T.C. Boyle's "Tooth and Claw"

http://www.tcboyle.com/ - T.C. Boyle's official website

http://youtu.be/aVQgAteSPFs - Interview 

http://www.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/b/t_coraghessan_boyle/ - Information Site on the NY Times

http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2012/oct/14/tc-boyle-san-miguel-interview - Book Reviews and Interviews on The Guardian

http://www.literarybookpost.com/ - A local place to buy his books

http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=ntt_athr_dp_sr_1/183-2080815-6803452?_encoding=UTF8&field-author=T.C.%20Boyle&search-alias=books&sort=relevancerank - Amazon Webpage

Tooth and Claw by T.C. Boyle recognizes the most harsh environments on earth, from homelessness on the Pacific Coast to ornithological research on the cliffs of an ancient island. This collection of short stories is ripe with characters who are consumed by drugs and sex, and are fighting battles against nature, humanity, and themselves. Boyle masterfully integrates his voice with the voices of his struggling characters to create tales of ragged hopes in a world without happy endings.

The Swift Passage of Animals

The first time I read this story my whole body started to shiver, despite the fact that I was indoors wrapped in a big blanket. Boyle’s use of visual, tactile, and aural imagery in this short story could freeze the Arizona dessert in July. The two main characters find themselves stuck in a snowstorm on the side of a mountain miles away from shelter and the reader is stuck right along with them. Not only could I hear the snow hissing off the slowly dying car engine, but I could also hear the utter silence of untouched nature in winter. Boyle is adept at knowing when to use vivid aural and visual images, as well as when to let silence speak for itself. When the couple sets out on their impossible journey, he writes, “The silence pinned them in, as if they were in an infinite bed under a blanket as big as the sky.” He also utilizes section breaks to indicate gaps of time which feel natural and appropriate, not planned and structured. The same goes for the beginning of the story. It drops the reader into an unexpected and unexplained conversation about eels, then contextualizes their conversation with plot exposition, then introduces the backstory of the couple. This structure feels natural and immediately draws the reader in with a hook, but it quickly fills them in with the details they have to know to become invested in his characters. These characters are also very believable. Here, Boyle creates relatable characters who are original yet perfectly human. Through his use of close third person narration, the voice of the dry witted and unfortunate character Zach predominates clearly throughout the story without interference from the author. Here Boyle truly let his characters take over and tell their story.

Chicxulub

 Boyle continues to demonstrate his strength as a writer with a discerning taste for words and imagery in Chicxulub. There are clear sections which, at first, tell two seemingly unconnected stories. One section involves scientific, distant, clinical language choices, while the other uses more emotional dialogue and action. When the narrator writes of a giant meteor hurtling towards Earth, he writes not about the devastation of the families who will loose their children and culture, but about the “fireball several miles wide that will in that moment achieve temperatures of 60,000 degrees Kelvin.” His tone changes in the sections where the two parents are in the hospital. His buildup to the high event in the story is filled with emotional buildup that makes the readers heart stop. But Boyle’s genuine characters have earned this moment through their open thoughts and honest emotions. He does not tug at heartstrings for the sake of teary eyes. Pulling back the sheet over your dead child would indeed stop your heart and he gives this moment appropriate gravity. In the end, he ties the two stories neatly together through the use of theme, but in true Boyle style leaves a hanging solemnity over the story’s final words: “The rock is coming, the new Chicxulub, hurtling through the dark and the cold to remake our fate. But not tonight. Not for me. For the Cherwins, it’s already here.” Through the use of simple understatement without flowery imagery, Boyle strikes a final resonating chord.

Rastrow’s Island

The same unity cannot be said for Boyle’s Rastrow’s Island. In this work the hand of the author was clear and the voices of the characters were faint cries on the wind. I was most offended by Boyle’s manipulation of the Asian woman. He places her in the story about deteriorating real estate on the sea and screams “She sticks out!.” Because I didn’t get that from her glaringly bright silk kimono. Boyle then proceeds to place her in the hotel room of the forgettable main character, now dressed in normal clothing (how clever), to act as an object of desire and adultery. Once I moved past the blatant plot manipulation, I was still disturbed by the disjointed voice of the main character who doesn’t seems to carry through any of his trains of thought or express any opinions whatsoever. I care about him almost as much as Boyle seems to. But forgetting all that, the only redeeming portion of the plot was consolidated to a single paragraph of background information about a secondary character. The story of two youth who disappeared, only to be found months later wrapped in fishing nets downriver is captivating when given a chance, but gets lost in the muddled confusion of indefinite pronouns referring to characters whose names we honestly will never remember. I was pleasantly surprised when Boyle’s beautiful imagery would occasionally break through and refresh the story with color and musicality. This one line made the whole story worth the read: “he used to thrill himself leaning out over the stern of the dingy till the shadow of his head and shoulders made the sea transparent and the dense architecture of the bottom rushed up at him in a revulsion of disordered secrets.”