’s.
When Boyle and his girlfriend Katie
Farrell lived on Quincy Avenue from
2006 to 2008, he and Katie—who he
married during that two-year span in
Throggs Neck—spent a good amount of
time in the watering holes of the neighborhood,
either on their own or with Katie’s
uncle Bobby Farrell, whose house
they were living in. Kate’s uncle Bobby,
along with her father John, remain popular
fi gures in the neighborhood, especially
with anyone who has spent any
time in bars throughout Throggs Neck
BRONX TIMES REPORTER, J 30 UNE 14-20, 2019 BTR
A Friend Is A Gift You Give Yourself by William
Boyle is a madcap, mobbed-up crime
novel that’s been described as “Goodfellas
meets Thelma & Louise.”
over the past 50 years.
“It was magical,” Boyle recalled of
that pivotal time in his life, when he
began writing crime fi ction in earnest
while teaching English at Iona Prep and
also teaching as an adjunct at SUNY
Maritime. “As Bobby Farrell’s niece
and John Farrell’s daughter, Katie
was royalty. As soon as we’d show up,
people would start buying us drinks. I
loved hearing about the neighborhood
through the stories I’d listen to at the
bar.”
After a few hours in the afternoon
spent with the old-timers and other
regulars at bars along Tremont, he’d go
home and write. Many of those Throggs
Neck-based short stories found their
way into magazines such as Thuglit,
Out of the Gutter and Plots With Guns.
Those same pieces of crime fi ction were
later published in his fi rst book, a short
story collection titled Death Don’t Have
No Mercy.
“When I wasn’t working, I spent my
time pretty evenly between the library
or in bars, or just walking around,” he
said. “I’d been to the neighborhood several
times before we moved there, but I
got to know it really well in those couple
of years living there. It remains one of
my favorite places.”
No wonder, then, that Throggs Neck
takes center-stage in A Friend Is A Gift
You Give Yourself, a gritty, madcap
novel set in 2006 that kicks off with the
main character, Brooklyn mob widow
Rena Ruggiero, cracking her Viagrapopping
neighbor over the head with an
ashtray when he makes an unwanted
move on her.
Rena takes off in her neighbor’s old
Impala, heading to Silver Beach, where
her estranged daughter and granddaughter
live. Throw their neighbor,
Lacey ‘Wolfi e’ Wolfstein, a former porn
star, and a bunch of pissed-off mobsters
into the mix, and it’s easy to see how,
as one fellow writer put it, “a thunderous
locomotive of a novel, driven by remarkable
characters and sparkling dialogue…
dark wit and piercing insight”
unfolds in A Friend Is A Gift You Give
Yourself.
Like his earlier acclaimed literary
crime novels Gravesend and The Lonely
Witness, Boyle’s latest book brings the
setting to life virtually as another character
in the story, but this time around,
it’s primarily the Bronx instead of
Brooklyn.
“I like exploring the mythology of
the city through smaller lives,” Boyle
explained. “I like the way those neighborhoods
can feel like small towns. My
neighborhood in Brooklyn—or neighborhoods,
really, since I grew up on the
border of Gravesend and Bensonhurst—
have a lot in common with Throggs
Neck, or at least they did at some point.
But there are big differences too, one being
the lack of a bar culture in my part
of Brooklyn, or really anything cultural
that’s not food-related. But also, I
was always struck by the sense of community
in Throggs Neck. My neighborhood
in Brooklyn might have been like
that once, but by the time I was growing
up, it felt a lot more like everyone was
just watching out for themselves.”
Boyle, who now lives with his wife
and family in Oxford, Mississippi, also
has another feather in his cap indicating
that he might have been born in
Brooklyn, but can be counted among
true Bronxites: He had to battle it out
with copyeditors working on A Friend
Is A Gift You Give Yourself over the fact
that the neighborhood of Throggs Neck
is spelled with two ‘Gs,’ while the bridge
and expressway only have one. “That’s
what Katie’s family tells me is right,” he
said.