On the last day of his legal career, Eddie Joyce packed up his desk and turned in his security badge. He said goodbye to the partners and associates, to his six-figure salary, to his Park Avenue office.

He was 34 years old. His wife was nine months pregnant. And he had just decided to give up his job as a lawyer to try to write short stories and novels. Exhilarated, anxious and uncertain, he was sure of only one thing: That he would write about the borough where he grew up.

It was the place his mind drifted to when he was on the subway in Manhattan or staring at the computer screen in his apartment in Brooklyn Heights: The island with dunes on one end and industrial waterfront on the other. The tight-knit neighborhoods filled with police officers, teachers, firefighters and secretaries. The summertime splashes in backyard swimming pools, the sweat and hustle on gritty basketball courts, the flickering candles at Sunday morning Mass.

A literary work about Staten Island? That’s right. Last month, Mr. Joyce’s debut, “Small Mercies,” published by Viking, arrived in bookstores around the country. The New York Times described it as “an intimate family portrait.” Richard Russo, the Pulitzer Prize-winning author, hailed it as “a terrific first novel.”