"It’s the women who make this novel such a great read. They are glorious and mad, vulnerable, so human, and very, very funny." (Roddy Doyle)

Thelma and Louise meets Goodfellas when an unlikely trio of women in New York find themselves banding together to escape the clutches of violent figures from their pasts.

After Brooklyn mob widow Rena Ruggiero hits her 80-year-old neighbor Enzio in the head with an ashtray when he makes an unwanted move on her, she retreats to the Bronx home of her estranged daughter, Adrienne, and her granddaughter, Lucia, only to be turned away at the door. Their neighbor, Lacey 'Wolfie' Wolfstein, a onetime Golden Age porn star and retired Florida Suncoast grifter, takes Rena in and befriends her. 

When Lucia discovers that Adrienne is planning to hit the road with her ex-boyfriend, she figures Rena is her only way out of a life on the run with a mother she can’t stand. The stage is set for an explosion that will propel Rena, Wolfie, and Lucia down a strange path, each woman running from their demons, no matter what the cost.

A Friend Is a Gift You Give Yourself is a novel about finding friendship and family where you least expect it, in which William Boyle again draws listeners into the familiar - and sometimes frightening - world in the shadows at the edges of New York’s neighborhoods.