Brooklyn ‘state of mind’ infuses writer’s urban fiction

[Michie]

Catholic writer William Boyle, author of "Shoot the Moonlight Out," is pictured in an undated photo. (CNS photo/courtesy Katie Farrell)

Images of backyard shrines to the Blessed Virgin adorn the pages of many Catholic novelists. They are a place-setting device authors use to plant familiar images in the mind of the reader.

But for William Boyle, a Brooklyn-bred author of emerging repute, the statues are used as a motif to illustrate the setting, mood and general “Brooklyn-ness” of his four published novels.

A product of the Bensonhurst district of Brooklyn, Boyle is a “literary crime novelist” who is to Brooklyn what Bruce Springsteen is to the New York/New Jersey vibe. Both artists, raised in the Catholic faith, focus on themes of despair, longing and quiet suffering in their fiction/music.

Continued below.
Brooklyn 'state of mind' infuses writer's urban fiction - Catholic News Service

 

[Bob Crowley]

It sounds as though it could be called Christian (Catholic) existentialist fiction, using Brooklyn as the backdrop.

I remember asking my old pastor which branch of philosopy was closest to Christianity. He thought for a moment and said "Oh, I suppose existentialism is the closest. Most people exist, and that's about it".

Don and Ava in William Boyle's book "City of Margins", Amy ("The Lonely Witness"), Rena ("A Friend is a Gift You Give Yourself”) and the young people in his fourth novle all appear to "exist" and are trying to make sense of their dreary lives right where they are.

I recently put a post about "Leper colonies in Australia" in the Regional sub-forum. I started to think then of those abandoned souls cut off from the rest of society, with not much to do and unable to do much for themselves. They were basically forgotten.

That's what I call "existing". I wonder how you'd tell a story that convinced people that "God loved them"?