The Friends of Eddie Coyle, published in 1970, was the debut novel of George V. Higgins, then an Assistant United States Attorney in Boston.
The novel is a realistic depiction of the Irish-American underworld in Boston. Its central character is the title character Eddie Coyle, a small-time criminal and informant.
The relentless realism and unglamorous nature of the characters in "Eddie Coyle" was in sharp contrast to some other gangster novels of the era, particularly Mario Puzo's The Godfather, which later would be adapted into the popular movie of the same name (1972).
The novel was an instant success, with Higgins receiving praise from Norman Mailer as "the American writer who is closest to Henry Green. What I can't get over is that so good a first novel was written by the fuzz."
Elmore Leonard said that The Friends of Eddie Coyle was the best crime novel ever written, though Higgins hated being classified as a "crime writer". According to Leonard, “He saw himself as the Charles Dickens of crime in Boston instead of a crime writer. He just understood the human condition and he understood it most vividly in the language and actions among low lives.”[1]
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The character Eddie Coyle bore an uncanny resemblance to ex-convict William (Billy) O'Brien, one of James J. "Whitey" Bulger's old bank-robbing associates who had been murdered in 1967, three years before the book's publication. O'Brien, like Coyle, had just been arrested and the newspapers reported that O'Brien's associates were concerned that he might become a turncoat. O'Brien's slaying was never solved, nor was Coyle's.
The fictional murderer is an ex-con named Dillon, who set up the failed truck hijacking for which Coyle was to be sent back to prison. Dillon owned a bar and was a freelance contract killer. The fictional Dillon was also an informant, shown both protecting and promoting his own interests by funneling information about his underworld competition to the police. Columnist and reporter Howie Carr stated, "In other words, Dillon appeared to be a prototype of the gangster that James J. Bulger would become," although the novelist whose book the movie is based on, just before his death, denied that he had based Dillon on Bulger. (Billy O'Brien was murdered by Johnny Martorano, a hit man for the Somerville, Massachusetts-based Winter Hill Gang.)
During the making of the movie in the Boston area, actor Robert Mitchum (who was cast as Eddie Coyle) was interested in meeting the local gangsters as part of his research into the part. Journalist George Kimball, a sportswriter on the Boston Herald at the time, claimed that Mitchum wanted to meet Whitey Bulger and was warned against it by Higgins. Kimball claims that the two did actually socialize, though there is doubt that a meeting between Mitchum and Bulger ever took place. What is known is that cast member Alex Rocco, a native of Somerville, introduced Mitchum to local Irish-American gangsters of his acquaintance, including Howie Winter of the Winter Hill Gang that Bulger belonged to. [2] (Born Alexander Petricone, Jr., Rocco was a hanger on of the Winter Hill Gang who had been held for questioning in the murder of Charlestown Mob member Bernie McLaughlin, an incident that had touched off the Boston Irish Gang War of the 1960s. After being released from jail, Petricone left Boston for Los Angeles in 1962, where he became an actor.)
The novel was faithfully adapted into a 1973 movie. The novel has also been faithfully adapted into a stage play by Bill Doncaster. A staged reading was held on Nov. 14, 2010 in Somerville, MA, and Stickball Productions [3] will hold a full production in December, 2011, at Oberon, Harvard Square, Cambridge, MA.[4]
Macmillan Publishing printed a 40th anniversary edition of The Friends of Eddie Coyle under the Picador imprint in 2010.[5]