WILLIAM BOYLE W/ DAVID SWIDER: SAINT OF THE NARROWS STREET
Join us as we welcome WILLIAM BOYLE in conversation with DAVID SWIDER on WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 5 at 6:00 PM to celebrate the release of his new novel SAINT OF THE NARROWS STREET
ABOUT THE BOOK:
Gravesend, Brooklyn, 1986: Risa Franzone lives in a ground-floor apartment on Saint of the Narrows Street with her bad-seed husband, Saverio, and their eight-month-old baby, Fabrizio. Risa is a loving mother, a faithful wife, a saintly neighbor, as she has learned to be-but lately, her husband’s slow dive into criminality and abuse has threatened her peace, raising concerns about her and her baby’s safety. On the night her younger sister, Giulia, moves in with Risa to recover from a bad break-up, a fateful accident occurs: Risa, boiled over with anger and fear, strikes a drunk, erratic Sav with a cast-iron pan, killing him on the spot. The sisters are left with a choice: notify the authorities and make a case for self-defense, or bury the man’s body and go on with their lives as best they can. In a moment of panic, in the late hours of the night, they call upon Sav’s childhood friend-the sweet, loyal Christopher “Chooch” Gardini-to help them, hoping they can trust him to carry a secret like this. Over the vast, dramatic expanse of the next eighteen years, life goes on in the working-class Italian neighborhood of Gravesend as Risa, Giulia, and Chooch grapple with the choice they make that night-and respond differently when the cracks of a supposedly seamless cover-up begin to reveal themselves
ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
William Boyle is the author of eight works of fiction set in the southern Brooklyn neighborhood where he was born and raised: Gravesend, which was nominated for the Grand Prix de Littérature Policière in France and shortlisted for the John Creasey (New Blood) Dagger in the UK; Death Don’t Have No Mercy, a story collection; Everything Is Broken, published initially in France and subsequently serialized in Southwest Review; 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, winner of the Prix Transfuge du meilleur polar étranger in France and an Amazon Best Book of 2019; City of Margins, a Washington Post Best Thriller and Mystery Book of 2020; Shoot the Moonlight Out, listed by CrimeReads as one of the ten best noir novels of 2021 and nominated for the Grand Prix de Littérature Policière in 2023; and, most recently, Saint of the Narrows Street. He currently lives in Oxford, Mississippi.
ABOUT THE IN CONVERSATION PARTNER:
David Swider is the owner of The End of All Music–record stores in Oxford and Jackson, Mississippi. He’s also the co-owner of The End of All Art. His radio show ‘The New New Soft Shoe Show’ airs on WYXR every Monday morning at 10 a.m. in Memphis.
