''I hope you see Duncan out here,'' Conway said, behind Ray Boy, the gun fixed on him. ''Everywhere you look.'' Pause. ''You see him?''
Slow nod.
''He's gonna get some peace tonight. Finally.''
Every reader remembers his first. The first novel that swept him off his feet and sent him stumbling into a parallel universe. It's like a first girlfriend, it's hard to get over, yet the very reason why you're reading is to reproduce that feeling again. I've been lucky in 2014, because it happened a couple times. It wasn't EXACTLY that feeling, but it was close. The last time it happened, I was reading GRAVESEND, by William Boyle. It's a wonderful, sad, elegiac and understated novel about a community of people at the crossroads. Truth is, I felt a very particular sense of satisfaction when I've read GRAVESEND, because finding novels like that is the reason why I read.
Ray Boy Calabrese has been released from prison 16 years after being implicated in the death of Duncan d'Innocenzio. He did not murder him, per se, but he was found criminally responsible for his death and rightfully so. What Ray Boy did divided his old neighborhood. Some despise him for it, others incorporated the event to his legend. Duncan's loser brother Conway sure doesn't like Ray Boy and would like to see him dead. Ray Boy's nephew Eugene would like to see the old Ray Boy, the James Dean of his neighborhood back in his life, and not that depressed loser döppelganger, The return of Ray Boy Calabrese has thrown a precarious balance up in the air and it's not going to stabilize until he leaves again.
If there is a pattern emerging out of reading Broken River novels, it's that it's not straight noir. There is a literary, sometime experimental lining to all of their releases, at least the ones I've read so far. It's what defines them, I find. What makes GRAVESEND so great is its strong character driven approach. The crime element of the novel is an event that's a part of every character's life. It influenced them in some way and their lives revolves, at least in that moment, around their perception of Ray Boy Calabrese. It's a sign of incredible maturity by William Boyle to be able to master such a large number of point of views. Most first novels are written at the first person, but GRAVESEND is not most first novels, it doesn't feel like it.
''Really, Steph, you don't know anything.'
''I know how you feel.''
''Yo know how I feel?''
''I'm sure I do.''
Conway downed his Dewar's and rattled the ice around the bottom of the glass. ''Do me a favor and change the subject.''
Another aspect that makes William Boyle's debut novel so engaging is how crime and literary elements interact together. On the surface, GRAVESEND is about avenging a murder, but whoever reads the novel finds out quick that it's deeper than that. It's about how regrets and nostalgia can coexist in the same community, and sometimes in the same person. It's about how hard it is to let go and change what you believe in, and how often human beings are too weak to do that. GRAVESEND is one of these novels that connects so deeply, it'll make you wonder why you spent so much time and energy all these other novels who fail to connect the dots and expose the visceral truths of crime. When a novel is this good, you get kind of feverish about it.
GRAVESEND has often been compared to Dennis Lehane's MYSTIC RIVER (a personal favourite of mine), and it's not wrong, but I want you to think about this: MYSTIC RIVER is the greatest moment of Lehane's career, his magnum opus, GRAVESEND is William Boyle's FIRST NOVEL. Maybe it's a tiny notch down, but Boyle's potential is infinite. In basketball terms you would say he has major upside. There's an exciting new talent in the crime fiction landscape. It doesn't really matter why you read dark books because GRAVESEND is good enough to be universally appreciated. It's a keen, passionate and tormented first novel that foreshadows even greater things for William Boyle.
BADASS
