William Boyle

William Boyle is the author of eight books set in and around the southern Brooklyn neighborhood of Gravesend, where he was born and raised. His most recent novel is Saint of the Narrows Street. His books have been nominated for the Hammett Prize, the John Creasey (New Blood) Dagger Award in the UK, and the Grand Prix de Littérature Policière in France, and they have been included on best-of lists in the Washington Post, CrimeReads, and more. He currently lives in Oxford, Mississippi.

Boyle's new novel is Saint of the Narrows Street.

Recently I asked the author what he was reading. Boyle's reply:

I've been rereading Leah Carroll's memoir Down City: A Daughter's Story of Love, Memory, and Murder. Carroll tells the story of her mother's murder and her father's descent into alcoholism and depression and, in doing so, she gives her parents back their humanity, making them more than just the tragedies that befell them, and she also tells her own story, how her parents are her, how she's them. I use this book every semester in the true crime class I teach, and I reread it every single time. I guess I've been using it in class for five years now, which means I've read it probably ten times. It's a powerful and haunting book. It amazes me that each time I read it, the impact is the same as the very first time. My students always love it, too. They're blown away--as am I--by Carroll's raw, poetic voice and her honesty.

I recently read Rachel Ingalls's Mrs. Caliban for the first time. It's kind of a Sirkian melodrama mixed with a weirdo folktale. A suburban housewife hides a fugitive sea monster in her house and winds up falling in love with him. It's wild and beautiful, and I flat out loved the prose.

I read Alison's Gaylin's We Are Watching in galley form back in the fall and loved it. It was just released a few weeks ago, and I've been telling everyone I know to grab it. Here's the blurb I wrote: "From the terrifying first chapter on, Alison Gaylin's We Are Watching grabs you by the throat and doesn't let go. It taps into our current paranoid landscape in a way that's both deeply absorbing and deeply unnerving. The upstate New York of the novel is not unlike David Lynch's Lumberton in Blue Velvet; there's intense darkness boiling just under the surface. Gaylin knows that we're surrounded by people who believe insane things, and she puts Meg, Lily, and Nathan through the hell of being at the center of a deranged conspiracy theory so she can show us just how thin the fabric between realities can be. Reminiscent of some of Ira Levin's best work in its intricacies and textures, We Are Watching is a startling tale of suspense and terror so masterfully told that readers will hang on every word."

Finally, I'm just digging into a new novel by Laura Lee Bahr, Who Is the Liar, which will be released later this year. It's the story of a family of sisters in the '80s told from the point of view of the youngest, Topaz, and it's about sisterhood, innocence, and how far we'll go to protect the ones we love. Really excited about this one.

Visit William Boyle's website.

My Book, The Movie: Gravesend and The Lonely Witness.

The Page 69 Test: Gravesend and The Lonely Witness.

The Page 69 Test: City of Margins.

My Book, The Movie: City of Margins.

Q&A with William Boyle.

The Page 69 Test: Shoot the Moonlight Out.

My Book, The Movie: Shoot the Moonlight Out.

Writers Read: William Boyle (December 2021).

The Page 69 Test: Saint of the Narrows Street.

My Book, The Movie: Saint of the Narrows Street.

--Marshal Zeringue