NINE LIVES, A SPANKER, A DNA FAMILY

Boyle’s memoir chronicles his vibrant life from his mischievous youth to adulthood as a career and family man.

The author was born in 1941 in a Massachusetts household that eventually included seven children. His family lived in an apartment and later a rental house before Boyle’s Irish immigrant father, who worked in the construction industry, built them a home of their own in the 1950s. No matter where they lived, young Boyle’s troublemaking (he tried gifting his mother something he may or may not have stolen, and he deliberately avoided making deliveries as a paperboy) led him to the business end of “the Spanker,” a “leather sword shaped weapon.” Boyle joined the United States Navy in the 1960s and was deployed to Vietnam. After his discharge, he returned to Massachusetts, where he fell in love, started his own family, and endured health scares and tragedies. Building a career, he delved into architecture before shifting to real estate and, following in his father’s footsteps, construction. This memoir is largely chronological and cohesive, divided into sections that clearly focus on the different places Boyle and his family have lived. The warm, easygoing prose makes reading the lengthy work a breeze; many of the stories are memorable, including an anecdote about waking up to something “gnawing” on his head in Vietnam and an account of how he wound up in a Catholic boys’ guidance center. The text’s many grammatical and typographical errors, alongside lingering remnants of the author’s shorthand (he uses “thru” for “through” and “w” for “with”), are a bit jarring. Boyle includes a wealth of photos featuring weddings, vacations, and his time in the Navy. There are also myriad YouTube links to the author’s own channel, where he has nearly 300 videos.

One man’s curious firsthand experiences makes for an absorbing true story.