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35th out of 68 books
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Tooth and Claw and Other Stories
by
T.C. Boyle
Since his first collection of stories, Descent of Man, appeared in 1979, T.C. Boyle has become an acknowledged master of the form who has transformed the nature of short fiction in our time. Among the fourteen tales in his seventh collection are the comic yet lyrical title story, in which a young man wins a vicious African cat in a bar bet; Dogology, about a suburban wom...more
Paperback, 304 pages
Published
June 27th 2006
by Penguin (Non-Classics)
(first published 2005)
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The most exciting collection of short stories I've read in... well, maybe ever. Boyle is a master of short fiction. The thing that strikes me the most is how much more closely life is like a series of short stories than it is like a novel. The characters, plot, and settings are already underway before we become familiar with them, and will continue to exist after we have left them. Boyle manages to express the meat of a moment in time, its importance in the life of the character, and its import...more
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It's more TC Boyle! I love this guy, especially his short stories. The highlight here is probably "Dogology" and the lowlight is that super long and boring story about a woman's travel from Boston to New York, in 1702. The title is almost as long as some of the other stories in the book. Seriously, the only pleasure I got from reading that story was when they went through Rhode Island and talked about places I know. But since it's 300 years ago, I don't really care.
Boyle__beloved author of The Inner Circle and Drop City__is a masterful prose stylist. This volume showcases his skill, hurling such wonderful phrases as "face that was like a dried-up field plowed in both directions" at the reader. But the reviews of this collection were mixed, suggesting that Boyle is a bit too enamored of his own wordsmithing. A few critics claimed that he was so busy making it rococo and perfect that he failed to develop characters that readers care about. Still, t
...more
A book of short stories by T. C. Boyle, read by the author. The title story is about a man who obtains a caged serval in a bar bet. The creature turns out to be nasty and dangerous. However, it does give him the in with a nice looking woman who is a waitress at the bar. "Up Against the Wall" is a (semi-autobiographical) story about a young man, living with his parents in the 60's who comes to start hanging out, doing drugs and getting into trouble. His parents marital discord and ...more
I enjoyed spending time in Boyle's world, just as I did when I read The Tortilla Curtain a while back, but I don't know if these stories really affected me the way the novel did. Someone else mentioned "Dogology" as a highlight, and I'd have to concur. That same person mentioned disliking "The Doubtfulness of Water" as a low point, and I'd have to agree there as well.
What Boyle does well here is create real protagonists--understandable, sympathetic (sometimes path...more
What Boyle does well here is create real protagonists--understandable, sympathetic (sometimes path...more
Sometimes the pictures taken with nice digital cameras look "super-real"; when T.C. Boyle transports the reader, there's a smooth, super-reality to it. He does this in spite of the stories' brevity, and when the tales end the end is sudden, leaving the reader in a void grasping for reminders of his or her own life. Stories that burned themselves into my memory include "The Swift Passage of Animals" about a couple that gets their car stuck in the snow, "Here Comes"...more
This collection of short stories by T.C. Boyle was a good read. Most stories captivated you - dropping you into a story, walking you through it, and then lifting you out at just the right time.
I enjoyed most of them. I must agree with other readers that "The Doubtfulness of Water" was just painful - I couldn't finish it. My favorite also concurs with most reviewers - Dogology is unlike anything I've read before. Loved it! Some were just disturbing - the one where the aliga...more
I enjoyed most of them. I must agree with other readers that "The Doubtfulness of Water" was just painful - I couldn't finish it. My favorite also concurs with most reviewers - Dogology is unlike anything I've read before. Loved it! Some were just disturbing - the one where the aliga...more
The collection of short stories was pretty hit or miss for me, and while I definitely came away with the impression that Boyle knows how to write, I also came away with the opinion that his style doesn't really cut it for me. If I had to try to pinpoint my main problem with these stories it would be that by and large, I didn't really care for any of the characters in the stories. Having sympathetic characters isn't a necessity as long as the underlying stories are strong, but that's not always t...more
I keep piking up The Women at the bookstore, but haven't been willing yet to pony up the money. I ran across Tooth & Claw at Salvation Army and figured for a dollar I'd give it a shot to see if I like Boyle's style. Based on these stories, not so much. Th stories are very eclectic so there are a few that I enjoyed, but they were more the exception than the rule for me. His tendency to leave stories very open ended, with no real plot crescendo or conclusion, irritated me. His writing flows smooth...more
I liked this collection of stories, had already read a few in the New Yorker. I love the one about the guy who wins a serval in a bar. I keep mixing these up with the Denis Johnson story about the guy with the knife in his eye (Emergency Room, I think it is). All the hospital workers are tripping on drugs, things are just crazy. This book is along those lines, lots of drinking and a decided lack of direction in people.
Read this after reading Tortilla Curtain...great writing, interesting juxtapositions, and yet, it became more of the same with each story...bitter, alcoholic characters who were compelling enough for me to finish the collection...would have benefited from some variation of theme...still recommend this, and would be good to read a few, then read something else, then go back to the collection on a later date.
An interesting compilation of short stories. Most of them deal with the desperation and chaos of young adulthood through the eyes of a young man. Insecurities and anxieties were drowned in a flood of alcohol and drugs in the company of other desperados. Many of the stories made me cringe and squirm as the progressively destructive actions wore on their offender. Yet, these characters were human enough to elict sympathy (and a degree of self recognition) and I hoped for their redemption, in w...more
I think Boyle is an excellent writer. I'm not a great fan of short stories, because they usually leave me wanting more of the story. His stories are always so interesting, and there's usually something odd about them as well. He likes to leave the endings somewhat ambiguous. I haven't read anything by him that didn't leave me thinking about it for some time afterward.
Mixed bag of stories: a woman finds herself closer to a pack of local dogs than her fellow humans, a young man tries to become part of the sixties counter culture; a woman travels the Boston Post Road on her way to Manhattan in the 1700's; a young man wins a wild cat like creature and keeps it to impress a girl.
Great collection of short stories that explores a wide range of characters in unique, sometimes bizarre, situations. Some examples: a woman who decides to be a dog and the man who falls in love with her, a man who stays awake for 12 days for a radio station's pr, and two men who lost everything.
A stellar collection of stories from one of my favorite writers. Boyle's work somehow manages to be both funny and suffused with dread. I'm not sure how he does it, but it's on full display here. The title story especially – about a lonely guy who falls in love with a waitress when he accidentally wins a deadly cat in a bet – manages to be both hilarious and heartbreaking. Brilliant stuff.
irritatingly didactic (you stupid, lazy people. If you keep being lazy and materialistic, you're gonna run into trouble. See? I just made an alligator eat your kid). Some great imagery though.
He is a very good writer, and if you're trying to figure out craft like flashbacks, focalization, and whatnot, then definitly read. However, he seems to write a lot about people who waste their lives away in bars and taverns. It got wearisome after a while. There were four stories I really liked. One, believe it or not, was about a guy who talks to an older man in the bar, and the focalization technique is absolutely fascinating. All the other stories were basically ones that had to do with...more
T.C. Boyle is hands down, one of my most favorite authors. This collection of short stories is cohesive and stunning in its ability to give you that drop kick punch in the gut that tells you that you've just read something with wisdom, wit, and terrific technical ability. Boyle is THE writer of our generation. Alice Munroe is another of my favorite authors, but T.C. Boyle is amazing for his stories' literary quality, readability, and mind-bogling prolificness. And, he always includes at least on...more
Great stories on Man's constant clashing with Nature. Animals, meteors, alcoholism, it's all part of the battle. My favorite T.C. Boyle book.
There are glimmers in each of these stories that remind me why Boyle is one of my favorite authors. The man whose wife is whisked out to sea the day he professes his renewed love. The juxtaposition of an asteroid slamming into the earth and the possible abduction of a man's daughter. An attempt to save his friends from the police, forces a junkie to give up his habit. Such intriguing premises, but with every short story I felt like the closing sentences ended with an elipses or a breath. I suppo...more
Another strong collection of short stories by T.C. Boyle. Not quite as macabre as "After the Plague," but just as good.
A pretty good collection of short stories. Boyle's good a bending the rules, but subtley enough you don't notice.
An uneven collection of short stories. Author seems fixated on stories involving alcohol and animals.
The story about the guy winning the feral cat in the bar bet was the best, and the story about the lady in the 1700s getting grumpy on a horse was the absolute dumbest. In between that there were some pretty good ones. He's no Raymond Carver, but he still likes to talk about people drinking and thinking about their ex-wives/ex-girlfriends. Shout-out to men: Don't become such a bad drunk that your wife has no choice but to leave you, and then complain about it. It's not becoming. But if you ...more
one of my favorite authors....
these stories will
blow you away!!!
these stories will
blow you away!!!
I almost always enjoy TC Boyle's short stories. this was no exception.
Not my favorite. The Tortilla Curtain was much better
The stories are nicely varied, even if there are only a couple standouts.
T.C Boyle is a solid writer who rarely disappoints. Sometimes I have to slow my reading down to better masticate some of his prose chunks. His meter and turn of phrase ranks with some of the better American poets, such as the natural musings of Gary Snyder, the acerbic wit of Margaret Atwood or the self-revealing ruminations of Richard Hass. That said, it is really his characters that are his forte. They are not noble examples, but fleshy beings with health complaints, wandering lusts, subje...more
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T. Coraghessan Boyle (also known as T.C. Boyle, born Thomas John Boyle on December 2, 1948) is a U.S. novelist and short story writer. Since the late 1970s, he has published eleven novels and more than 60 short stories. He won the PEN/Faulkner award in 1988 for his third novel, World's End, which recounts 300 years in upstate New York. He is married with three children. Boyle has been a Distinguis...more
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