Noir Is All About Bad Decisions: The Millions Interviews William Boyle

The novels of the Oxford-based, Brooklyn-born author are replete with dire circumstances, gallows humor and instantly iconic characters. An unapologetic disciple of the noir masters of the past, his work invokes both the mind-bending moral dilemmas of and the elegantly rendered cheap thrills of . Like (an influence on and vocal supporter of Boyle’s work), he is also a meticulous chronicler of process. Whether detailing the minute-to-minute thoughts behind a character’s ill-advised criminal gambit or the ways in which baffled institutions like law enforcement and the church tend to fail their communities, Boyle drills down and makes the details so credible and lived-in it can be easy to forget you are reading fiction at all. On the occasion of the recent reissue of his 2014 corker of a crime novel , I spoke to the author about his background and influences, his approach to rendering his own characters, and audience expectations for a happy ending. Spoiler alert: This interview references certain outcomes for individual characters, so if you’re planning to read the book (and you should), please stop here until you’ve finished.