BY THE WINNER OF THE JONATHAN SWIFT PRIZE 2017 A dynamic new collection from one of our most original storytellers: satirical, surreal and very much of the moment.
In these stories, T. C. Boyle focuses his unerring eye on humanity's relationship with nature, and the unintended consequences of our efforts to control it. The prize-winning 'Are We Not Men?' reflects on the impact of new gene-editing technologies while 'The Relive Box' parodies our obsession with electronic games.
In 'She's the Bomb', a young woman waits on her graduation day, heart in mouth, for an explosive event. A burrito-seller has a killer business idea in 'The Five-Pound Burrito', but learns that success comes at a price. An Italian couple moves south for a fresh start in 'The Argentine Ant', but finds that paradise holds a nasty sting. And in the chilling 'The Designee', a lonely widower can't believe his luck when he receives a mysterious letter from England.
In electric prose T. C. Boyle explores myriad facets of society: greed and excess, parenthood and responsibility, the digital world and the way we understand our mortality. Roaming unrestrainedly through the present and near future, he inhabits his characters' minds with a ventriloquist's flair, skewering human motivations and revealing us to ourselves with empathy and wry humour.
Presents a saga in which scandalous affairs rage behind closed doors, broken hearts are tossed aside, fires rip through the wings of the house and paparazzi lie in wait outside the front door for the tragedy.
A deep and disturbing meditation on the rootsof American gun violence, exploring the fine line between heroism and savagery, and just how far parents can be held accountable for the actions of their child. The son of a Vietnam veteran descends into a spiral of fanatical violence that is impossible to halt. From }New York Times{ bestselling author T.C. Boyle. Now in paperback
A second volume of collected short fiction--from the bestselling author and winner of the 2015 Rea Award for the Short Story Few authors write with such sheer love of story and language as T.C. Boyle, and that is nowhere more evident than in his inventive, wickedly funny, and always entertaining short stories. In 1998, T.C. Boyle Stories brought together the authors first four collections to critical acclaim. Now, T.C. Boyle Stories II gathers the work from his three most recent collections along with fourteen new tales previously unpublished in book form as well as a preface in which Boyle looks back on his career as a writer of stories and the art of making them. By turns mythic and realistic, farcical and tragic, ironic and moving, Boyles stories have mapped a wide range of human emotions. The fifty-eight stories in this new volume, written over the last eighteen years, reflect his maturing themes. Along with the satires and tall tales that established his reputation, readers will find stories speaking to contemporary social issues, from air rage to abortion doctors, and character-driven tales of quiet power and passion. Others capture timeless themes, from first love and its consequences to confrontations with mortality, or explore the conflict between civilization and wildness. The new stories find Boyle engagingly testing his characters emotional and physical endurance, whether its a group of giants being bred as weapons of war in a fictional Latin American country, a Russian woman who ignores dire warnings in returning to her radiation-contaminated home, a hermetic writer who gets more than a break in his routine when he travels to receive a minor award, or a man in a California mountain town who goes a little too far in his concern for a widow. Mordant wit, emotional power, exquisite prose: it is all here in abundance. T.C. Boyle Stories II is a grand career statement from a writer whose imagination knows no bounds.
