Gravesend by William Boyle Review

Not so far away from the golden streets of Manhattan, where the American Dream lives, is located south of Brooklyn the district Gravesend. A dishwasher is there never become a millionaire, but can already feel like one, for in his environment, he has already hit the jackpot. Most others are unemployed, desperately poor, alcohol and other drugs expire, broken families, some homeless.

This is the bleak place from which the figures of William Boyles detective story originate in which rooted the act is.

Whether major or minor roles, old or young – they know them nothing gave life to date and they have nothing to expect in the future. If they immediately sweep away the death, and the widespread mentality, anything they would be taken, nothing would miss them. For this reason, material Boyle, who grew up in Brooklyn, woven a fascinating revenge plot in his debut, which he told to the extraordinary, poignant output with great sensitivity. Above all there is a slightly melancholic mood that is beautifully preserved in the translation by Andrea Stumpf.

Conway D’Innocenzio is the protagonist, a tragic antihero without confidence, without talent, but with heart and a plan. Sixteen years ago he lost his little brother Duncan. Who was bullied because of his homosexuality in school for a long time, beaten and finally been driven to death. To the person responsible, Ray Boy Calabrese, Conway will take revenge now. For this he must be sure only learn how to shoot again. A failed ex-cop carries with him the fatal shot to the target person represented by an affixed old newspaper photo.

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But again and again can Conway forgiven his arm from the gun. So says McKenna, he is “in real life never meet what” he should let his murderous plan fall prefer. “You’re going to hell in you life … Not limbo. The correct hell.”

The statutory punishment for his misdeed Ray Boy, meanwhile, has already served. Right after the fact, a court him and his three buddies had sentenced to the maximum penalty. For the bereaved family of the victim, however, the sheer survival became hell. Duncan’s mother succumbed to alcohol, left Conway and her husband, and no one knows what became of her. Frankie, Conway’s father, gout and a severe life tormented, pocketed even this low blow without being broken. Conway still lives with him in his hovel and casual job for a pittance as “Stocker” in the supermarket. More on our own way of life is for now almost Thirty Years’ not in it. However, he had already never get something for their turn, versackte temporarily in drug swamp, tried to slit his wrists. What make it through now is only to take the brother given the grave promises revenge on his killer.

Now Ray Boy is so out there and has fled to Hawk’s Nest. The horse town in Upstate New York is no less shabby than Gravesend, only quieter. On the edge no longer passable roads fall uninhabited houses the driveways with sawhorses blocked, nailed up the shattered windows with plastic sheeting, collapsed the roofs. One of them is the ages in a family-owned filthy shingle house that Ray Boy has billeted and where Conway makes his way immediately.

How to proceed, Conway has not been set. Would give him after the murder manage to escape to Canada? Or the police would lock up him? Or it would come not so much because of the “madness strong” Ray Boy grinning smite him in a split second the gun from his hand and he, like, would put an end even his brother?

in preparation and course showdown follows the rituals, as we know from hearty Western, but a few surprises ready and takes a completely unexpected ending. This is true not only those directly involved and the reader, but also Ray Boys fifteen year old nephew Eugene. Who has eagerly for the return of his idol waiting, that he him from his wife household (single mother and aunt), the ridicule of his peers (because of his lame leg), the school and everything else he hates out hole and with go through with the ultimate giant coup him.

the quartet of protagonists precarious completes the highly respectable Alessandra Biagini. At eighteen, she had dreams, broke out of the miserable Gravesend and wanted to succeed as an actress in Los Angeles. Unfortunately, the dreams were nothing but foams, their limited talent was enough only for small performances on home shopping channels, but their attractive appearance (less her voice) gave her an alternate career as a singer Tingelband. Appearances at weddings and the like keep them for ten years or less afloat. Family circumstances bring them back home, where she not only recognizes the desolation of Gravesend, but also their own versiebten life. Would she now “one of those ghosts in the district are”?

This choir of the Lost describes William Boyle with realistic detail, without any embellishment, but also without humiliating exposure. Their language is coarse. They accompany the paths of the protagonists, which run parallel, are told alternately each other from time to touch and finally heading for a dramatic, infernal end. The soundtrack to provide them with rap, hip-hop and punk (Ice Cube, Dre, Snoop Dogg, Wu Tang, The Replacements, Pixies …).

William Boyle’s debut there is a deep black atmosphere, and yet stirred the novel have the reader a strange way by his sensitivity, his sensitive milieu portraits and an act in which one his hair would fight and in the end gets goose bumps.

This book I on the list to my 20 favorite books”