A Friend Is a Gift You Give Yourself
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PRAISE FOR A FRIEND IS A GIFT YOU GIVE YOURSELF
“A brilliant and nasty piece of joyful ambiguity that I Ioved deeply. What a marvelous and unexpected bunch of female characters, in particular. With this one, William Boyle vaults into the big time, or he damn sure should.” —Joe R. Lansdale, author of the Hap & Leonard series
“It’s the women who make this novel such a great read. They are glorious and mad, vulnerable, so human, and very, very funny.” —Roddy Doyle, author of The Commitments, The Van, Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha, The Woman Who Walked Into Doors, and Smile
“A Friend Is a Gift You Give Yourself is a thunderous locomotive of a novel, driven by remarkable characters and sparkling dialogue. A treat for fans of neo-noir, it’s brimming with dark wit and piercing insight. Highly recommended.” —Stuart Neville, national bestselling author
“One thing to appreciate about William Boyle’s process is that, not unlike the late, great Charles Willeford, he takes his time, he doesn’t rush the reader. This is a significant trait, more important than it sounds, the method of a confident writer. He builds his characters patiently, allowing them to adjust to one another, not merely throw lines to titillate the reader. In A Friend Is a Gift You Give Yourself, Wolfie Wolfstein is as comfortably intact a creature as any crime writer of recent vintage has put together. I gleefully anticipate the coming of a movie or better yet a TV series in her name.” —Barry Gifford, author of Sailor & Lula: The Complete Novels and The Cuban Club
“Although William Boyle’s new novel is clearly a love letter to his Brooklyn roots, (New York being one of the more prominently featured players in the book) the real ‘Gift’ here is his prose. The writing is so casual and honest that as a reader, you have no idea how much you have invested in these characters until it’s too late to turn back. Your heart starts to race and you forget about the time. By the midway point of the book, I was rooting out loud for these characters. The balance Boyle achieved of warmth between friends and the darkness that comes calling for them is nothing short of brilliant. I also love books with strong female leads, and with A Friend, you get three of them, moved along by dialogue that is second only to the master himself, Elmore Leonard. Hellova story. Hellova cast. Hellova writer.”
—Brian Panowich, author of Like Lions and Bull Mountain
“Heartfelt, evocative, and bursting with indelible characters, William Boyle’s A Friend Is a Gift You Give Yourself is not only an unpredictable and off-the-wall noir, but a meditation on the true meaning of friendship and family. Boyle has created another potent jolt of can’t-miss New York crime fiction.”
—Alex Segura, author of the Anthony Award-nominated Pete Fernandez Miami Mystery series
“As wildly funny and sweet as it is frenetic and harrowing, William Boyle’s A Friend Is a Gift You Give Yourself is full of dark splendor. And the three wondrous and resilient women at its center are so richly etched, so powerfully voiced, you’ll find yourself wanting to pull up to the dinner table with them, grab a glass, and tuck in. Imagine Martin Scorsese and David O. Russell collaborating with Gena Rowlands and Ellen Burstyn and making magic.”
—Megan Abbott, author of You Will Know Me and The Fever
“Yowza, did I just maybe read a future crime fiction classic? Possibly. It has all the right elements. Great characters—two ex-porn stars, a 15-year-old girl, and a psycho with a sledgehammer—dialogue that tickles the ear, and a sense of place so vivid I thought I was reading in 3D. And the plot! I’m not going to say anything other than 500,000 dollars in a briefcase and a frisky octogenarian are involved. My only regret? I read the book way too fast, just couldn’t stop turning the pages. Oh well, there are worse things in life.”
—Pete Mock, McIntyre’s Fine Books
A FRIEND IS A GIFT YOU GIVE YOURSELF
Pegasus Crime is an imprint of
Pegasus Books, Ltd.
148 West 37th Street, 13th Floor
New York, NY 10018
Copyright © 2018 by William Boyle
First Pegasus Books hardcover edition March 2019
Interior design by Sabrina Plomitallo-González, Pegasus Books
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in whole or in part without written permission from the publisher, except by reviewers who may quote brief excerpts in connection with a review in a newspaper, magazine, or electronic publication; nor may any part of this book be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or other, without written permission from the publisher.
The Library of Congress has cataloged the printed edition as follows:
ISBN: 978-1-64313-058-3
ISBN: 978-1-64313-117-7 (ebk.)
Distributed by W. W. Norton & Company, Inc.