My good friend Anya Groner interviewed me about Gravesend for L.A. Review of Books.
Tag Archives: William Boyle
The City
1. I’m reading in Brooklyn on Friday, January 3rd. 5 PM at Boulevard Books & Café in Dyker Heights. If you’re around, come on out. Here’s the Facebook page for the event.
2. Gravesend is now available on Kindle.
3. Orhan Pamuk wrote this great piece on C.P. Cavafy in The New York Times Sunday Book Review. Cavafy’s “The City,” included in full here, is one of my favorite poems – the last few lines serve as the epigraph to Gravesend.
“The City” by C. P. Cavafy
You said: “I’ll go to another country, go to another shore,
find another city better than this one.
Whatever I try to do is fated to turn out wrong
and my heart lies buried as though it were something dead.
How long can I let my mind moulder in this place?
Wherever I turn, wherever I happen to look,
I see the black ruins of my life, here,
where I’ve spent so many years, wasted them, destroyed them totally.”
You won’t find a new country, won’t find another shore.
This city will always pursue you. You will walk
the same streets, grow old in the same neighborhoods,
will turn gray in these same houses.
You will always end up in this city. Don’t hope for things elsewhere:
there is no ship for you, there is no road.
As you’ve wasted your life here, in this small corner,
you’ve destroyed it everywhere else in the world.
Translated by Edmund Keeley and Philip Sherrard.
From C. P. Cavafy’s Collected Poems (Princeton University, 1992).
4. Here’s my soundtrack for the holidays (off one of my favorite records of the year):
Gravesend included in LitReactor’s Staff Picks
Really excited that Gravesend is on Keith Rawson’s best books of 2013 list over at LitReactor. So cool to be included with writers I admire so much – Sara Gran, J. David Osborne, Alissa Nutting, Lindsay Hunter, and Steve Weddle. Thanks so much, Keith.
And Neil Gaiman and Joe Hill retweeted this list to over 2 million followers!
Lifting one with Jack Pendarvis and Megan Abbott at City Grocery last night in celebration of Gravesend coming out. Photo by Megan Abbott.
On the balcony at City Grocery with Ace Atkins, Megan Abbott, Jack Pendarvis, and Theresa Starkey Pendarvis. Jack wrote about it on his blog.
All the Bulleit Rye is Not Pictured
Knowledge and Space
1. Gravesend is up on Barnes & Noble (w/ cover art finally but no product details).
2. It should be at Square Books soon.
3. It’s up on Powell’s but they’re currently listing it as a geography book that’s part of a series called “Knowledge & Space” – Trying to get that taken care of now.
4. Disregard Amazon’s claim that it’s not shipping for 3-5 weeks. That’s bullshit.
5. Amazon also keeps trying to list it as a geography book. Yesterday it ranked #19 out of all the geography books on Amazon! A couple of days ago it was listed as part of that same mysterious “Knowledge & Space” series. Got that fixed. Today they listed two editors – Peter Meusburger & David N. Livingstone – who are responsible for the “Knowledge & Space” books.
6. Also on Indiebound, where it’s listed as a geography book and Meusburger & Livingstone get more credit.
GRAVESEND
Gravesend is available on Amazon. It’s also available on Barnes & Noble (without cover art or a product description yet, sorry). I’m hoping to be able to point people in the direction of some indie bookstores that are carrying it soon. (It’ll most certainly be at Square Books here in Oxford, MS in the next couple of weeks.)
I’m also running a giveaway on Goodreads. Enter below for a chance to win a copy.
And Fiction Writers Review, where Gravesend is the Book of the Week pick, is giving away three copies. Simply follow them on Twitter (@fictionwriters) for a chance to win one.
Goodreads Book Giveaway
All Will Be Explained
Fiction Writers Review made Gravesend their Book of the Week pick. Follow them on Twitter (@fictionwriters) for a chance to win a copy.
And my review of Sara Gran’s Claire DeWitt and the Bohemian Highway is up at Los Angeles Review of Books.
It Belongs to the Neighborhood
My buddy Alex Shakespeare interviewed me for Fiction Writers Review.
And a reminder: The great cover art for Gravesend, which I’ve posted a few times already, is by Matthew Revert – He also a new book out, Basal Ganglia, and it’s damn beautiful.
Noir at the Bar
I’m excited to be reading at my first Noir at the Bar in St. Louis on December 7th with Scott Phillips, Jed Ayres, J. David Osborne, Jake Hinkson, and Ande Parks.
Magic Against Death
A couple of good friends of mine, Jimmy Cajoleas and Phil McCausland, just launched Lent Magazine, and I wrote a profile of one of my favorite bands, Water Liars, for them. Check it out here.
And check out the other great content on the site, including Jimmy’s interviews with Mary Miller and Scott McClanahan, Phil’s interviews with Cole Furlow and Manuel Gonzales, and Andy Paul’s reconsideration of The Blair Witch Project.
Here’s Water Liars doing a new song, “Tolling Bells,” from their forthcoming record. I’ve been listening to the record for the last few weeks and this is one of my favorite tracks.
And here’s a version from that same show of “Swannanoa,” which I talk about in my profile. Might just be my favorite goddamn song ever.
William Boyle 