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A Friend of the Earth

by T. C. Boyle

Summary

In the year 2025, when global warming and the collapse of the biosphere have resulted in the extinction of most species, Tyrone O'Shaughnessy Tierwater is the caretaker for the strange menagerie of animals kept by a rock megastar in southern California. Years ago, Tyrone was a convicted ecoterrorist, estranged from his wife and daughter. Now his daughter, Sierra, re-enters his life. In a series of flashbacks to the 1980s and '90s, Ty's romance with Sierra's mother, their revolutionary activities, and his years on the lam are recounted.

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Media Reviews

"Most of the themes that Boyle entertains here-the consequences of American excess and media hype, the vagaries of class, the macho male's secret fear of women-have appeared in his fiction before. But here he sets himself the challenge of using his impressive arsenal of literary tricks and tropes in the service of a more earnest exploration. The ecological D-Day he posits is compelling and complex....Progress, Boyle tells us, is never a clear climb. This assured novel gives us haunting images to prove the point...."    -- Lisa Zeidner

   -- Washington Post Book World

"The prose startles with vivid simile, with literary circumlocution....The story careens along with the breathless authority of a roller coaster: Step in and you'll be jounced, dizzied, thrilled and surprised by this thing you've given yourself up to....Boyle has long been celebrated for his comic genius, for his mastery of that side of the classic antinomy he explores here. In A FRIEND OF THE EARTH he sets himself a new challenge, swinging a leg wide to plant a foot solidly on new ground. His work is the richer and more affecting for it. Part antic comedy, part ecological intelligencer, part heartfelt plaint, A FRIEND OF THE EARTH is a comic novel on grievous themes, a serious exploration of tragic truths. It not only marks Boyle's progress as a literary talent but demonstrates his consistent ability to entertain."    -- Eric Zencey

   -- Los Angeles Times Book Review

"...A FRIEND OF THE EARTH...manages to be funny and touching, antic and affecting, all at the same time....Though Mr. Boyle sends up Ty's countercultural excesses with his usual sardonic glee, he also manages to make the psychological underpinnings of his fervor palpable and real. More important, he also manages to make the consequences of Ty's radicalism...the real focus of this novel, turning the book's four-decade-long narrative into a long, sad-funny-unnerving account of Ty's efforts to come to terms with the fallout of his actions....[W]hile Mr. Boy's humor is black as ever, he demonstrates, in telling Ty's story, that satire can coexist with psychological realism, comedy with compassion."    -- Michiko Kakutani

   -- New York Times

"A FRIEND OF THE EARTH is a profoundly, and perhaps intentionally, depressing book. It presents us with a vision of the earth in the near future, a devastated planet....The author's tone is not one of compassion, nor even of world-weary pity-there is too much exuberance for that....As an image of the difficulty of relating to others and of continuing to be human, even in such desperate circumstances as here predicted for us, A FRIEND OF THE EARTH is a success."    -- Michael Newton

   -- Times Literary Supplement

"Boyle can put his nimble mind to honest work....Nevertheless, with its slack plotting, motiveless characters and unfruitful time shifting, A FRIEND OF THE EARTH is a ragged, uninspired effort from this gifted writer. Although tricked out in fancy prose, both global catastrophe and one family's painful struggle remain unaffecting."    -- Albert Mobilio

   -- New York Times Book Review

Bibliographic Details

Publisher: Penguin Group USA
Published date: 2001
Size: 5.25 x 7.75 inches
Weight: 0.55 pounds
Pages: 349

Publisher's Notes

Set in a grim near-future 2025 A.D. southern California, this novel follows the adventures of an ecoterrorist whose efforts to save the planet unwittingly place his own family at risk. By the author of The Tortilla Curtain. Reprint.

Other Editions

• Hardcover - Penguin USA (2000) - from $1.23
• Paperback - Penguin USA (2001) - from $1.00

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