A Friend is a Gift you Give Yourself

By William Boyle

THELMA AND LOUISE MEETS GOODFELLAS when an unlikely trio of women in New York find themselves banding together to escape the clutches of violent figures from their pasts.
After Brooklyn mob widow Rena Ruggiero hits her eighty-year-old neighbour Enzio on the head with an ashtray when he makes an unwanted move on her, she steals his vintage Chevy Impala and retreats to the Bronx home of her estranged daughter, Adrienne, and her granddaughter, Lucia, only to be turned away at the door. Their neighbour, Lacey 'Wolfie' Wolfstein, a one-time Golden Age porn star and retired Florida Suncoast grifter, takes Rena in and befriends her. When Lucia discovers that Adrienne is planning to hit the road with her ex-boyfriend, she figures Rena is her only way out of a life on the run with a mother she can't stand. The stage is set for an explosion that will propel Rena, Wolfie, and Lucia down a strange path, each woman running from their demons, no matter what the cost.
A Friend is a Gift You Give Yourself is a screwball noir about finding friendship and family where you least expect it, in which William Boyle again draws readers into the familiar - and sometimes frightening - world in the shadows at the edges of New York's neighbourhoods.

• Language: English
• Publisher: No Exit Press
• Release date: Mar 21, 2019
• ISBN: 9780857301314

William Boyle

William Boyle is from Brooklyn, New York. His novels include: Gravesend, which was nominated for the Grand Prix de Littérature Policière in France; The Lonely Witness, which was nominated for the Hammett Prize and the Grand Prix de Littérature Policière; A Friend Is a Gift You Give Yourself, an Amazon Best Book of the Year; and, most recently, City of Margins, a Washington Post Best Thriller and Mystery Book of 2020. He lives in Oxford, Mississippi.

Reviews for A Friend is a Gift you Give Yourself

[gwendydd · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

A mob widow thinks she has murdered one of her husband's former associates when he hits on her and she clunks him on the head with an ashtray. In a panic, she steals his car and flees to her estranged daughter's house. When her daughter refuses to let her in, her daughter's neighbor, a former porn star, takes her in. All sorts of complications ensue, worthy of a Guy Ritchie movie - the daughter's boyfriend steals from the mob and wants to take the daughter and flee, a man who the porn star conned out of a bunch of money tracks her down and wants her to marry him... ultimately the widow, the porn star, and the widow's granddaughter end up on the run together. It's a mob thriller, so there's a lot of violence and some of it gets pretty gory. The action scenes are well-written and easy to follow.In principle, the idea of a mob widow and a porn star, both women in their 60s, fleeing bad guys together, sounds like a lot of fun, and it is, but it also feels like Boyle is trying a little too hard. The porn star is always full of zen-like wisdom and always has the right thing to say. The widow's teenage granddaughter is obnoxiously stupid. Boyle clearly wanted to write some bad-ass women, and that's cool, but every single woman is a bad-ass and it's just too much. My eyes just about rolled out of my head when the granddaughter was rescued by a smoking, drinking, cursing nun.This is a decent beach read if you're looking for something mindless and fun, but don't expect much else from it.

[beamis12 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Inside this Soprano style, Thelma and Louise vibed book one finds a motley crew of characters. We have an elderly man who gets beaned because he tries to get a little nookie from the wrong person. A mob bosses widow, and an older woman whose past jobs included porn Queen and drifter. A teenage girl who is determined not to run off in the sunset with her mother and her boyfriend. All the elements for a tragic comedy, and at first it is humorous. Then the bullets start flying, great sums of money are bandied about, and the car chases ensue. The past is fast, there are some gritty and violent moments, and those left standing at the end must pick up the pieces. How? With some baked ziti, sausage and peppers and some bricole of course. That works everytime.ARC from Edelweiss.