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A Friend of the Earth
A Friend of the Earth
paperback
Published:
1 September, 2001
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Description
"Fiction about ecological disaster tends to be written in a tragic key. Boyle, by contrast, favors the darkly comic." -Elizabeth Kolbert, author of The Sixth Extinction
Originally published in 2000, T. C. Boyle's prescient novel about global warming and ecological collapse
It is the year 2025. Global warming is a reality. The biosphere has collapsed and most mammals-not to mention fish, birds, and frogs-are extinct. Tyrone Tierwater is eking out a bleak living in southern California, managing a pop star's private menagerie that "only a mother could love"-scruffy hyenas, jackals, warthogs, and three down-at-the-mouth lions.
It wasn't always like this for Ty. Once he was a passionate environmentalist, so committed to saving the earth that he became an eco-terrorist and, ultimately, a convicted felon. as a member of the radical group Earth Forever!, he unwittingly endangered both his daughter Sierra and his wife Andrea. Now, just when he's trying to survive in a world torn by obdurate storms and winnowing drought, Andrea comes back into his life.
T. C. Boyle's eighth novel blends idealism and satire in a story that addresses the ultimate questions of human love and the survival of the species.
More Details
| Type | Book |
|---|---|
| ISBN13 | 9780141002057 |
| ISBN10 | 0141002050 |
| Number Of Pages | 368 |
| Item Weight | 306 g |
| Product Dimensions | 130 x 196 x 20 mm |
| Publisher / Reseller | Penguin Putnam Inc |
| Format | paperback |
Media Reviews
Praise for A Friend of The Earth:
"Funny and touching, antic and affecting . . . while Boyle's humor is as black as ever, he demonstrates that satire can coexist with psychological realism, comedy with compassion." -Michiko Kakutani, The New York Times
"As disaster tales go, this is a sly, hip one...Boyle has always liked to play circus barker for life's extremes and what better freak show than the environmental apocalypse itself?" -The Washington Post
"Fiction about ecological disaster tends to be written in a tragic key. Boyle, by contrast, favors the darkly comic." -Elizabeth Kolbert, author of The Sixth Extinction
"Both entertaining and informative...hits like a warning shot from twenty-five years into the future." -Chicago Tribune
"A Friend of the Earth is about people and nature coming to terms with each other. In many ways it is a far more convincing argument for sustainable living in nature than any nonfiction environmental tract." -San Francisco Chronicle
"Boyle gives us a vivid, grim, hilarious portrait of our world . . . he has a marvelous gift for translating large-scale environmental scenarios into immediate, palpable terms . . . What gives A Friend of the Earth's comically dismal future its bite is how profoundly it is embedded in the present . . . Boyle's energetic prose achieves a fine balance between wacky comedy and serious reflection." -The San Diego Union-Tribune
"Ripped from tomorrow's headlines, the ecobiography of Tyrone Tierwater-failed monkeywrencher, ex-husband, ex-con, ex-zookeeper of the last Patagonian fox, and still-grieving father of the tree-dwelling Sierra, a twenty-first-century martyr to the redwoods." -Outside
"The story careens along with the breathless authority of a roller coaster . . . In A Friend of the Earth, Boyle sets himself a new challenge, swinging a leg wide to plant a foot solidly on new ground. Part antic comedy, part ecological intelligencer, part heartfelt plaint, it 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." -Los Angeles Times
"Boyle is still one of the most inventive and exhilerating novelists around, showing how you can drive a narrative and still have fun with language." -The Philadelphia Inquirer
"Boyle's wonderful writing is simultaneously wild, talky, and charming. If A Friend of the Earth is a provoker of conscience, it is also-and foremost-rich entertainment." -The Cleveland Plain Dealer