Without a Hero: Stories

t. coraghessan boyle

T.C. Boyle was first feted as a master of the short story for his critically acclaimed Greasy Lake . With these stories applauded by People magazine as "wickedly comical," he displays once again a virtuosity and versatility rare in literary America today. Without a Hero zooms in on American phenomena such as a center for the treatment of acquisitive disorders; a couple in search of the last toads on earth; and a real estate wonder boy on a dude safari near convenient Bakerfield, California. Sharp, guileful, and malevolently funny, Boyle's stories are "more than funny, better than wicked," says The Philadelphia Inquirer . "They make you cringe with their clarity."

Genres short storiesfictionliterary fictionamericanliteraturecollectionsgerman literature20th centuryshort story collection

238 pages, Paperback

First published January 1,1994

This edition

Format: 238 pages, Paperback
Published: May 1, 1995 by Penguin Books
ISBN: 9780140178395
ASIN: 0140178392
Language: English

About the author

t. coraghessan boyle

T. Coraghessan Boyle (also known as T.C. Boyle, is a U.S. novelist and short story writer. Since the late 1970s, he has published eighteen novels and twleve collections of 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
Professor of English at the University of Southern California since 1978, when he founded the school's undergraduate creative writing program.

He grew up in the small town on the Hudson Valley that he regularly fictionalizes as Peterskill (as in widely anthologized short story Greasy Lake). Boyle changed his middle name when he was 17 and exclusively used Coraghessan for much of his career, but now also goes by T.C. Boyle.