false http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1165644284m/7809.jpg 7809 14 If, as we are frequently cautioned, ecological collapse is imminent, the future might someday resemble T.C. Boyle's vision of Southern California, circa 2025: strafing wind, extortionate heat, vast species extinction, and a ramshackle, dispirited populace. A more bleak backdrop--part <I>Blade Runner</I>, part <I>Silent Spring</I>--for his eighth novel is difficult to imagine. But the ever-mischievous, ever-inventive Boyle is all too willing to disoblige; and so, in extended homage to early Vonnegut, his Sierra Club nightmare is rendered, well, <I>comically</I>. Toss in streaks of unabashed sentimentality, a scattershot satire, and several signature narrative ambushes, and <I>A Friend of the Earth</I> only further embellishes the already prodigious Boyle reputation.<p> During the 1980s and '90s, Ty Tierwater had exchanged a sedately acquisitive existence--"the slow-rolling glacier of my old life, my criminal life, the life I led before I became a friend of the earth"--for a fairly ambivalent position on the front lines of an ecoterrorist posse called Earth Forever! The only complication is his dual penchant for empathy and ineptitude, exacerbated by a frustration that swells with accumulating incitements. After his daughter is taken from him, and his second wife, Andrea, becomes more committed to the cause than to their marriage, Ty finds solace in blind destruction. He serves his almost predictable terms in jail; he endures the eventual death--and martyrdom--of his activist daughter, Sierra. At 75, and a quarter of the way into the dismal and decayed 21st century, he unaccountably finds himself tending an eccentric rock star's private mini-zoo of ragged animals and wryly lamenting the collapse of his race. And then Andrea resurfaces--along with his long-fallow faith in love.<p> Old Testament digression stalks Ty throughout <I>A Friend of the Earth</I>, from a publicity-stunt-cum-Edenic-retreat during his heady Earth Forever! days to a chaotic menagerie roundup amidst flooding rainfall. Boyle's future, however, is less apocalyptic than resigned, more drearily pragmatic than angst-ridden. It's a world Ty ultimately finds untenable: a constricted diversity, ecological or ideological, proves stultifying, a fact he only dimly recognized while awash in his earlier radicalism. "To be a friend of the earth," he avers in retrospect, "you have to be an enemy of the people." Boyle's spirited tale sustains the brashness of Ty's convictions. <I>--Ben Guterson</I> 3159280 1990 A Friend of the Earth total:623|5:114|4:228|3:217|2:52|1:12| 623 2249 864 73 0 1 false false Wed Feb 25 00:00:00 -0800 2009 Sat Feb 21 15:39:20 -0800 2009 Wed Feb 25 22:34:01 -0800 2009 more...]]> 3 0 false false Tue Jan 20 00:00:00 -0800 2009 Tue Jan 20 17:39:41 -0800 2009 Tue Jan 20 18:11:32 -0800 2009 more...]]> 4 0 false false Sun Dec 07 11:23:42 -0800 2008 Sun Dec 07 11:24:12 -0800 2008 more...]]> 3 0 false false Tue Jun 23 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Mon Aug 03 00:22:45 -0700 2009 Mon Aug 03 00:33:52 -0700 2009 more...]]> 3 0 false false Sat Aug 01 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Sat Jul 25 17:54:51 -0700 2009 Mon Aug 03 07:32:00 -0700 2009 more...]]> 1 0 false false Mon Aug 03 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Sun Jan 25 16:48:00 -0800 2009 Mon Aug 03 12:35:35 -0700 2009 more...]]> 5 0 false false Fri Nov 14 00:00:00 -0800 2008 Fri Nov 07 20:41:26 -0800 2008 Fri Nov 14 20:47:53 -0800 2008 more...]]> 4 0 false false Thu Jul 12 09:58:11 -0700 2007 Sat Mar 29 10:41:30 -0700 2008 more...]]> 4 0 false false Thu Mar 01 00:00:00 -0800 2007 Tue May 06 20:22:06 -0700 2008 Tue May 06 20:54:17 -0700 2008 more...]]> 4 0 false false Sat Apr 01 00:00:00 -0800 2006 Mon Oct 29 21:56:50 -0700 2007 Mon Oct 29 22:01:32 -0700 2007 more...]]> 5 0 false false Thu May 15 18:32:50 -0700 2008 Thu May 15 18:32:50 -0700 2008 more...]]> 3 0 false false Tue Aug 18 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Thu Aug 13 16:23:14 -0700 2009 Tue Aug 18 11:44:27 -0700 2009 4 0 false false Tue Jul 05 00:00:00 -0700 2005 Sun Nov 23 12:23:45 -0800 2008 Sun Nov 23 12:24:15 -0800 2008 3 0 false false Sun Aug 16 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Mon Aug 10 09:25:48 -0700 2009 Thu Aug 27 04:53:25 -0700 2009 more...]]> 5 0 false false Wed Apr 22 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Wed Apr 22 16:33:46 -0700 2009 Wed Apr 22 16:36:11 -0700 2009 0 0 false false Mon Apr 06 14:19:57 -0700 2009 Mon Apr 06 14:22:28 -0700 2009 4 0 false false Mon Jan 01 00:00:00 -0800 2007 Fri May 02 10:02:52 -0700 2008 Fri May 02 10:08:21 -0700 2008
Boyle writes his tale in a flip-flop fashion; when Tierw...more...]]> 4 0 false false Mon Jun 01 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Sun Jun 21 14:46:42 -0700 2009 Sun Jun 21 14:48:28 -0700 2009 4 0 false false Sun Jul 01 00:00:00 -0700 2007 Sun Sep 02 16:14:21 -0700 2007 Sun Sep 02 16:17:28 -0700 2007 more...]]> 3 0 false false Wed May 27 09:53:54 -0700 2009 Wed May 27 09:54:43 -0700 2009 http://www.goodreads.com/book_link/follow/8?book_id=7809