The Books That Made Me

'They call Joseph Mitchell the James Joyce of Manhattan, for good reason. Spellbinding.'

Stephen Uzzell

The book I am currently reading

It’s always ‘books’ plural. Afraid I’m serially unfaithful. At the mo I’m dipping between three nonfiction works: Bertie: A life of Edward VII by Jane Ridley, Chinese Martial Arts Cinema: The Wuxia Tradition by Stephen Teo and The English Heretic Collection: Ritual Histories, Magickal Geography by Andy Sharp, wondering if I can cross-pollinate all three for a new novel. The Crown as scripted by Thomas Pynchon, with kung fu action choreographed by the team behind Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. Maybe.

 

The book that had the greatest influence on me

Catcher in the Rye. The first book to make reading a genuinely radical experience. As a teenager, it was like Holden Caulfield had found a portal into my brain. We have been best friends ever since.

 

The book I think is most underrated

The North Water by Ian MacGuire. Imagine a hellish Moby Dick, on a ship populated by a rogues’ gallery of psychopaths and crooks. Not enough people read it. But has apparently been made into a BBC series, so hopefully that’s about to change. Get the book first for the visceral majesty of MacGuire’s language.

 

The book I’m most ashamed not to have read

Huge swathes I have no interest in at all. But I don’t do shame. Have never read any of the so-called Russian Masters, for example, and I’m perfectly fine with that. Life’s too short. Would rather re-read Get Shorty.

 

The book that changed my mind.

HHhH by Laurent Binet, a mind-meldingly meta account of Operation Anthropoid, the assassination of Nazi leader Reinhard Heydrich in Prague. Convinced me that historical fiction did not have to be a bore. A huge influence on my own I Am Juden: Undercover in the SS, although I ultimately told the story in a very straightforward way, compared to Binet’s fireworks.

 

The last book that made me laugh

Recently I have been returning to the Jeeves and Wooster stories. A tonic for these terrible Covid times. Two more recent suggestions if, like me, you’ve been in need of cheering up: Mr Wilder & Me by Jonathan Coe and Less by Andrew Sean Greer.

 

The book I give as a gift

The Bottom of the Harbour by Joseph Mitchell, a collection of non-fiction stories and encounters, each connected with the waterfront of mid 20^th century New York City. They call Mitchell the James Joyce of Manhattan, for good reason. Spellbinding.

 

The book I’d most like to be remembered for

Is that another way of asking what I think my best is? So far, of the half a dozen completed, I Am Juden. The subject matter of the Holocaust forced me to raise my game. At least, I hope it did.

 

My earliest reading memory

Elephants Don’t Sit on Cars by David Henry Wilson. Beautifully surreal and gentle children’s book about a young boy in a perpetual state of wonder at the magic and mystery in the world. To this day I try to see life through his eyes.  

INTERVIEW WITH WILLIAM BOYLE, AUTHOR OF A FRIEND IS A GIFT YOU GIVE YOURSELF

INTERVIEW WITH AUTHOR WILLIAM BOYLE

I love A Friend Is a Gift You Give Yourself because it rescued me from a Book Drought, a terrifying, barren stretch of unsatisfying reading that made me question my entire relationship with the written word. Then I saw William Boyle had a new release out. Finally, here was a novel that careened off the page from Mo's first letter, with action that never let up, told by a cast of fresh and vibrant characters that I wanted to hang out with all day long. Even though they'd probably get me in a shit load of trouble. A Friend Is a Gift You Give Yourself is pitched as Goodfellas meets Thelma and Louise, which is a pretty perfect fit. I'd add The Sopranos meets Bonnie and Clyde, with a touch of The Golden Girls.

Here's my conversation with its author, Mr William Boyle.

William/Will/Billy/Bill...lot of options... What should I call you?

I publish as William but most folks call me Bill.

After reading your novels, I think you should have a mob style nickname like one of your characters.... Bill the What?

Ha. Will have to think on that.

 

In that case I'll come back to it in a few days! I've just finished A Friend and can't stop thinking about it. What a beautiful, sad, funny, wise, bloody, miracle of a book. You do something extraordinary here.
Wow—thank you so much. Can’t tell you how much I appreciate that.

 

I feel very excited and energised. The last book that made me feel this was Jordan Harper's She Rides Shotgun (published in the UK as Lessons in Violence). Did you read that?
Means a lot. I did read She Rides Shotgun. Great book. Felt the same about it.

 

What struck me about A Friend is how you come at the mob story from such a fresh angle. Obliquely. Almost from the sidelines. It is a mob story but it's also the story of a multigenerational 'family' of women coming together, mostly, to escape from the shadow of men. What was the genesis of the idea?
A neighbour told me and my mother a story about being invited over to our other neighbour’s house on the corner—he was a skeezy old man a lot like Enzio. When she got over there, he put on a porn movie. She left immediately, rushing home. The apartment she lived in was the same one I'd grown up in—It was where the gangster Gaspipe Casso lived for years before my mother and I lived there in the late ’70s and early ’80s. That connection made me want to write Rena as a mob widow. With Wolfstein, I just started imagining an alternate life for a golden age adult film star who was the complete opposite of Rena in so many ways, who had found different ways to survive.

 

And yet they are linked, tangentially, by pornography. The woman who takes control of Rena after her indiscretion with the ashtray is a 1970s version of the adult movie stars that Enzio tried to 'woo' her with. Is that an - ahem - happy accident?
You know, at first, it actually was a weird accident. Of course, that connection pretty quickly occurred to me and I loved the way it resonated.

 

Me too. When you get that cosmic reverberation, that’s when you know you’ve done something right. To a British crime fan reared on Goodfellas and The Sopranos it can seem that every other neighbourhood in Manhattan or Brooklyn has its own little Italian social club with men in shiny tracksuits sipping espresso and eating sfogliatella. I’m sure that’s not the case. But it sounds like you did grow up in the shadow of gangsters to some extent?
I grew up on the border of three neighbourhoods in Southern Brooklyn: Bensonhurst, Gravesend, and Bath Beach. When I was a kid in the '80s and '90s, that part of Brooklyn—especially Bensonhurst—was the heart of that. One of those little Italian social clubs was right across the street from my apartment. Everything was pork stores and pizzerias and bakeries. Despite my last name (my old man was off-the-boat Scottish), I grew up with my mother and her side of the family—the Gianninis. I had an early fascination with the mob that started with the whispered legends—who was connected, famous hits, places where those guys might hang out, anything and everything. And a big way of connecting to movies and shows like Goodfellas and The Sopranos was through family and food. I didn't know any actual gangsters, but I heard the stories, I read the books, I watched the movies. Growing up in an apartment where a guy like Gaspipe Casso used to live does something to you, I guess.

It sounds like you could have been a Scottish Henry Hill at one point. Instead of hanging out with the gangsters, you became an author who sometimes writes about them. Much safer that way. "One dog goes one way and the other dog goes the other way." So a lot of inspiration for your characters comes from what you see/saw around you. But how do you go about bringing these people to life on the page? A Friend is bursting with a memorable, vividly drawn cast who sound so completely authentic. A lot of writers struggle with characterisation. What's your approach?

Ha—yeah, that sounds about right. And thanks for the good words. As with everything, I guess I just think about the books and movies I love, the ones where every character—even the most minor one—really matters. You can meet someone in a bar for a page, but there's a whole story there under the surface—I love that. A lot of the people I write are based in some way on people I've known, that's true, but I also love making stuff up, inventing lives, exploring lost futures and haunted pasts. I love to let characters just start talking. I love to hear their regrets. I don't really have a formula. I just want every character to be someone you didn't quite expect them to be.

I think that's such a wonderfully organic approach. And it explains what it is I love so much about your books. Elmore Leonard always used to say he wasn't sure what his books would be about until the characters told him... Is that the same with you? How much of  A Friend was planned out when you started?

Definitely. Very little was planned. I had the opening scene, and I knew Rena and Wolfie would cross paths. I figured out a good amount of stuff in the first draft, but way more in later drafts. Richie and Enzio weren’t POV characters until the third or fourth draft. Lucia was originally much younger. There were also other characters who got cut out.

 

The way Wolfstein looks after the various women who come crashing into her life made me think of my favourite Woody Allen film, Broadway Danny Rose, another Screwball Noir. I love the last scene where he's serving Thanksgiving dinners to his acts in his pokey little apartment. Do you see your characters as forming this kind of surrogate family?
Also my favourite film of his. I do. But I think it took me a little while to realize that. The last ninety pages or so was added after I finished what I thought was the final draft—I realized that the last movement had to be about the forming of this sort of family.

Rena's interesting. I'm a little bit ambivalent about her braining Enzio with an ashtray at the start, but that might be because I thought Enzio was such a funny (and pathetic) character. The ashtray seemed harsh. There's also her lifetime of denial and hypocrisy over being married to 'Gentle' Vic. How do you see her?

She’s hard, complicated. I like, ultimately, that she’s not that likable. She’s detached. She’s lived for other people. She doesn’t even like music. She’s got a martyr complex. And, yet, I think she’s the heart of the book. I often wonder what she’s up to these days; I think this was the beginning of things getting really good for her. 

 

The book is dedicated to your grandparents, who you hope ‘would get a kick out of it’. What kind of people were they?

They were my favourite people in the world. My grandfather was a complainer and a genius fix-it-all guy. He gave everyone nicknames. He was a mechanic at a Chevy shop and used to drive a coffee truck. He liked B-movies, Benny Hill, Mr. Bean, and Mr. Rogers. My grandmother was the kindest and sweetest person. I loved watching movies and playing cards with her. She was a great cook and just had the brightest personality you could imagine. She had a killer smile. Every friend I brought home fell in love with her.

 

What do you find the hardest challenge when writing novels? Are there parts of it that still drive you mad?
I guess the most frustrating thing is that I don’t necessarily know what the challenges are until they blindside me. Especially now that I’ve written a few, I feel like I go in with a little more confidence, but I’m always surprised when I get tangled in some net or other. There are definitely parts of the revision process that drive me mad. 

 

I stopped reading and cheered when The Shield got a shout out, a real overlooked classic from the Golden Age (a rival to The Sopranos, Deadwood, The Wire, I think). I’m not sure there’s much around right now that will rival those. I loved Rectify, but that’s ended. What’s exciting you at the moment on TV?
Totally agree. Not enough people talk about The Shield. Rectify is such a masterpiece—that’s definitely one of my favourites from this decade. Twin Peaks: The Return was just incredible, and I feel like it kind of ruined TV for me—I haven’t watched many shows since. I did love Russian Doll, and right now I’m a few episodes into Dead to Me with Linda Cardellini and Christina Applegate and enjoying the hell out of it. Barry is terrific—probably the only show I look forward to week-to-week. I’ve been rewatching Deadwood for the third or fourth time in preparation for the movie, and I’m blown away all over again. 

 

Finally, you seem entirely comfortable within the pulp/crime genre, which I love above all others. Do you have any desire to write outside it? If so, where might that lead?
I’m entirely comfortable being called a pulp/crime writer—that’s what I’ve always aspired to—but I don’t feel boxed in by it. I love stuff that isn’t afraid to go all over the place. Twin Peaks: The Return is a great example of that: it’s horror one minute, crime the next, with a little slapstick mixed in there and a whole big dose of the weird. I’ve written one novel (Everything is Broken, only published in France) that’s got no crime; it’s more of a character study. I love ’70s movies for that reason too—so many of my favourites feel tonally like crime movies, but they’re really just character sketches.

 

Thank you so much. It has been such an honour to chat with you. Two last things... Why is that book only published in France? And what's the mob nickname?!? I told you we'd come back to it...
Oh, absolutely! Thanks so much for doing this! Been damn great talking to you. My first book, Gravesend, was released with a small indie press in the US initially. A couple of years later, it came out in France, where it was chosen to be the 1,000th release in the Rivages/noir collection by François Guérif. So, before I had an agent or anything here, my second book—this short novel, Everything is Broken—was published only in France. It's finally coming out here this year, published in four installments in the Southwest Review.

As for a nickname, it's tough. The best ones—Bill the Butcher and Billy Balls—are taken. It's easier to do something with Billy, but I'm not a big fan of being called Billy since that's what my no-good old man went by. I feel like if I was in the mob, the guys would always be commenting on how down in the dumps I was, how goddamn pessimistic I was about everything, how I seemed like someone I loved had just kicked the bucket. So, how about we go with Bill the Bereaved.

Sorry to end on a downer! I'll catch up with you again on the next book. Hopefully you'll have cheered up by then.

Ha—not at all. I meant the Bill the Bereaved thing to be funny! Sounds good. Thanks again.

Availalable now, the #1 Amazon UK Charts I AM JUDEN

Availalable now, the #1 Amazon UK Charts I AM JUDEN

https://www.amazon.co.uk/I-Am-Juden-Undercover-SS-ebook/dp/B07MRL9TX3/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=i+am+juden&qid=1557924137&s=gateway&sr=8-1

Inspired by the life of forgotten hero Haim Michael Klar, the #1 Amazon Charts bestseller I Am Juden is the triumphant, epic tale of one man's incredible courage and resistance during the twentieth century's darkest days. 

---

Jozef Siegler leads a perilous double life as an SS officer in the Krakow Ghetto and ultimately Auschwitz. His story is a tightrope walk through the Holocaust unlike any other. Nazi by day and Jewish resistance agent by night, any false move would result in instant death and exposure of his friends in the underground.
Germany 1938. Jozef Siegler is a shy professor but his days of innocence are numbered. Fired by his university on race grounds, he flees with his younger sister Shoshana. War envelops the continent. Constantly on the move, never certain who to trust, it is their inventive ingenuity, the kindness of strangers and the most hair-raising strokes of luck that ensure their survival. 
When Jozef stumbles on the dead body of SS Oberfuhrer Harry Mohnke, he faces the biggest challenge of his life. If he can bring himself to wear the hated uniform and impersonate a Nazi, how many lives could he save?

---

Fans of Schindler's List, All The Light We Cannot See and The Tattoist of Auschwitz are gripped by this riveting saga of history, suspense and heroism.
"One of the more impressive books on the horrors of WW2. An extraordinary reading experience. Facts woven with the skill of a documentarian and enhanced with the burnish of a thriller. A sequel of sorts to Schindler's List. Highly recommended." Grady Harp, The San Francisco Review of Books
"Stephen Uzzell works both sensitively and with superb historical research. Jozef is written with great heart and personality, making him a vulnerable but incredible hero. War-torn Germany, Lithuania and the concentration camps are brought to life on every page by little details and cleverly crafted atmosphere. An epic read." (5 stars) ReadersFavorite.com
"I can't think of any other novel that has brought the heroic story to life of those who functioned as double agents - I certainly wasn't aware that such people existed." (5 stars) Robert Bright, journalist, The Guardian, BBC, New York Times
"A fascinating story that gripped me from the start. Having read books on this genre for over forty years, this is exceptional. An absorbing read. Didn't want it to end." (5 stars) Goodreads Reviewer
"A superb undertaking. Distils history into a fictionalised format than pulls the reader in and doesn't let go." (5 stars) Goodreads Reviewer
"An absolute must read. I look forward to seeing the next masterpiece." (5 stars) Goodreads Reviewer
"A very gripping story of light in deepest darkness. Simply brilliant." Father Edward Lewis, Chaplain to HM the Queen

Availalable now, the follow-up to the #1 Amazon UK Charts I AM JUDEN

Availalable now, the follow-up to the #1 Amazon UK Charts I AM JUDEN

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Ballad-Liberty-Siegler-Sequel-Juden-ebook/dp/B07PZ1SWR1/ref=sr_1_fkmrnull_1?keywords=ballad+siegler&qid=1557923729&s=gateway&sr=8-1-fkmrnull

THE BALLAD OF LIBERTY SIEGLER

"A timely book which brings the trauma of the war years into 1960s America. A gripping story written with style and pace. An excellent sequel to I Am Juden." Father Edward Lewis, Chaplain to HM the Queen

---

The Ballad of Liberty Siegler is a New York coming-of-age thriller about a teenager armed with an acoustic guitar who vows to track down her father's gunman.

Before everything changed, sixteen-year old Liberty Siegler lived a charmed life. A singer and songwriter, Liberty's pop group The Fountain of Youth are stars of New York's folk music scene and friends with a young Bob Dylan. But on Sunday April 9th 1961, the parks of Greenwich Village become a battleground as musicians and police clash in the infamous 'Beatnik Riot'. The Civil Rights movement is born.

That same fateful afternoon, Liberty's father Jozef is critically injured in a mysterious shooting. Past and present collide as Liberty slowly uncovers the truth of Jozef Siegler's former life as an undercover Nazi in Krakow. Against a fraught backdrop of civil unrest and the Adolf Eichmann trial, Liberty must use this knowledge to identify her father's assassin...