A Friend of the Earth

This book takes place in the future after climate change has created extreme rainstorms followed by extreme heat. Tyrone works for a wealthy musician Mac caring for nearly extinct animals. When his ex-wife Andrea contacts him after more than 20 years, he finds himself remembering their time as environmental activists. It's interesting to consider what our planet will be like in the future. How we can prepare for this potential catastrophic event?

I almost always enjoy satire, unless it goes on too long. I find it hard to care much about the characters or the plot if similar scenarios play out too many times. This book had both those limitations, but was still a decent read because of the writing.

All I could manage of this one was 100 pages. I wanted to like it--its premise of near-future ecological collapse feels relevant and laudable--but the prose is so lazily executed that it begins to feel like an insult. The book is full of cheap narrative gambits and inexact metaphors and faux-ominous filler of this sort: "He doesn't like this. He doesn't like it at all." Or, much worse: "Because I'm bored. Because I've got nothing to lose. Because I know I can put the brakes on if I have to. Roll with it. Ride your pony. Oh, yes, indeed." Rereading that, I'm stunned that I put up with 100 pages.

Perhaps worse than the prose is the light-hipsterish tone that dominates the novel and implies that none of its content is ultimately very serious. Even the most catastrophic details and events of Boyle's dystopia lack reality and weight. Boyle has an inability not to be wry except in the most shocking moments, and those moments don't work because nothing that precedes them has taught the reader that seriousness will be possible in this book. Like Vonnegut, Boyle is slightly making fun of everything in his narrative, a smart-ass, self-insulating tactic that also prevents the novel from being anything you might call literary.

This book provided a ferocious read from beginning to end. Like many reviewers, I took a few breaks. The book is described as "satire" but it is not clever or gleeful. It is terrifying and sustains the alternate reality continuously, so transcends satire in my experience. The book takes fortitude in the reader. The writing offers a first person voice or POV and "exhausting" is the word. Other reviewers complain about scattered writing but truly, this is the characters. At least, I bought it. The voice is consistent throughout this long book -- wow. The story is summarized elsewhere so I won't bother. I was unable to continue until I figured out that the daughters demise would be left until the end. The imagery was awful. Only the endless rain in the near-future got to me. None of the characters was simple or beautiful or blameless or guilty as charged (well, except the protagonist). Astounding.

A fitting cover to my mind — Friends of the Earth are roadkill in the face of humankind's greed, ignorance, and apathy.

This book is a realistically prescient rollercoaster ride portrayed in relatable satire and idealism. T. C. Boyle at his best.

A recommended read.

This guy, Boyle, is a good writer.There were times in this book when I'd even say he was a great writer.But WHY does he always leave endings unclear? Like important- no-cataclysmically important events like his daughter's death.WHY the hell does he get so damn vague-what is this huge black ball falling from the skies?
It's as if he's trying to be cool and obtuse or some bullshit like that.How does she die?
And why can't he just spit it out?
Apart from that an excellent book-problem is I can't stand the author and his weird attempts to be cool.Or obtuse.Or hip -or whatever the hell he is trying to be.JM

Not shown; another half-star. Published September 1, 2001, the absolute worst timing ever. Just a little more than a week before the collective consciousness of the American way of life came crashing down. Tree-hugging eco-activism suddenly being eclipsed totally by jihadists (15 of the 19 being Saudi) piloting hijacked commercial passenger jets. Using them horrifically as guided missiles. Connections between wealthy Saudi families (including bin Laden's own) and the Bush family ran deep enough to secure their safe passage (140 of them) secreted out of the country on private jets just days after. While all other air traffic was grounded. The Saudi-sponsored (?) terrorists caught bumbling-fratboy Dubya, his administration, and Condoleezza Rice completely by surprise, none on whose watch paid attention to Clinton administration intelligence reports in transition. Nor even more obviously Tom Clancy's "Debt of Honor" (1994) a working blueprint that Osama bin Laden and his cells' masterminds had actually subscribed to down to such things (Allah is in the details) as plastic boxcutters getting through the metal detectors. What constituted an Islamic Holy War on a targeted scale instantly became a protracted global one. The world stage for "monkeywrench activism" of any kind was no longer viable as hyper-vigilance and military/security industrial complex expenditures would run amok. Worse, to drive the point home, there was also clearly no mood nor desire to indulge in environmentalist fiction laden with humor, especially the darkly entertaining doomsday-take T.C. Boyle would fortell specifically for the year 2026. The collapse of the biosphere not being so far off, actually, as it turns out predicting even a COVID-like pandemic that he calls the "mucosa" (in italics) plague. Fast-forward to 2023 the equal demise of the planet cooking itself--the inevitable result of climate-change deniers (read that: the fossil fuel industrialists empire) propped-up by greedy politicians, as always, on the take. To which there is even a newer genre for such books called "Cli-Fi" and "Cli-Sci" respectively. Raising dystopian awareness despite delusional, right-wing, wingnuts clinging to power and writing it off. Much good it has done. Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman similarly enjoys murderous free reign, still, killing journalist-critics at will while putting the screws to a U.S. econonmy on the brink of recession keeping oil supplies tight. Not to mention China's and Russia's brokering mercenary deals with the Saudis playing both sides against each other to exploit post-oil leverage in the Middle East; can we call them frenemies? All that being said, the book is right for the times especially now in keeping with daily doomscrolling of catastrophic fires, smoke-choked cities, out-of-control development, floods, droughts, extreme weather events, etc. Boyle's trademark style makes for a steady stream of laughable standup--critical observation that skewers his targets unmercifully, mixed in equal measure with self-deprecation. It works. Well enough. To a point. But even with his gift for wit and prose, his narrative seems compulsively wanting; always striving for the easier gag-effect and nuanced metaphor while characters remain shallow and the storyline ill-conceived flashing back and forth between 1989/1990 and 2025/2026. Having been introduced to his real metier writing short stories in "Tooth and Claw" (2005)--his seventh collection of them--have to guess there's a better novel in him, another one. None but "Drop City" about a hippie commune in Alaska has made the list of National Book Award finalists. Have some others awaiting perusal. Short story collections, of course. And, wouldn't you know, two titles; "The Human Fly" (2005) many of which appeared previously--hate it when that happens--under hard cover in "After the Plague" (2001). One of whose stories "Friendly Skies" deals with air rage; a wacked-out passenger threatening to kill the rest by breaking out a plexiglass window. Subdued by a fork-wielding grade school teacher stabbing him in the face and throat. Assisted then by other passengers and crew. A prophetic irony impossible to ignore because this book, too, was published September 10th. Short stories and a novel, by the same author, published in the same week. That week. And the others--before and since--when no amount of literary talent on display could possibly compete with the headlines. Moving on, at least they're all autographed copies. Somebody--a fan like myself--their collection hocked, by a spiteful ex (?) or, whomever. Thanks. Will gladly snap-up what I can get.

I found it hard to be sympathetic to the protagonist (not that I'm sure the author was sympathetic either!) The protagonist engages in pointless & self-destructive actions in favor of environmentalism – actions that seem to do more harm than good. But Boyle is a great writer, & this book was perhaps the most pyrotechnical of those that I've read, with some parts being really interesting.